The map I showed was a 70% water map. On that map with 11 civs the average empire size was easily above 10 cities. With 24 civs, you'd go with a map with less water, and again, empire sizes over 10 would not be unusual.
CIV IV vs CIV III
- Thread starter Crimson1
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The map I showed was a 70% water map. On that map with 11 civs the average empire size was easily above 10 cities. With 24 civs, you'd go with a map with less water, and again, empire sizes over 10 would not be unusual.
r_rolo1
King of myself
I think that T.A. probably bought the game before patch 1.61, where there was definitely huge slowdown issues and CTDs left and right ( I suffered from that and it was definitely bad: I remember suffering 1 h IBT in my old 2003 desktop, that runs huge maps on BtS perfectly fine ), became horrified and never looked back. That would definitely explain his very emotional ( can't find a better term ) adversion to civ IV.
Actually I base my comments from the tech forum. If you looked at that place I was in there trying to help where I could. PLce is a zoo crawling with pissed of players thanks to weak performance, never mind the mods facter in
BUt lets not get to of base again. Lets keep this simple.
All AUzzies complaints are not realty for any civ3 player if they choose to play like him(aka mod player).
Bonus for civ3! They are easily fixed, more so then civ4.
Lets recap more of what I responded to
Again I repeat, Civ3 is easier for moding-in /modding-out essentials for huge map gameplay. startin with choosin a larger then defualt size and then to able in in all the game enhancers (cor and pol, reducers + army expliot relience killers etc..)
SO besides larger maps then 'deafult huge' faster and with less deley, You get modded versions stacked heavy with extra variables, again, without burdensome deley. Game/set match.
Mr goalie (auzzie) No matter how fast you say you went on these Civ4 huge maps (lets admit it. Tiny in city-count empire where players want 'huge' epics holdin 20 or more civs) its not as fast as Civ3 Modded (to Where Each City Counts, huge maps version)
r_rolo1
King of myself
T.A. , taking the pulse of a game by the tech forum is like trying to evaluate the state of health of a country only looking to the inside of the hospitals: it is as expectable to see a majority of ill people in a hospital as seeing people complaining about the game in there. And a quick skim there shows that most of the problems are related with outdated directx or drivers, very old hardware or even plain OS issues ( like I said , I have a 2003 desktop that runs bigger than Huge BtS maps just fine, so don't accuse me of talking in top of a super-boosted machine ) .....
Why don't you get civ IV running, get BtS patched and come back after?
Why don't you get civ IV running, get BtS patched and come back after?
r_rolo1
King of myself
Has 2 Gb, but it is running Vista, so it has only 1 GB for anything else 
i only got it from 756 Mb up to get vista, indeed ( stupid me )
i only got it from 756 Mb up to get vista, indeed ( stupid me )
Murky
Deity
There was a significant performance improvement with large+ BTS 3.17 maps vs. Vanilla.
Well, what can I say?
I love Civ 2 and really enjoy Civ 3, but Civ 4 is complete rubbish.
They've taken a huge step backward. The game play doesn't feel as good, the map looks really cheap, graphic the animated fighting is good but a bit overkill.
By the way I think the worker building a set of roads is the best feature, rather than building road square by square.
There's some good features about it, but I'm hugely disappointed. It seems they are trying to milk more money out of the name "Civilization" rather than improving it. I'm going to give it one more go and if it continues to do stupid things, it's going in the bin and Civ 3 is coming on of retirement.
I love Civ 2 and really enjoy Civ 3, but Civ 4 is complete rubbish.
They've taken a huge step backward. The game play doesn't feel as good, the map looks really cheap, graphic the animated fighting is good but a bit overkill.
By the way I think the worker building a set of roads is the best feature, rather than building road square by square.
There's some good features about it, but I'm hugely disappointed. It seems they are trying to milk more money out of the name "Civilization" rather than improving it. I'm going to give it one more go and if it continues to do stupid things, it's going in the bin and Civ 3 is coming on of retirement.
Psyringe
Scout
Humm. I see the old "you can't play extremely huge maps with Civ 4" fallacy flung around here once again. That's as unfortunate as it is disappointing (because it's being done here by somebody to whom I've shown and proven the opposite long ago), but judging from my past discussions with that person, I can't say it's unexpected.
