Is Civ 4 Better than Chess?

[TerraHero]

Oh but they are not so diffirent at all if you look at it.

Chess requieres a well planned strategy if you want to alst beter players, and dont tell me you can baet Civ4 on deity with juz randomly going stuff and by the late industrial age desciding "Oh, lets go for Culture".

Civ4 on higher levels requieres people to carefully think trough there moves "If i build this Baracks i get stronger units, but then i cant build a Granery and get a bigger population". Same with chess, you cannot move a pawn without it effecting the move of another piece.

Both requiere a good deal of experience before you can match yourself with the top.

I guess 1 real mayor diff between Chess and Civ4 isnt the graphics and that sorts, Chess was pretty sophisticated for the time it was created, but i guess Chess leaves nothing to chance but purely the skill of 1 player against another, and only the best will emerge. In Civ, my army can be stronger, my civ can be stronger, but with a few unlucky roles in combat i can still lose it all. So some poor moves in Civ can be as devestating as in Chess.

If i gotta pick a beter game on fact, Chess is a better game. A game that has kept thousands of people entertained for thousands of years and still its not out of date. A game that develops actual skill, and requieres pure skill to win. And not some skill and some neat bug abuse or standerd tactic the AI cant defend against.

But if i gotta pick one i like best now, its Civ4. But Chess teaches a person alot more, dont let anyone say otherwise. Chess teaches you tactical insight, preperation, bluff perhaps. And what does Civ4 teach you? that the Sputnik, at a curtain time, said "Beep..beep...beep".

 

[Equisilus]

Is eating pizza better than sleeping? Is Red better than Blue???

This Poll is quite nonsense. You can't really compare two so different games.

It's not a poll on which is better, it's a poll on which you prefer to play. I can say I prefer to read a good book than shovel snow in my driveway. They are quite different activities and I can compare them just fine.

I think you confused the point of the poll with the discussion that derived from it over the pros and cons of each game.

 

[Screw Flanders]

reasons
1. The graphics suck on chess.
2. You can play more than one person at once in civ
3. you cannot demand tribute in chess.
4. the nuke thing
5. maybe if you got a unique unit in chess, like a pawn that could move sideways for the first 20 turns or so.

 

[Frostyboy]

OK, I got confused, but there are many strange polls in this forum.

 

[jcikal]

It's not a poll on which is better, it's a poll on which you prefer to play. I can say I prefer to read a good book than shovel snow in my driveway. They are quite different activities and I can compare them just fine.

I think you confused the point of the poll with the discussion that derived from it over the pros and cons of each game.

When I posted the poll, that's exactly the reason I posted it, which of the two games do you prefer, both require strategy/planning ahead/deep thinking, it's not which is better but which do you prefer to play. So far though, Civ 4 is winning hands down. Of course, that may also be due to the fact that this is posted in a "biased" forum, but I decided to ask since in other Chess forums, a lot of people there also play Civ 2/3/4 and I decided to ask the question.

 

[Napo981]

Chess is an archaïc game. It was created when any sophistication (electronic or others) was impossible.

It was first used to train ancient time general to war

Of course, computers allow far better strategic game. Civilization is a winner because it allows far more possibilities than chess, but chess has already showed himself as THE international brain game.

However, with it restrictive possibilities, chess is more a mathematical game than a strat game.

 

[romelus]

Is that where one player is red and one is black and you jump pieces and king the other player when he gets to the other side of the board?j/king.Chess makes my head hurt.

no that's checkers. a lame game that just happens to use the chess board

 

[Theodorick]

no that's checkers. a lame game that just happens to use the chess board

I prefer chinese checkers over normal checkers. It's total hilarious chaos if you're playing with 5 people.

 

[romelus]

I prefer chinese checkers over normal checkers. It's total hilarious chaos if you're playing with 5 people.

i only know of chinese chess... chinese checkers? 5 people??? is that the game with the star-shaped board?

 

[dojoboy]

I like chess and Civ4 equally. I go through phases where I play chess very seriously, study chess books, etc.

Civ4, by far.

 

[Arturus]

Chess is tactical, Civ IV is strategic. I prefer tactical so I selected chess. I think many people aren't giving chess the credit it deserves. It is an extremely complex game despite the rather simple layout of the board.

 

[J_RocKeT76]

No offense intended but anyone who thinks CIV IV is like a game of chess should take the gridlines option off. It does hurt the eyes after a few hours anyway.

 

[Banira]

Chess is a perfect game. Over hundreds of years, it has never changed.

Civilization 4 is just another computer game, bug ridden at release and in its 4th iteration.

 

[zyphyr]

Chess is a perfect game. Over hundreds of years, it has never changed.

Actually, chess has had a number of patches released over the years.

Initally, the squares were all one color. The alternating black-white scheme was introduced in 1090.
Double moves for pawns on theit first move was added in 1275.
In 1475, the Bishop and Queen replaced older pieces (aufin and fers).
Castling was introduced in 1555.

There may be more, but that was just a few things I was able to find quickly.

