Civ3 players and other games

Puppeteer

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This is a pretty self-serving question, but it may interest @SuedecivIII and any other video creators or streamers, too.

Civ3 has a surprising amount of sustained interest after 20 years, and it may even be increasing lately. A few are even getting views on videos playing Civ3, with Suede being the most successful I'm aware of.

My question is: what other games make sense on a Civ3 video or streaming channel?

And it's more about what won't drive Civ3 viewers away than what will attract new folks; what makes sense or compliments Civ3 content?

Last year I played some SMAC and Warcraft II, recorded it and uploaded to the channel because they are games I played back in the same era of Civ3. They've done comparatively poorly, although after several months the Warcraft II content is doing worse than SMAC.

One comment in particular was encouraging more Warcraft II, but judging by the view count they may be the only one. I'm one mission short of completing the two original campaigns, so I'll probably record those for category completion.

Today I'm realizing that although Warcraft II and Civ3 are closely associated in my mind, RTS and TBS are pretty different genres, and maybe the correlation makes no sense to others.

SMAC and Civ3 are very closely tied in my mind as SMAC led me to Civ3, and for a time they both competed as my favorite.

Oh, duh, I just realized: SMAC is not available on Steam. My anecdotal observations suggest the resurgence of Civ3 has a lot to do with it being on Steam, and with the long history of the Civilization name and franchise, including continuing modern successors keeping the series relevant.

Suede's success and audience is probably much more tied to Civ3's availability on Steam than it is to any other game-acquisition channel. (e.g. Older gamers returning, hand-me-down CDs, used CD purchases, new (?) CDs on Amazon, GoG, etc..) I hadn't thought of it from that angle before. New audience, noob players drive interest in gameplay content. (It's much more than that, but I think it's pretty important.)

So no matter how well I make SMAC videos–so far they're not particularly good–my audience would be limited to the relatively few who have active interest in the game, and people who just want to see some retro gaming.

I'm still interested in my original question, but I have convinced myself that as a "business strategy" the size of the market as determined by name relevance and mass availability may be more important than related interests. On the other hand, mixing Minecraft and Civ3 content would probably go poorly.... IDK maybe Suede can mod a Creeper Thrower.
 
Agree with your intent -- focus on TBS games, available on Steam.

I seem to recall that "Age of Wonders III" and "Heroes of Might & Magic III" came out a few years ago; are TBS; and have been recently re-released on Steam. I picked both up on a Steam sale, but haven't played them yet. You may not enjoy them. Heck, I may not enjoy them, but I will probably get ten US dollars worth of enjoyment from them, since they were on sale.

My other input may not fit well with your business model, since my viewpoint may not be common.
  • I've played all the leaders in C3C, learned the mechanics, and can win consistently at Regent without working too hard.
  • I love winning by Space, so building my empire and its infrastructure is also fun.
  • When I play Civ 4 BTS, I feel like I am compelled to war more often than I enjoy. I also lose track of my GPP, my culture slider, and whip/chop overflow. I feel like I am working hard to win
  • In contrast, Civilization: Beyond Earth is entertaining. I can explore, kill aliens, and build my empire. Especially with the Rising Tide expansion pack (again, a Steam sale). Any of the 3 affinity victory conditions requires researching a lot of techs and building something big, like a Civ 3 Apollo Program or bigger spaceship part. I can win, without a lot of thinking and micromanagement.
No, I'm not a big fan of 1UPT, and I expect that many of your Civ 3 viewers won't be, either. They may not like BE:RT the way that I do. The diplomacy is a little wonky, not nearly as fulfilling as the tech brokering that you're accustomed to doing in Civ 3. But it's fun, which is why I keep coming back to the franchise.
 
Maybe you can look at it from a viewer perspective.
Who are people that play civ3?

They are not the typical 'mobile' gamers, I think civ3 players like longer and more complex games.
Pirates! comes to mind. Other adventure games.

I could be wrong, but I think civ3 players are an older generation of players so they played the older generations of consoles. Many of us have played DOS games, I would guess.

If any of us like sports games, I think its more manager style games than MUT.
 