Anyway. In case someone's interested in the actual facts, here's (again) what I already said long ago:
I'm playing Civ4 on modded super-huge maps with (currently) 200x132 tiles, that's 26,400 tiles in total. A typical game on such a map can easily end up with 400+ cities. I play these maps with 32 civs, so they should be pretty taxing on the hardware. Nevertheless I can play them with no problem on my medium-class machine (single-core Athlon64 3500+, GeForce 7600 GT with 256 MB video RAM, 3 GB system RAM).
The biggest Civ3 map size that the engine can handle is 362x362, however, due to Civ3's peculiar coordinate system, half of these tiles don't actually exist in-game, so you end up with 362x181 tiles in-game. That's 65,522 tiles in total. There are few Civ3 maps which fully utilize this size though, because players tend to run into the frustrating 512 city limit on them. One city can work 21 tiles, so 512 cities can work 10,752 tiles at most (or substantially less if they overlap each other a lot). This means that you can never have more than 10,752 worked tiles in Civ3. Therefore, making maps of the biggest possible size in Civ3 is mostly pointless, because they have to make about 85% of the tiles inaccessible for cities in order to prevent players from hitting the city limit.
This means:
- If you want to play on extremely huge maps, then Civ4 is the better option, because it doesn't put hardcoded limits on map size or number of cities. Civ4 can handle bigger maps than Civ3 (maps with more than 1000 tiles in one dimension have been generated successfully for Civ4), and it can handle more cities (a testbed with 1100 cities posed no problem for the Civ4 engine).
- The only advantage of Civ3 is that it can run super-huge maps on weaker machines, but even that only counts as an advantage for people who are content with having the vast majority of the map area unworkable.
The situation was different when Civ4 was released. At that time, the game engine was very inefficient, and more people had weaker machines. Over the years both factors have improved though, and will continue to do so. The Civ4 engine has proven to be much more scalable than Civ3 ever was. Games with hundreds of players or a thousand cities are already in reach, and will become feasible fpr more and more people as the processing power of their machines increases.
Anyway. In case someone's interested in the actual facts, here's (again) what I already said long ago:
I'm playing Civ4 on modded super-huge maps with (currently) 200x132 tiles, that's 26,400 tiles in total. A typical game on such a map can easily end up with 400+ cities. I play these maps with 32 civs, so they should be pretty taxing on the hardware. Nevertheless I can play them with no problem on my medium-class machine (single-core Athlon64 3500+, GeForce 7600 GT with 256 MB video RAM, 3 GB system RAM).
The biggest Civ3 map size that the engine can handle is 362x362, however, due to Civ3's peculiar coordinate system, half of these tiles don't actually exist in-game, so you end up with 362x181 tiles in-game. That's 65,522 tiles in total. There are few Civ3 maps which fully utilize this size though, because players tend to run into the frustrating 512 city limit on them. One city can work 21 tiles, so 512 cities can work 10,752 tiles at most (or substantially less if they overlap each other a lot). This means that you can never have more than 10,752 worked tiles in Civ3. Therefore, making maps of the biggest possible size in Civ3 is mostly pointless, because they have to make about 85% of the tiles inaccessible for cities in order to prevent players from hitting the city limit.
This means:
- If you want to play on extremely huge maps, then Civ4 is the better option, because it doesn't put hardcoded limits on map size or number of cities. Civ4 can handle bigger maps than Civ3 (maps with more than 1000 tiles in one dimension have been generated successfully for Civ4), and it can handle more cities (a testbed with 1100 cities posed no problem for the Civ4 engine).
- The only advantage of Civ3 is that it can run super-huge maps on weaker machines, but even that only counts as an advantage for people who are content with having the vast majority of the map area unworkable.
The situation was different when Civ4 was released. At that time, the game engine was very inefficient, and more people had weaker machines. Over the years both factors have improved though, and will continue to do so. The Civ4 engine has proven to be much more scalable than Civ3 ever was. Games with hundreds of players or a thousand cities are already in reach, and will become feasible fpr more and more people as the processing power of their machines increases.