 

[Firebird]

First: I like both games very much. They are both good turnbased strategy games with ample room for brainusage.

In chess the number of posible moves are far lower, the battles always ends "attacker wins", fewer units and unittypes, no cities producing new units, no buildings, no differentiated civs (by traits or builded wonders), only two players etc.

Since chess is more limited every move typical counts more than one move in civ, so you have to analyze your position with great care. But the simpler setup also allows you to analyse the current game in more detail. That is exactly why the chess-ai is better than the civ4-ai. In chess the ai can simply compare all posible moves and follow-up moves for the next X turns and pick the one with the best results. X is only limited by computerpower.

In civ4 I sometimes miss this analysis (one good reason to continue to play chess) and the satisfaction when my analysis proved right and the opponent bites the dust because of the three great moves I made, but OTOH the far greater posibilities in every turn (all units can move every turn, more variaty in movement, units, buildings, the historical elements, the exploration-element, the diplomacy, the different tiles/plots (grassland, hills etc.), different kind of units (siege/archer/naval/air etc.) etc.) makes for much more variaty in each game. That is what keeps me playing till 4 am (dang, Firaxis, you have given me a sleeping disorder: civ4 ). If a human or an ai should analyse civ4 in all detail and all the interconnections like it is possible in chess it whould take forever (except perhaps in the very, very early stages of the game) because ultimately the posibilities are endless. So in civ4 you work much more on the strategic level. I would even say that civ4 is the game thats more than the sum of its parts.

When you make a move in chess it is in theory possible to know if its the best possible move, because you know all the variables and there are far less variables. That is perhaps the biggest difference in these two games. You (mostly) don't know the position of all enemy units in civ4, what buildings enemy cities have or which parts of the map they have discovered. Like another one said: "Chess is a mathematical game". To me it is very much a matter of "mood" what game I will choose to play. The analysis in civ4 is more strategic with land- and citydevelopment, riscassesment, uncertainty and diplomatic relations being big parts, which in principle isn't in chess at all. Chess is only war. I like the builder part of civ4 very much.

By the way a boardgame (without computerpower) can never have the complexety a computer-game has, because of all the calculations possible with the computer. That does not make a boardgame less interesting than a computergame or visa-versa. A less comlex game is, like I said earlier, possible to analyze in detail and it is easier to balance out between opponents. Civ4 is probably pretty well-balanced but can any of us say with certanty that f.ex. one leadertrait isn't a bit better than another? Chess is only imbalanced by the move order.

Conclusion: I like civ4 or I should say civ-games better most of the time so I chose civ4, but I certanly like chess too.

 

[mjs0]

I enjoy both games immensely, but I voted for Civ4.
However this vote is a snapshot...I guarantee that if you ask the question again in 10 years my answer will be different!
I expect my infatuation with Civ4 to wane eventually but I will always enjoy chess...it is timeless, its just that here, today, it loses out to my Civ4 addiction.

I'll say one thing, the AI for chess is sure a lot better than the AI for civ 4.

My first instinct was to agree with this but then my mind got to thinking how different chess would be as a game if there were a fog of war. It would be extremely interesting to see how the current brute force approach to chess AIs, that has been perfected over many many years, would have to change if they no longer had total knowledge of the location of their opponents forces.
Of course such a game would no longer be chess, but maybe that is the point...Civ is not chess, so perhaps attempting to compare the relative abilities of the AIs is unfair.

 

[petermarkab]

I've heard some players play chess where they can only see pieces their's threaten in addition to their own pieces. Has anyone taken a civ4 vs chess poll on a chess forum?

 

[LordTerror]

I enjoy playing civ more, but chess has always fascinated me. It is one of few games which rely solely on the player's tactical skill(Stratego and Kalaha are also among them), and has no element of chance in it whatsoever. The winner only wins because he's the better player, whereas in civ one might be lucky with start location, with getting the right kind of Great Person or when combat results are calculated.

I agree.

CIV is way too random. If they got rid of everything random in the game, you might beable to compare chess and CIV easier.

No offense intended but anyone who thinks CIV IV is like a game of chess should take the gridlines option off. It does hurt the eyes after a few hours anyway.

HAHAHA!

 

[x23]

The random factor and lack of perfect information are probably the greatest differences in the civilization series.

 

[Breunor]

I'm in the can't compare class. I'm an 'expert' chess player (the masters kill me) and probably a worse CIV player. (Actually, I'm not that good any more -- I WAS an expert, now .....)

But they are totally different experiences. I've played chess for more than 35 years and it has a whole set of accompanying differences, including the tournament scene, the books, longevity, etc.

I play Civ on single player. Of course, I've played for about 2 months. Playing a human face to face just isn't the same as playing a computer. My children play chess and we go to tournaments together when we can and they are home.

Totally different games and experiences. Right now, I would never play a chess game on the computer when I can play CIV IV, but I'll be playing chess 10 years from now. I don't know if I'll be playing Civ VII or CIV VIII at that time.

Best wishes,

Breunor