Is Civilization 4 best game ever?

[Nicol.Bolas]

Hello,

about me:
currently noble player on civilization 4.
former civ2 -first civ game- (king) and civ 3 (king or equivalent player)
I know a lot of games and played many of the best games ever made: caesar, warcraft, CC and clones, doom and clones, ufo old and new series and clones, fallouts, baldurs gate a nd PS:torment, MOO2, HOMAM IV, and many others I cant remember right now.
suffice to say I know a lot about games and especially strategic games.

about civ and me
how long do I play? could it be over 10 years on and off with brakes? and always these series amaze me and give me good time, my last game I resumed after over a year and was instantly pls1more turn
I played these series chronologically 2-4 and in each due time, I loved the title and thought it´s the best game ever and didn´t see the problems.
not to mention perfect music in each title.

civ4
but in civ4 I think it´s the best and most refined game of the series. you just can´t get enough and it´s still fun. the execution is perfect, ideas, design = perfect. if you get bored? trillion settings to try + mods = perfect. community = perfect.

I still remember my first civ4 game: I was completely clueless: i performed the SOP of city spam and didn´t understand why I am falling behind in everything compared to ais, when i was doing "good"
It really pleased me to realise, that after many years, Sid finally made a mechanism that forced you to have fewer better cities, at least at start, compared to mindless spam.

civ5
please no flame war. suffice to say I didn't like the core design decisions when they were announced, and the user response seems to confirm this, so i didn't play.


what does civilization 4 mean for you? are there reasons you sometime turn on civ2,3 or even 1 or 5? (apart from curiosity)

I will be looking forward to feedback for this best game ever

PS.
I borrowed term *"actual"* from buffy mod.
if you are a player like me, you always stick to one game at a time, and you cycle your favorite game even in long cycles. so obviously the "actual" game you play is your favorite
*"overall"* is your personal opinion without actual moods

 

[Caeserportugal]

I voted civ IV out of the civ series and other for alltime. Civ IV was cleraly a great game and I do prefer it most than CIV V. But my favourite alltime strategy game is Rise of Nations with the Throne and Patriots expansion because it was the game that introduced me to Strategy Games.

 

[dennis95]

Civ IV is the best Civilization game.
I have also downloaded Civ V Demo but I think it is not really good, because everything which was in Civ4 has changed!


But probably the most will say Civ4 is the best because you asked in the Civ4 part of the forum.

 

[twansalem]

I voted Civ IV for both, but I also have to say that grouping Civs I-III isn't a very good option. There are a lot of people out there who would claim that Civ II is still the greatest, but that Civ III was terrible. I myself feel that there was steady progression from II-IV, but I know that many others don't feel the same way.

I've only played the Civ V demo, which didn't impress me. 100 turns should be enough to make me want to buy a game if it's good.

 

[de Maistre]

I consider Civilization IV the best Civilization game and a great strategy game, but I definitely don't consider it the best game ever made. If I made a list it would probably rank around 30.

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

I consider Civilization IV the best Civilization game and a great strategy game, but I definitely don't consider it the best game ever made. If I made a list it would probably rank around 30.

? I dont think I would even made a list of 30 epicgames, let alone a list where civ4 would be on bottom, care to elaborate? If there are better games i need to know

 

[gorf37]

If the rating is based on how much I play instead of paying attention to my girlfriend, hence enraging her: Diablo 2. Civ4 is a close 2nd.

 

[Civ4Brains]

Do like CIV4, but since you mention the Fallout series - now imo nothing beats the [original] Fallouts. after all these years it still has a fantastic community and some very very good mods. obviously a completely different game/genre from Civ so the comparison is rather redundant but hey any opportunity to talk about how amazing those games are i'll take it

 

[Quintillus]

I don't really get the difference between 'actual' and 'all-time', having never played this mod of which you speak. Do you mean 'current' and 'all-time'?

I don't know if it's really possible to compare best games across genres, and I know I haven't played enough games to be able to say with any authority what the 'best' games are. Not counting board/card games, Civ III would be my favorite all-time game. By my interpretation I'll have to give it 'actual' as well. There's no poll option for that (I can choose Civ1-3 for one, but not both ), so I didn't vote. There's certainly many limitations that could be removed to make the game better, but it's the most fun strategy game I've played. Civ4 is less epic, and I haven't been motivated to try Civ5. I will say that Civ4BTS is much better than Civ4Vanilla, and I thought shortly after discovering it that I might play it more than Civ3, but I've grown tired of RFC already, so that probably won't be the case.