Aussie_Lurker
Deity
T.A. Jones, oh how easy it is to destroy your argument.
1. As I've said above, 90% of civ players never use any kind of mods, so the only fair comparison between the two games is in its vanilla form.
2. That said, I believe a mod should be about making a good game even better-not about making a bad game barely playable. Yet this is the crux of your defense of Civ3.
2a. I'm curious to know, have you really *fixed* pollution and corruption, or simply removed them altogether? If the latter, then that's a HACK, not a FIX. A Fix is the Health and maintenance system of Civ4-it addresses the issues without wrecking gameplay.
3. With or without mods; gargantuan maps or very, very small; late game or early game; scores of cities or only a few-I notice *very* little lag between turns-30 seconds at most. Its not as if I even have a very high powered system.
4. R. Rolo is right. To use the tech forum as an attack on the quality of the game is is like using the number of sick people in hospital to attack the health system. Indeed, to take this analogy further-as many people get sick from doing the wrong things, I find most of the people in the tech forums are there because they did the wrong thing-usually forgetting to read the minimum requirements for the game.
4a. Speaking of minimum requirements. When Civ3 came out, I had to wait to get a new computer before I was able to play it. This was not the case with Civ4. That said, if software didn't keep testing the upper limits of system performance, then we'd all still be using the same computers we used back in 1990.
5. You keep bringing up the number of cities you can build in Civ3 vs Civ4. What you forget, though, is that you don't NEED to build heaps of cities in order to succeed in Civ4. Infinite City Sleaze is a counter-productive strategy in Civ4, as it is now more about the QUALITY of the cities rather than the QUANTITY of the cities. One of the great failings of Civ3 was that, if you got hemmed in early, then you may as well quit and start again, 'cause you're never going to win. In many Civ4 games, I've actually beaten civs with 2-3 times more cities than me, simply through good STRATEGY.
6. Which brings me to what I feel is the most common complaint about civ4 from die-hard Civ3 fans "my Civ3 strategies don't work for me in Civ4" well Duh! If they did, then what would be the point of playing Civ4? I LOVE the fact that the old strategies of build, build, build aren't automatically successful. Now I have multiple options for victory. I can either build large numbers of farms and build a specialist economy in most of my cities, thus ensuring I keep up a good tech rate and produce a decent number of Great People. I can try and found cities close to lots of production-heavy improvements and try and corner the market on Great Wonders in the early game. I can build loads of cottages, and support my extra cities via the income they produce as they grow through hamlets, villages and-finally-towns. I can try and found one or more religions, which gives me a bonus in culture and happiness, as well as a source of income if I can found the Holy City. I can try and "corner the market" in 1 or more resources, and make loads of money trading them to my neighbours. In BtS, I can try and be first to found a corporation, and attempt to achieve victory that way. Again, in BtS, if I'm behind, then I can always use underhanded tactics to wreck the economies of my stronger neighbours, without the risk of immediate war. All of these strategies, even before we consider the simple conquest and diplomacy strategies (which are also tied into the strategies I already mentioned).
1. As I've said above, 90% of civ players never use any kind of mods, so the only fair comparison between the two games is in its vanilla form.
2. That said, I believe a mod should be about making a good game even better-not about making a bad game barely playable. Yet this is the crux of your defense of Civ3.
2a. I'm curious to know, have you really *fixed* pollution and corruption, or simply removed them altogether? If the latter, then that's a HACK, not a FIX. A Fix is the Health and maintenance system of Civ4-it addresses the issues without wrecking gameplay.
3. With or without mods; gargantuan maps or very, very small; late game or early game; scores of cities or only a few-I notice *very* little lag between turns-30 seconds at most. Its not as if I even have a very high powered system.
4. R. Rolo is right. To use the tech forum as an attack on the quality of the game is is like using the number of sick people in hospital to attack the health system. Indeed, to take this analogy further-as many people get sick from doing the wrong things, I find most of the people in the tech forums are there because they did the wrong thing-usually forgetting to read the minimum requirements for the game.
4a. Speaking of minimum requirements. When Civ3 came out, I had to wait to get a new computer before I was able to play it. This was not the case with Civ4. That said, if software didn't keep testing the upper limits of system performance, then we'd all still be using the same computers we used back in 1990.