Here's my top games thus-far;

  1. Civilization 3
  2. Civilization 4
  3. Sims 3
  4. Skyrim
  5. Fallout 4
  6. Bannerlord
  7. Project Zomboid
  8. Superpower 2
  9. Stellaris
These are games I'm constantly coming back to, and some of them are very old. Bannerlord is still pretty new, but because of the ability to mod it easily and the nature of the game, I can tell it will be a nostalgia favorite decades to come, just as Civ 3 has been. It's still in alpha, and TaleWorlds is kind of all over the place with their updates. But easy to pick up and play for a month then take a break while they figure out their development goals.

Project Zomboid many of you may not have heard about, and I recommend trying it out. Still in Early Access, and has been for a long time, but it has come a long way since its inception. I usually take several months break from it and when I come back the game has a completely new dynamic due to all the things that have been added.

Superpower 2 may get replaced by 3 when/if it finally comes out. But that really depends on how different the sequel is. It still has an active community but it is very small and mostly only present on Steam.

Stellaris is another example of content creep, where the game you played on day 1 will be nothing like the game you play 3 years later. The only problem with this is the typical Paradox model. This is one of those hobbyist games that will cost you hundreds of dollars to collect and play with.

Fallout 4's settlement system has me coming back to the game constantly. It's just too fun to build. The setting is also a nice break from the other games.

Sims 3 is another one of those "I can dream it I can build it"-games. I'm still working on my custom world, which may just be a theme for the 2020's as well. It has a pretty active community but EA hid it deep in the Sims 4 forums because they are only interested in money. Be sure to check out NRAAS mods for it, as well as ModTheSims for great (mostly)bug-free content.

Skyrim doesn't need much of a description. You're a Viking dragon hunter in a world that can be modded to your heart's content. I doubt I'll ever stop playing this game in my lifetime.
 
Here's my top games thus-far;

  1. Civilization 3
  2. Civilization 4
  3. Sims 3
  4. Skyrim
  5. Fallout 4
  6. Bannerlord
  7. Project Zomboid
  8. Superpower 2
  9. Stellaris

Interesting list, since Civ 3, Civ 4, Skyrim, Fallout 4 are amongst my top games, while I haven't played any of the others. ha. Maybe I'll check one of them out.

Did you play Civ 5? Why is that not on the list?

As for Skyrim. That is a true masterpiece that I keep on coming back to, that and CIV 4.
 
Did you play Civ 5? Why is that not on the list?

I do like Civ 5, and I pick it up now and then for a quick playthrough. The art and atmosphere is so beautiful in that game. Same with Beyond Earth. There's just several other games that draw me back more often. And I have a wide palette so it's hard to narrow down the list of top 10.
 
Not sure how helpful sharing my gaming-tastes will be here (I buy nearly all of my games from GOG, not Steam), but I have a few go-tos.

Civ III (epics and mods) still occupies most of my gaming time, playing mostly at Emperor, dabbling in DG.

I do also have SMAC and Civ IV, but haven't played those nearly as much as Civ III, at least in part because that would mean starting the learning curve all over again — so decent tutorial vids for those two might be interesting, made by people who actually know the game (unlike a lot of the Civ III vids on YT: present company excluded, of course! ;) ). Before I got into the Civ-series I was a big fan of SimCity (original and 2000); I guess something like Cities: Skylines might scratch that itch these days, but I don't have that one.

Also play platformers, generally more interested in puzzlers. I loved the early Tomb Raider games (played TR1–4 and Legend, never looked at the reboots), also enjoy(ed) Travellers Tales' LEGO games (first 3 of the Star Wars adaptations, and the first of the Harry Potters; have the second HP still to play). I also have runs on Psychonauts and Beyond Good & Evil in "progress", though I haven't looked at either of those for a long time.

Not so keen on FPS games, but have played the original Half-Life (plus expansions), Thief, Serious Sam, and (currently bashing my head against) original Far Cry.

I guess space-shooters like the X-Wing series and Wing Commander also kind of count as FPSs, and I'm old enough to have also played the original Elite (on both the BBC micro and PC).

