Is it worth getting Civ 3 if I have Civ 4?

[xcrissxcrossx]

The title of the thread pretty much says it all. I was mostly wondering how different the gameplay is between the games as well. I am sure they are both good games but I just don't want Civ 3 if it is too much like Civ 4.

 

[Optional]

It's very different. When going for CivIII, I would advise to go for 'Complete', that's CivIII with all the expansion packs. It shouldn't cost you much these days.

 

[splunge the 2nd]

I can't imagine anyone who frequents the Civ 3 forums is going to tell you not to get it!
I haven't played Civ 4 but the gist I get from the forums is the game play is different and Civ 3 games run longer.
Search for the threads of "which is better civ 3 or 4" and you'll get a generally polite discussion of the differences.

 

[vmxa]

Similar, but not the same. I have all the expansion packs for both. I play IV infrequently though. It is a good game, but I prefer III. Get either Gold or Complete. Complete is best and can be found for 10 at times.

Conquest is the best part of III and comes with Complete. It does not come with Gold.

 

[TheOverseer714]

Also, I wouldn't worry about Civ3 being too much like Civ4. They are significantly different in most aspects, from gameplay to graphics. The greatest complaint among diehard Civ3'ers about Civ4 is that it is too different. Buy Civ3 Complete and enjoy it, while you still can. Any problems, your friends here in this forum will help.

 

[timerover51]

Having played both, I far and away prefer Civ3, in its various permutations. I dislike the graphics of Civ4, the much smaller maps of Civ4 due to the 3D graphics demands on the video card, and the overall game play. And I say that even with the ability to edit Civ4 on my Macs, while to edit Civ3, I had to go out and get a surplus Dell desktop from my son's high school so I can do the editing in Windows, and play on my IBook.

 

[Takhisis]

The graphics of Civ4 suck.
Modded Civ3 Complete can be awesome. Truly.
Last year I had to re-buy it (the original disc was no good) and it was on the $15-$20 area, brand new. it depends on where you live, maybe you have to pay for shipping.
I had a friend of mine buy it for me, it wasn't available here.

 

[Theov]

Let's compare:
Civ 4 is more or less pretty ok, it's somewhat a bit of fun. If you are a ****** and you like eye candy. Whoo it moves. Whooo religions. Yeah that made a lot of money. Where is THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER!?!?

Civ3 is good. Awesome. Balanced. Addictive and playable. Over and over and over again.

 

[Takhisis]

Almost every feature in Civ 4 can be copied in Civ3 if you mod hard and long enough.

 

[bob rulz]

Civ III has its share of issues that IV did a good job overcoming, but I found IV to be less fun. Combat in III is more simplistic and straightforward, and III has a much larger scale. You actually feel like you're building a huge empire.

If you've only played IV, it may take a while to understand some of the mechanics of III, but I find that there's various mods out there (like low corruption) that make III even better. I just have a lot more fun with III than IV even if IV has less flaws per se.

 

[americanpotatos]

civ 4 was made much simpler than civ 3 was and i believe they made it too simple in that

-they got rid of most of the need for any micro-managing
-it tells you what to do most of the time
-and the techs and money basically run themselves which means you really cant get behind

these changes don't make the game much of a challenge at all and i like games that take at least a little bit of effort

 

[tom2050]

It's worth it, just to see the difference between Civ 3 and Civ 4... and to get a glimpse of what to expect from Civ 5.

IMHO, Civ 4 was enjoyable but I lost interest pretty quick due to some of the reasons stated above. It was a real letdown when I saw they had reverted to a simple 1 number strength for all units. The fact that they allowed for strengths against certain units was great, but if they left in attack and defense, it would have been more strategy oriented.

I've always seen the Civilization game as a Strategy game of "managing your empire". As Americanpotatos said:

-they got rid of most of the need for any micro-managing
-it tells you what to do most of the time
-and the techs and money basically run themselves which means you really cant get behind

they basically took most of "managing your empire" out, to try to make the game more appealing to a broader audience. I don't remember the sales figures, but I believe Civ4 did extremely well, which means they see it as a massive success.

What this means from the company Point of View would be:
Expand on the Civ4 style but make gameplay even more simplistic.
Continue port out to consoles (which will likely make PC version suffer)
Sacrifice the gameplay in order to achieve sales (i.e. make a great looking game, has the Civilization name, but extremely simple to appeal to very broad audience = good for them, bad for the rest of us)
Primarily goal to make graphics a seller (which means less time spent on the rest of game, which is very bad for this type of game). It is well known great graphics will sell games.

Chances are, I see nothing like Civ2 or Civ3 ever being made again... I believe the product will continue to stray from what made the original game so popular among it's die-hard fans.

Civ 5 I don't think will even be much of a Civilization game anymore, but something more of a extremely simple, non-strategy oriented Xbox/PS3 unrememberable port (I hope I am wrong!).

Tom

 

[katipunero]

civ 4 was made much simpler than civ 3 was and i believe they made it too simple in that

-they got rid of most of the need for any micro-managing
-it tells you what to do most of the time
-and the techs and money basically run themselves which means you really cant get behind

these changes don't make the game much of a challenge at all and i like games that take at least a little bit of effort

i disagree. the only reason i can think of why civ 3 seems more serious and challenging is because of the poor interface and unit/city management. it takes too long to play a civ3 game because there are just way too many mouseclicks required to achieve some specific result. people oftentimes mistake tedium and monotony for depth and complexity.

take for instance stack movement. in civ 4, icons are in the screen plus details of their movement points and health remaining, combat odds. if i need to move only my cavalry units with full health and with flanking promotions, there's a button for that. etc. point is, micromanaging in civ3 is understood by many in its most literal sense. really, it's just painstaking click per unit per move per tile. the only micromanaging in the game i can remember in civ3, in its 'real' sense, that one on setting up a settler factory.

there are civ3/4 Let's plays on youtube you can watch for comparision. the civ3 game took more than a hundred episodes with each video showing 2 to 3 turns of gameplay--but no micromanaging at all, just moving around units individually! otoh, civ4 let's plays on average take about 20-30 vids but each episode packed with careful game analysis and tac.