5. You keep bringing up the number of cities you can build in Civ3 vs Civ4. What you forget, though, is that you don't NEED to build heaps of cities in order to succeed in Civ4. Infinite City Sleaze is a counter-productive strategy in Civ4, as it is now more about the QUALITY of the cities rather than the QUANTITY of the cities. One of the great failings of Civ3 was that, if you got hemmed in early, then you may as well quit and start again, 'cause you're never going to win. In many Civ4 games, I've actually beaten civs with 2-3 times more cities than me, simply through good STRATEGY.
6. Which brings me to what I feel is the most common complaint about civ4 from die-hard Civ3 fans "my Civ3 strategies don't work for me in Civ4" well Duh! If they did, then what would be the point of playing Civ4? I LOVE the fact that the old strategies of build, build, build aren't automatically successful. Now I have multiple options for victory. I can either build large numbers of farms and build a specialist economy in most of my cities, thus ensuring I keep up a good tech rate and produce a decent number of Great People. I can try and found cities close to lots of production-heavy improvements and try and corner the market on Great Wonders in the early game. I can build loads of cottages, and support my extra cities via the income they produce as they grow through hamlets, villages and-finally-towns. I can try and found one or more religions, which gives me a bonus in culture and happiness, as well as a source of income if I can found the Holy City. I can try and "corner the market" in 1 or more resources, and make loads of money trading them to my neighbours. In BtS, I can try and be first to found a corporation, and attempt to achieve victory that way. Again, in BtS, if I'm behind, then I can always use underhanded tactics to wreck the economies of my stronger neighbours, without the risk of immediate war. All of these strategies, even before we consider the simple conquest and diplomacy strategies (which are also tied into the strategies I already mentioned).
Lone Wolf
Deity
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2006
- Messages
- 9,908
I have 512 Mb (althrough in all other categories my comp is pretty sound). I guess that's why I do experience some lag late game.
He did remove pollution, I think - there's no way to introduce the health concept to civ3 editor. I guess you can kinda simulate Civ4 maitenance system by leaving corruption in, but by creating a plethora of 1 shield cost buildings which lower corruption, but cost maitenance. Sounds a bit unelegant, through.
RedBananna
Chieftain
- Joined
- Apr 14, 2009
- Messages
- 29
I have no right to say which is better because I actually skipped Civ III (Shame on me!) but Civ II matches Civ IV in greatness, therefore I presume that Civ III also matches the quality of Civ IV, what makes each so individually popular is that they all very different games. Each has its own distinctive marks, features, and graphics that appeals to one kind of person, and causes the other to back away and try a different version. Although quite a few people love all Civ games.
In short, each game is special and great in its own way, and although I've probably just stated the obvious, at least I've given my two cents.
In short, each game is special and great in its own way, and although I've probably just stated the obvious, at least I've given my two cents.
phungus420
Deity
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2003
- Messages
- 6,296
You presume incorectly, CivIII is basically just a fancy expansion for CivII, and until a couple patches into the Conquest Expansion pack, it was unplayably buggy as well... CivIII was a huge letdown. Though for those who prefer a simple game, where you just mass produce units, and spam as many cities as you can, with little strategy behind it (and no viable alternative strategies, CivIII only has one high level strat, Rex, Rex, and conquer), then CivIII will be superior. If on the other hand you enjoy balanced and deviant strategic aproaches, Civ 4 blows CivIII out the water. Since CivIII is just a fancy version of Civ2...
Aussie_Lurker
Deity
Which is exactly my point, Lone Wolf. What Jones seems to have done is simply HACKED the system rather than fixed it. Civ4 doesn't do away with the concepts of Corruption and Pollution, it simply implements them in a far more elegant fashion-one which reduces micromanagement headaches. As does the new approach to happiness. Instead of having to micromanage your cities to prevent the 1 net unhappy face=city in revolt, Civ4 has the system of 1 net unhappy face=1 tile not worked. Far less binary and-therefore-better.
