For the last couple of years I've almost exclusively only played the GOTMs, so that would be 8 games in 2019, 2 this year, currently working on my third. An average GOTM takes around 30 hours for me, a bit less if it's a quick'n'dirty Domination game, a lot longer, if it's a time consuming 100K or Space Race. These usually take around 60 hours.
But the GOTM games are all very interesting at the moment: several different people are setting up games these days, so we get quite a variety of different maps, special "challenges" and "surprises" each game! It's just a pity that so few people are still competing. The games and the effort it took to design them would deserve more participants.
As to Civ3 and Civ4: I didn't really like Civ4 when it came out. Did not really feel like Civ, especially the way "artillery" worked in Civ4 seemed like a real step backwards to me. So after playing 2-3 games in 2005 and being greatly disappointed, I uninstalled it again and went back to Civ3.
But the two expansions really improved it, and when I revisited it in 2011 (because a few friends wanted to play multi-player and they didn't like Civ3) it was "ok". But I still like Civ3 better.
The other sequels are easily summed up:
But the GOTM games are all very interesting at the moment: several different people are setting up games these days, so we get quite a variety of different maps, special "challenges" and "surprises" each game! It's just a pity that so few people are still competing. The games and the effort it took to design them would deserve more participants.
As to Civ3 and Civ4: I didn't really like Civ4 when it came out. Did not really feel like Civ, especially the way "artillery" worked in Civ4 seemed like a real step backwards to me. So after playing 2-3 games in 2005 and being greatly disappointed, I uninstalled it again and went back to Civ3.
But the two expansions really improved it, and when I revisited it in 2011 (because a few friends wanted to play multi-player and they didn't like Civ3) it was "ok". But I still like Civ3 better.
The other sequels are easily summed up:
- I was immediately hooked when Civ1 came out in 1992! A milestone in the history of gaming... In fact, Civ1 was the reason I bought my first IBM-PC (up to that I had still been using my C64), and it delayed my degree by at least a semester...
- Civ2 was even better. It did only minor changes to the rules (so I could play it right out-of-the-box), but it improved everything. Better graphics, wonder movies, advisor movies, more of everything. It was just great.
- I first played Civ3 on my young brother-in-law's PC, and the first experience was a bit, ahem, "what the heck?"
I had built a couple of catapults (as I was used to from Civ1 & Civ2) and sent them out to conquer my neighbor, but when I tried to attack the enemy city with them, nothing happened... A bit confused I thought to myself "perhaps they need full movement, in order to attack" and hit next turn. Imagine my surprise, when interturn a warrior came out of the city and stole my catapults!!
So I went back to square one, read the manual cover-to-cover, and then really loved Civ3! "The best Civ of all times", as it said on the CD! - Civ4: see above. In my opinion the weakest installment of the series.
- Civ5: I really liked it right from the start. The combat system and the promotion system were a huge improvement over everything from Civ1-Civ4 so far. Also lot's of other great stuff. However, it also had a lot of shortcomings:
- the game is too strict in "punishing expansion". Especially the global unhappiness is just ridiculous. When you get caught in a war, your population keeps growing unhappier the more you win, and becomes happier and happier, if you lose...!
It is so difficult to successfully set up a large empire.
- the AI is completely incompetent in all aspects, and doesn't put up a fight. It probably has a hard time coping with the one-unit-per-tile rule, which makes warfare more challenging as it requires real planning, strategy and logistics. For this reason, warfare is more "chess-like" and we know that it took a lot of excellent researchers and programmers several decades to come up with the first strong chess programs. Naturally a gaming company would not spend that much time and effort on their AI...
- multiplayer was completely unstable in the beginning
The two expansions improved it a lot, though (except for the AI, which is as incompetent as ever...), and I still like it a lot. It brought the "civ fever" back to me (something which Civ4 completely failed to do) and I played it with great fun for four years. But mostly multiplayer, so the lousy AI did not matter... - Civ6: a vast improvement over Civ5. It fixed most of Civ5's shortcomings (large empires are possible again!) and only introduced a few new ones... But lots of new and interesting concepts, which all make sense and play out well (at least after the expansions -- I remember that in the vanilla version some concepts were still a bit unbalanced or not working right): districts, religion, tourism, tribes with very different capabilities. Lot's of good stuff that requires you to make many strategic decisions and weigh up different factors against each other. (Of course it makes the game quite difficult to learn.)
A few minor shortcomings:
- in some situations, the "loyalty" can become a similar problem as the "unhappiness" in Civ5. But only very rarely.
- they artificially dragged out the space victory in the last expansion
- some tribes are too "overpowered", so they are unfair in multiplayer
- and of course the AI is as incapable as ever...
But all in all a great game. Me and my buddies are playing it in multiplayer every Monday evening for 4 years now...
before pursuing further territorial ambitions.]
