Rate Civ I, II, III, IV (relative to each other)

[TheBoatman]

IV-SMAX-I-II-III

Playing Civ3 was like hangover after playing SMAC. I've never understood why they left out so many ingenious ideas from SMAC.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Considering I didn't play I or II in their time, my experience has been a bit limited. However, in terms of III and IV, it's actually very difficult for me to rank them! I poured by far the most hours into III, even though I've spent a lot of time playing IV it hasn't even come close to what I used to spend on III yet. For me, IV didn't have the immediate addicting factors that III did, but it's slowly grown on me. My recent experiences of multiplayer in IV has put it by far over the top of III in terms of enjoyability though.

 

[cece84]

Excuse my poor english

1) civ2 -> for the year it came out it was superb (played till 2 years ago. next civs are quite equals to this (not really new and fantastic innovations since civ2, SMAC excluded)

2) SMAC -> i love sci fi and i waited this game for years and years (i was 12 years old..it cames out after years...). Here we find all innovations that civ2 hasn't (government forms:the bests of all-civs series. UN-like system:the best of all-civs series.) It has also a great map style (REAL 3D, not like civ4) and some fkin ideas for tech and other (cities on water!, terraforming...) that makes me cry as a children
SMAC included most ideas than the other civs putted togheter... I can't understand why firaxis had leaved this path...

3)civ4 -> actually playing it. Surely better than CIV3. It has some good ideas but it seems that firaxis can't touches the high standards of the past (SMAC). The first release of the game was BUGGED AS HELL (fkin marketing).. now it is enjoyable but i HATE the LOADING TIME...... why i must have a supercomputer to run this?? i can't believe this .games like oblivion run faster than civ4... (maybe not good code?)
PROS: love playing mods. i'm playing rhyes and fall, it's wonderful. Finally it is possible mod civ as you like. (Maybe in civ5 it will be easier? not XML,Phyton,C++,worldbuilder ecc ecc...)

4)civ3 -> nearly unplayable. Poor new ideas (and abandoned many good past ideas..). Biggests and maybe beauty scenarios are not playable (maybe now.. i've not tested on my new PC). After a couple of month i returned playing civ2... Positive note: loved DYP! (thanks community)

Expansion packs -> vote: 0. I will not buy any other firaxis expansion pack.. (30-40 euros for a couple of scenarios and a very little game innovation?? AH!).
I'm grown with civ2 free scenarios, i can't see why i must pay for a scenario...
Community does much more than firaxis. Sorry sid.

Civ 1 -> i played it only a couple of time when i was 9-10 years old... I don't remember so much, but it has carried in me CIV ADDICTION!!!

 

[ferenginar]

Best Civ IV
Civ II
Civ III
Civ I
Worst SMAC

 

[Turner]

Civ3 Civ1 Civ2 Civ4.

 

[Proteus]

With points from 4 (Best) to 1 (worst)

Civ 4: 4
Civ 2: 3
Civ 3: 2
Civ 1: 1

SMAC would get rated 2
and if you included Call To Power 1 and 2 they would get:
CtP 1: 3,2
CtP 2 (Vanilla): 3,5
CtP 2 (Ages of Man-Mod): 4

 

[Sabreman]

1 - Civ IV
2 - SMAC
3 - Civ II
4 - Civ III
5 - Chips
6 - Daddy

 

[Ayatollah So]

Civ2: was the best.
Civ3: tried to be different; I didn't like it as much as Civ2.
Civ4: was hoping they would return to/make sequel of Civ2. Instead they tried to 'fix' Civ3; liked it better than Civ3, but not as much as Civ2.

If that made any sense.

Plenty of sense, and very informative. In fact this is just what I'm worried about, and a big part of the reason I asked people to rate all the versions. To wit, so that I can discount the opinions of anyone who ranks Civ3 above Civ2

Civ 1 : Civ 2 : Civ 3 : Civ 4

The Phantom Menace : Revenge of the Sith : Attack of the Clones : Empire Strikes Back

Simple Beginning : Refined : Honest Mistake : Masterpiece.

your poetry is superb.

 

[DarkSchneider]

It only really makes sense to rate games against their contemporaries, and for sequels, how much they moved the game forward. For this reason:

I > II > IV > III

As for how good each of them are right now

IV > III = II > I

 

[Bongo-Bongo]

Civ I: Good fun, but even at the time, there were some irritations. 7/10

CivII: Had me completley hooked. It addictiveness helped overcome some of the flaws in the system. 9/10

CivIII: Tried to be too clever but failed. It never had the same appeal as the previous Civ games. It wasn't addictive. I honestly think I only completed 3 or 4 games. Conquests scenarios were quite good though. 5/10

CivIV: A return to the glory days of CivII. I'm hooked again and love every minute of it. I only dont play it more because I have a job. There are bugs in there, but they haven't effected me that much. 9/10

 

[Zebra 9]

Civ IV: Best
Civ III: Good
Civ II: Never Played
Civ I: Never Played
SMAC: Never Played

 

[Zelda's Man]

Civ 3 Conquests Extremely Addicting
CIV Very Addicting
Civ 3 Addicting
Civ 3 PTW Not very Addicting
Civ 2 Can't deal with lousy graphics

Civ 1 and CIV Warlords never played

 

[PraetorianSteve]

If I judge by impact on me:

Civ I: Great game, still remember the kick I got conquering the entire world the first time, and the first nuke!