Elegent is addin improvements like jails or wonders like interpol, parks or tag on -decreasers' for previous improvements, stuff that is warrented and realistic for placement. Workers at end game need a job and auto clean is to fast to follow on your screen.
Yet Adding higher maintence (penil system is demanding on Gov coffers for ex.) instead of corruption or pollution, creates a balance that equals better choice-strategy administration.
Civ3's version is elegent, With the maint focus is almost sounds a bit 'civ4'ly' hehe. No Wait. Why In civ4 are real hinderences not accounted for.
(Heh had to drop a smille sometime) CIv3 modded, the version we choose to play, like choosin which cerel you have today, has these toned down to realistic levels, making for empire managment thats properly fit for a stratgey game on any size proportion .
Civ4? Its a mini-me candy land, free of pollution and corruption and loaded with 2-city empires! (on 20+ civ maps)
See? my games NOt a hack job. Sorry its balanced and reloaded ; ) Sorry Oz you have drifted farther here. You got no idea what you speak about now. When I say civ4 is deley ridden on maps the still pale in comparisen to civ3, I know what I say.
OK time to bring something substational as you fail to hit off any legit complaints so far. ANy verse I need to cover over in depth civ3 refinments now comes straight from the 'copy paste' 'prior said' Civ3-three Vs. Civbore vaults. I mean look, I might aswell save my time as its all been said beatifully here before. In case your not gettin the hint, Im showin you the door.
Murky
Deity
I'm not certain if that's true. Many people use Blue Marble and BUG (Unaltered Game play) mod.
The mods that don't alter the gameplay get lots of use.
Lots of people play Fall from Heaven and Rhys too.
It really just comes down to personal personal preference.
So long as you have the PC requirements met, CIV would be my recommendation for new players.
If you plan to play Multiplayer, then you should definitely pick CIV.
If you're a happy Civ3 vet and have an old PC, then I'd stick with it.
Why do you choose to repeat such obviously wrong claims? You keep referring to Civ4 as an arcadey or "mini-me" game. Let me borrow a tactic used by troytheface:
Fact - Civ4 supports huge maps which house hundreds of cities with 54 civs.
Aussie_Lurker
Deity
Sorry, T.A. Jones, but Psyringe has already highlighted that you're telling serious FIBS about the delays on large maps in Civ4. You really should stop it before your nose starts to grow. So it's me that needs to show you the door.
Clearly you're too obstinate to read anything I say, so let me reiterate the fact that (a) pollution and "corruption" still exist in Civ4-they are just dealt with in a fashion that leads to less micromanagement headaches. Anyone who has actually PLAYED Civ4 would know that, an ignoramus who doesn't know what he is talking about (that's you, btw, Jones) would not be aware of that fact. In Civ4, if your population gets too high and/or you build too many polluting buildings, you get increasing levels of unhealthiness. When "sickness" gets higher than health, the excess eats into your food, which slows your population growth. No "Whack-a-mole" pollution, you just have to find buildings, food resources and civics which reduce the unhealthiness of your cities.
Corruption is dealt with by simply having increasing numbers of cities eating into your treasury. The more cities you have, and the further from the capital they are, the more they cost. To deal with this you either have to decrease your science rate, build city improvements which reduce maintenance or boost your income via various sources-but it certainly is better than having a load of 1 shield cities sitting all over the place as you have in civ3. As for you claim about 2-city empires. Well myself and others have proven that you're talking out of a certain orifice on that point. I've seen 20-player games with empires between 15-30 cities even on large-not huge maps.
So you see, Jonesey boy, it is you who have drifted-drifted into the realms of pure, out-right fabrication and lies. I guess that's how desperate you are to defend your rather clapped out game. I stand by my assertion that the only real reason why you dislike Civ4 is because your ICS and REX'ing strategies have failed, and you're too thick to change your play style. If I'm right, then it merely shows what a rather sad and pathetic creature you truly are. Now, run away and play your hacked kiddie game and leave the adult game to people like me and Psyringe. Just don't try and lure more unsuspecting people to your side with your lies please.