Never really got into RPGs, but I do have (and am also occasionally playing) original Fallout.
 
I would say the original trio of Combat Mission games, by Battlefront.
Also perhaps the newer iteration of Empire Deluxe, by Killer Bee Software. Note that I haven't played this newer iteration, just the old Empire Deluxe.
 
FWIW besides C3C still (occasionally) play Civ4 BTS, Breakaway Games' Waterloo and Austerlitz, Camo Workshop's Steel Panthers WW2 and SP Main Battle Tank, and last but not least chess, where I fight to keep brain cells from decay by playing rapid at Chess.com and lichess.org. (Funny how my rating at the latter--over 2100 at the moment--is more than 200 points higher than at the former. Apparently lichess has a smaller or less competitive player pool.) Anything can get old in a hurry if you've played them a lot, so it's useful to skip around a bit to preserve a sense of freshness. Newer games simply don't interest me.
 
Camo Workshop's...SP Main Battle Tank
I bought that several years ago but have been too lazy to learn. Similar with a few other games, including board wargames.
 
Europa Universalis II came out around the same time as Civ III, brilliant video game and one of my favorites. Largely a different game play but so satisfying if you don't mind some obtuse historical railroading. One of if not the best game soundtrack ever, even that it not composed for the game.

Half-Life 1 and its expansions (primarily Team Fortress Classic) are up there, TFC had such a high skill ceiling for those willing to learn concing and other maneuvers but was fun for someone who only dabbled in advanced movement. I still play this with a small group. One of the few truly timeless FPSes; Unreal Tournament 1999 deserves a mention as well. A wonderful TPS was the original Star Wars Battlefront, a game I never tire of and one of the few games that truly immerses me.

Sega Sports' NFL 2K and NHL 2K series are some of my favorites as well. For NFL I prefer 2k4 to the oft-fabled 2k5, but 2k2 was excellent as well. NHL 2k5 may have been the best due to supergoalies being fixed, 2k4 was close but the Kush lies about the AI goalies ruined it.

Other mentions would be games like Twisted Metal Black or SSX 3, just fun games to hop on for a short period and play.
 
As a younger player (as in, I am 22 lol), I can at least share my own top games by hours played (from Origin, Steam, Windows Store and GOG).to see what might be compatible I've added release years - genres are normally self explanatory.

Spoiler :
Over 100 hours:
  1. Civ IV (2005/07 - on Steam)
  2. The Sims 2 (2004/08 - not currently available)
  3. Civ III (2001/03 - on Steam)
  4. SimCity 4 (2003 - on Steam)
  5. Cities Skylines (2014/21 - on Steam)
  6. OpenTTD (1995/2001/2021 - on Steam)
  7. Age of Empires 2 (1999/2021 - on Steam)
  8. Minecraft (2009/11/21 - on other platforms)
  9. Locomotion (2004 - on Steam)
  10. Europa Universalis IV (2014/21 - on Steam)

Underrepresented
  • Tropico (Gold, 5 and 6) - all on Steam
  • Simcity 3000 - not on Steam, but on GOG
Honourable mentions:
  • CivCity Rome - I think its on GOG
  • Pirates ! - Steam
  • Stronghold Crusader (1) - Steam
  • SMACX (on GOG)
  • Civ VI - on Steam and other platforms

From other players:
  • HOI, Total War (Rome II?), Chess.



I don't think there's harm in playing other games which are similar enough, but make sure to promote videos with such content on webforums, reddit, discord etc because your subscriber base will be more interested in Civ 3 and cant be relied on in full. So long as you put out enough Civ 3 content and what you do alongside on the channel isnt too off-piste, I don't necessarily see a considerable number of subscribers being lost.

On the other hand I now feel incredibly out of touch considering only 2 of my top 10 games were first made available in the last decade.:lol:
 
What about something like Caesar 3? Or any of the other reskins, like Zeus + Poseidon, the Egyptian one, and the Chinese one (I forget their names :crazyeye:)

They're from the same era as Civ3, similar art style and nostalgia value too.
 
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