Colonization: Really liked it, but thought it could have been made a lot better with some minor tweaks to the system.

Civ II: The outstanding game of my teens. Wonder movies, Elvis as the "culture" advisor, and major improvements to the original. While all the popular kids were out dating or having fun, I stayed in for just "one more turn".

Alpha Centauri: Never really got into it, for example, I automated everything I could. It had some good points, but I really got fed up with all that fungii and mind worms.

Civ III: Was a minor disappointment to me. It kind of felt like you had to micromanage it in order to play at the higher levels, and some things really bugged me, such as the cruise missile system. Conquests however really lifted that game up to the standard it should have been in the first place.

Civ IV: I'm simply hooked. I think it's the best thing since sliced bread. This game is never going off my hard drive barring a major system crash.

So in all from best to worst (although the worst really isn't so bad in this case)

Civ IV, Civ II, Civ III, Civ I, SMAC, Colonization

 

[gunkulator]

Civ4 - Best of the bunch with lotsa new ideas. Unfortunately trading and diplomacy are broken. Unlike previous games, you spend a lot more of your Civ4 time managing your cities and your neighbors instead of just moving and attacking with hundreds of units.

Civ3 - The C3C additions and conquests vault this one into second place otherwise it would rank below Civ2. Diplomacy and trading are the best however units have very few properties compared to Civ4 or even Civ2. The gameplay is heavy into micromanagement. Bombarding with dozens of artillery is particularly tedious. I rarely ever finished a game once it got into the industrial age.

Civ2 - A lot of fun with many varied and interesting units, however the AI was dog stupid and the game was exploitable in far too many ways. Still, things like the High Council added to the fun factor.

Civ1 - never played.

 

[michael4000]

CIV I was a life-changing experience. I was floored and amazed. I'll never forget how incredibly amazing that game was compared to anything that had existed before it. But, there would never be any reason to play it now.

CIV II didn't seem like a huge change at the time, but it did have those sleek modern graphics (that look so crude now), plus the music and wonder movies that added a lot of atmosphere. Civ II is on my old laptop, and it's sometimes fun to play it for aulde lang syne when I'm travelling.

CIV III added a lot of depth and eliminated a lot of the predictability that had set in with Civ II. It was initially frustrating because of the whole corruption thing, but I learned to live with that and lived happily ever after. If Civ IV suddenly vanished and it was back to Civ III, my heart wouldn't be broken. But, I'd miss Civ IV diplomacy, the flexible tech tree, and maybe religion. I dunno.

CIV IV, well, it's OK. The diplomacy improvements are great. Religion is kinda fun. Good soundtrack, but the graphics are attrocious. It has been the least addictive of the series. ...and I play a lot less since it came out. But, it is still the version I reach for.

 

[babypacman]

...of each Civ game as it related to the era it was produced in, and also the effect it had on my gaming habits:

Civ II: 10 - I spent my freshman year in college playing this game and my roommate hated me for it becuase I sitll got better grades than him. I'd play Doom II with my buddies but this was my game of choice.
SMAC: 8.5 - A little difficult to get into, but very engaging and some awesome ideas that unfortunately haven't been ported over to Civ. That flamefest on the strategy forums about navies being useless/fun? SMACX had water based cities and a pirate leader. Still has occasional replayability even today if I can get my system to run it. Ended up sharing time with Diablo II and other MMORPGs as my friends corrupted me.
Civ I: 7 - Groundbeaking, but limited.
Civ IV: 7 - Steals time from WoW. That is saying something.
Civ III: 0 - Utter trash. I'd rather play Oregon trail than this.

 

[dh_epic]

I'm truly relieved that people don't think Civ 3 was that great. You'd think from all the "why did they change X" threads that Civ 3 was the best game ever, and Civ 4 ruined it.

 

[stuge]

Never played Civ1 or Smac.

Civ2. My introduction to the series. I was too young to notice the flaws and the exploits. Also played it on PS and the manual was pathetic so many aspects of the game were still unclear to me when I stumbled across these forums last winter. But man, how I loved that game. It had a huge impact and it introduced me to Civ.

Civ3 felt like a huge improvement over Civ2. Thanks to the PC manual, I actually understood the game mechanics and I loved the clear borders. It had the best graphics of the series. In the end, though, I got fed up with the rinse-and-repeat settler spam way to success. Every time I tried to cultivate my cities before building more, I ended up last in everything. Never got PTW or Conquests.

CIV is the best so far. So many improvements over the previous versions. Only the graphics bug me. Finally there is at least some rooms for sissy builder-types like me with there being many viable ways to success.

 

[p dandy]

Never played the first one so I can't say anything about it

1) Civ 4
2) Civ 3
3) Civ 3 Conquests
4) Civ 2
5) Civ 4 Warlords (on the fact that after installing it, artifacts started showing up)

 

[CIVFITCH]

1. Civ Iv
2. Civ I
3. Colonization - Man I Wish They Would Make A Colonization Ii
4. Smac
5. Civ Ii
6. Civ Iii - I Don't Think I Ever Bothered To Finish A Game

Make A Colonization Ii! Now! Is Anyone Listening?!