So, just to repeat. If you like a game with loads of micromanagement tedium, very little strategic decision making, and where a single strategy (REX'ing) will always lead to ultimate victory, then by all means join T.A. Jones and his kiddie mates in Civ3. If, however, you want a challenging game in which you have loads of difficult choices to make and multiple roads to possible victory, then I'd suggest you join the intellectual adult crowd and play Civ4. Heck, if you needed more proof, T.A. Jones can't even SPELL.
Ha. Ha. So owned Jonesey.
Aussie.
It's quite simple PieceOfMind. Jones adheres to the principle that "if you tell a lie often enough, people will think it's the truth." Jones can provide NO PROOF to back up his ludicrous claims, yet he continues to make them. I've played so many games of Civ4 that I've lost count, and I've yet to experience a lag of more than 30 seconds-even when I've got 20+ cities to my name. I say to Jones- "PUT UP OR SHUT UP buddy". Either that or get a half-way decent computer.
Aussie.
Moderator Action: merged posts
Moderator Action: Stop the Flaming
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
Clearly you're too obstinate to read anything I say, so let me reiterate the fact that (a) pollution and "corruption" still exist in Civ4-they are just dealt with in a fashion that leads to less micromanagement headaches. Anyone who has actually PLAYED Civ4 would know that, an ignoramus who doesn't know what he is talking about (that's you, btw, Jones) would not be aware of that fact. In Civ4, if your population gets too high and/or you build too many polluting buildings, you get increasing levels of unhealthiness. When "sickness" gets higher than health, the excess eats into your food, which slows your population growth. No "Whack-a-mole" pollution, you just have to find buildings, food resources and civics which reduce the unhealthiness of your cities.
Corruption is dealt with by simply having increasing numbers of cities eating into your treasury. The more cities you have, and the further from the capital they are, the more they cost. To deal with this you either have to decrease your science rate, build city improvements which reduce maintenance or boost your income via various sources-but it certainly is better than having a load of 1 shield cities sitting all over the place as you have in civ3. As for you claim about 2-city empires. Well myself and others have proven that you're talking out of a certain orifice on that point. I've seen 20-player games with empires between 15-30 cities even on large-not huge maps.
So you see, Jonesey boy, it is you who have drifted-drifted into the realms of pure, out-right fabrication and lies. I guess that's how desperate you are to defend your rather clapped out game. I stand by my assertion that the only real reason why you dislike Civ4 is because your ICS and REX'ing strategies have failed, and you're too thick to change your play style. If I'm right, then it merely shows what a rather sad and pathetic creature you truly are. Now, run away and play your hacked kiddie game and leave the adult game to people like me and Psyringe. Just don't try and lure more unsuspecting people to your side with your lies please.
So, just to repeat. If you like a game with loads of micromanagement tedium, very little strategic decision making, and where a single strategy (REX'ing) will always lead to ultimate victory, then by all means join T.A. Jones and his kiddie mates in Civ3. If, however, you want a challenging game in which you have loads of difficult choices to make and multiple roads to possible victory, then I'd suggest you join the intellectual adult crowd and play Civ4. Heck, if you needed more proof, T.A. Jones can't even SPELL.
Ha. Ha. So owned Jonesey.
Aussie.
It's quite simple PieceOfMind. Jones adheres to the principle that "if you tell a lie often enough, people will think it's the truth." Jones can provide NO PROOF to back up his ludicrous claims, yet he continues to make them. I've played so many games of Civ4 that I've lost count, and I've yet to experience a lag of more than 30 seconds-even when I've got 20+ cities to my name. I say to Jones- "PUT UP OR SHUT UP buddy". Either that or get a half-way decent computer.
Aussie.
Moderator Action: merged posts
Moderator Action: Stop the Flaming
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889
Aussie_Lurker
Deity
Murky, I'm not talking about the people who hang out at CFC or Apolyton. I'm sure loads of them use one mod or another-whether in Civ3 or Civ4. I'm talking about the many millions of people-worldwide-who play these games and yet have never heard of these groups (heck, I was playing Civ2 for about 6 or 7 years before I found Apolyton or CFC). So, I do believe its fair to say that the vast majority of Civ players are probably "blissfully unaware" of mods for these games (outside any included out of the box). Which is why you should really only compare the two games "out of the box".
Aussie.
Aussie.
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