I've been playing Civ3 since 2003, with a few breaks, but more 'on' than 'off', my enjoyment of Civ fell noticeably after Civ4 came out until I reverted to Civ3. Definitely a lot of staying power. There's games that I've played since before then and still play from time to time, but none that I played as consistently over as long a time.

 

[lymond]

For a long time, "Silent Storm Gold" was considered my all-time favorite. However, I've logged some many hours of Civ IV and still play it avidly that I think there's no question now as to it being both actual/all-time for me and probably will be so for a long-time unless Firaxis every rights the ship - dramatically.

 

[freeluos]

Actual Civ IV alltime other.

Civ IV is a good game. (Partly because I bought the complete edition below €10 and becuase of the modders (bat, bug, better ai well done people).

However, CTP had so many innovative ideas Civ IV cannot become a top game. Plus the gameplay issues like a very weak combat model, too few options to manipulate your country (terrain) it just is by far an underclass game. CTP suffered from a bad ai but it is a real civ game. I could create/build/design a civilization there. I cannot in civ IV.

If civ IV is compared with other great games it stands nowhere. Civ IV still have too many issues standing.

 

[Archon_Wing]

I actually had the chance to play Civ 5 lately; was horrifically disappointed because I was losing to the interface more than the AI. No slider? Global happiness? No health? Well, it made me appreciate 4 more, rofl.

So I say Civ 4 is the best Civ game (never played 1), but maybe not best game ever; kinda hard to compare across genres. I am a Starcraft person, after all. But it probably would be in my top 10.

The main problems with Civ 4 are probably how vassals are handled and naval combat sucks, but I can live with them.

 

[Farm Boy]

Oh my, that is a difficult question.

After much consideration, I am going with this game.

Runner up: Max Payne I

 

[AFS]

I can't really say Civ IV is the best of the series as I've only played IV and V, but between those two I'm prefer IV, though I still play V sometimes.

As for best game ever, meh, I don't think any game fit that category, but the games that consumed most of my free time are the Fallout, Tony Hawk, Civilization, Age of Empires, Resident Evil and Command & Conquer series, just to name a few.

Actually I feel a little ashamed for dedicating so much time of my life to videogames. I could've used that time to... eh... study , but screw it.

 

[Nicol.Bolas]

i am kinda surprised so far. would expect more people would fall into category:
actual: civ4, alltime: some of civ1-3 whatever was the first one (nostalgia)

fallouts were excellent, i love the series, but the replayability is limited

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Probably. Some Nintendo games must rank high up though.

EDIT: And "hide the sausage", forgot about that one.

 

[vornan19]

I couldn't vote because you lumped Civ 1-3 together - I started off playing Civ I but hated III.

Civ II is the best game I've ever played.

Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire filled the gap until Civ IV and I was highly addicted to it. I also spent far, far too many hours playing the original Doom - it reached a head when I came home from work one day to find my girlfriend sat in front of the tv wearing a t-shirt saying "I'm a Playstation" on it.

I love Civ IV but the jury is still out on where it'll end up on the leader board.

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

Civ 1, 2 and 4 were excellent. I played so much Civ 1 that I was kind of burned out for Civ2. I've played a bit of Civ4, but I think I'm getting burned out on the series. My favorite game with a Civ connection was SMAC, with MoM and MOO2 also great. I prefer all of them to any actual Civ games. There are a lot of great games in the same "strategy" vein, in particular those from Paradox and the Total War series. I also enjoy true war games, RPGs, sims etc. as well. My favorite all time Sid game was probably the original Railroad Tycoon.

I voted other / other.

 

[Higher Game]

As a game, it's brilliant. As a work of art, I don't think it's on the same level as Alpha Centauri or Planescape: Torment.

 

[Manco Capac]

Since I got Civ IV, I stopped to play video games except the first. Honestly, with this game, there are so many paths to win the game, which makes this game a masterpiece of strategy games. Even CivIII, which WAS my favorite, was blown away by its über succesor. Compared to CivIII for example, many annoying restrictions got ridden (No wonders rushes, pathetics forest boost, corruption, limited tech paths, straight and unoriginal wars, etc.) for the better.