 

[CommandoBob]

take for instance stack movement. in civ 4, icons are in the screen plus details of their movement points and health remaining, combat odds. if i need to move only my cavalry units with full health and with flanking promotions, there's a button for that. etc. point is, micromanaging in civ3 is understood by many in its most literal sense. really, it's just painstaking click per unit per move per tile. the only micromanaging in the game i can remember in civ3, in its 'real' sense, that one on setting up a settler factory.

Uh, there is a button in CivIII that lets you move units in groups. It was added in Play The World and carried over into Conquests. It did not exist in vanilla.

Is has a keyboard-shortcut, too, but I forget what it is.

 

[TheOverseer714]

J and X to move all units in a stack, ctrl-J and ctrl-X to move all units of the same type in a stack.

 

[katipunero]

i know there's stack movement in civ3. i meant being able to discriminate and choose the right units for an attack in a few clicks without again clicking the units individually anymore.the way stack control is implemented in 4 is really clever. the same is true for most of the changes, if not all.

 

[TheOverseer714]

You can throw a stack against a city in Civ3, it's just a stupid way to attack, indiscriminate and wasteful. You can say how much better Civ4 is all you want, but you'll mostly be wasting your breath here in this forum. Besides, the original poster already has Civ4 and must not be satisfied with it, or this thread wouldn't exist...

 

[katipunero]

don't get me wrong im not against civ 3. heck i have more game count and sleepless nights with 3 on 4 atm. im just a little apprehensive about this idea of the lack of micromanagement in cIV which idea is misleading if not an outright falsity. certainly i wouldnt advise against getting a copy of 3 if the op can afford it. but there has to be a good reason to justify the extra purchase not some vague notion that one offers more of something that the other utterly lacks. i used the stack movement example to highlight one of the many innovations and conveniences in the latest version. these improvements show how much the series has progressed not regressed.

ive been playing civ 3 for years. i got 4 fairly recent as i had to save up for a system that could run it. so i never had the same bad first impression when the vanilla version came out. i started playing bts right off the bat. true civ vanilla was sloppy but the latest expansion pack is off teh charts great. for op who got civ 4 before 3, you're not missing out on anything (assuming u have bts). however, there's nothing wrong with buying 3 to add to your civ collection. maybe suplement your budding fanhood attaching talismanic importance to getting to know the series in its many faces if u can pay for it etc..

 

[tom2050]

im just a little apprehensive about this idea of the lack of micromanagement in cIV which idea is misleading if not an outright falsity.

Since 4 did so well, there going to go with what companies see as 'the wave towards future gaming'... making it on every system possible and make it to appeal to everyone to maximize sales. I didn't mind Civ 4, but at their rate, Civ 5 will have no management (micro or not) at all.

The whole point of the game is to manage your civilization, and the ability to do so in different ways gives veteran players an advantage because they can micromanage to get that advantage.

In Civ3 you don't have to micromanage anything at all if you don't feel like it. The computer will manage your cities for you, you can move whole stacks and attack en masse, workers can be automated. So you can 0% manage or you can 100% manage. Civ4 has a few more buttons that do a few more things, but it's not some transcendence of technology, it's because the 3rd iteration was 4 years older.

In Civ4 you cannot micromanage as much as you can in 3. Some people love that, some don't. But in Civ5 you will probably just get the popcorn out, and watch the computer play for you since there is a pretty good chance they will probably try their hardest to get rid of most all micro management elements.

It's nothing new and is expected, other games have done the same thing. If someone can't stand to do a little managing or micromanaging, then a game like Jumpman or Asteroids would be a better fit to play, not Civilization; the game of Managing an empire.

Tom

 

[GONdorman]

Since 4 did so well, there going to go with what companies see as 'the wave towards future gaming'... making it on every system possible and make it to appeal to everyone to maximize sales. I didn't mind Civ 4, but at their rate, Civ 5 will have no management (micro or not) at all.

You´re exagerating. I think Civ 4 has enough micromanagement to please good players, while being streamlined enough for casual players to use it... which is cool

And I suppose Civ 5 will be well made in that aspect as well. If Firaxis people check out the Civ Ideas and Suggestions forum, they would find a gold mine of excellent ideas

In Civ3 you don't have to micromanage anything at all if you don't feel like it. The computer will manage your cities for you, you can move whole stacks and attack en masse, workers can be automated. So you can 0% manage or you can 100% manage. Civ4 has a few more buttons that do a few more things, but it's not some transcendence of technology, it's because the 3rd iteration was 4 years older.

Kinda true. However, the AI in Civ 3 is not that good, so you´ll often want to manage stuff yourself. And yes, Civ 4 is newer, which gives it quite an advantage in this area

In Civ4 you cannot micromanage as much as you can in 3. Some people love that, some don't. But in Civ5 you will probably just get the popcorn out, and watch the computer play for you since there is a pretty good chance they will probably try their hardest to get rid of most all micro management elements.

Mmmmm... actually, in Civ 4 you can micromanage as much as in Civ 3, and it´s even easier because information is more easily visible and accessible...

And, again, I trust Civ 5 will kick all previous Civ´s asses