What is it about this game?

[Theov]

I prefer its graphics to those of CIV4 -- they "pop" more. When I play games of Civilization IV, I'm always forgetting about units -- losing them. CIV also seems more complicated than Civ3, and I'm not comfortable with it because I don't understand its mechanics like I do CIv3's. Then again, I suppose if I made myself play it more, I'd learn the mechanics...but I've got the rest of my life to get around to that, I suppose.

I can't speak for Civ5, not having tried it. I'm very much interested in it now with Gods and Kings, but it's too expensive for me to try without knowing how I'll like it.

Has no one ever created a Civ3 clone on the Civ4 engine?

 

[Quintillus]

I've played 1-3, & for the first time yesterday, 4. I removed 4 from my Mac today. Civ4 is just too much, too different, too great a departure from what Civ was. The graphics are eye fatiguing and the non military unit gameplay just too much-too busy and annoying.

One of the worst aspects of Civ3 was indeed the ridiculous pollution, but at least with the editor that could be minimized. The greatest thing about Civ3 to me was the editor & it gave me thousands of hours of interesting play. Unfortunately now that I have a Mac I am dead in the water (no editor) and I haven't tried going the XP on Mac route yet. My only regret about getting a Mac.

Civ3 was nice if it was edited to go slowly enough so the majority of game was spent in the pre gunpowder era. I didn't care for it in the Modern era.

Had so many -oh crap- moments with Civ3. Massive armies appearing on the doorstep, etc.

One time I was fairly advanced in the game and had 20 or so cavalry units in my country. Can you believe that the Byzantines invaded me with hordes, and I mean HORDES of spearmen and came darn close to zapping me. Only happened once in thousands of hours of gameplay. I have no idea what unique combination of factors contributed to that AI decision.

Another time I was such a terrible tyrant (I burned everything in sight throughout the whole game) my empire started revolting to other countries...including my Forbidden Palace city. I found that interesting.

In another game I was really in a bad way for resources and had nothing more than spearmen & longbowmen and a few Crusaders. It took some thinking, but a clever ambush layout let me prevail against a strong protracted mounted invasion of knights & cavalry. Someone can correct me, but with all the nonsense going on in Civ4, I just don't see that happening.

Welcome to CFC! Those sound like some pretty good games. I tried the spearmen-and-longbowmen gambit once, voluntarily, in my "no optional techs" game (I think I also lacked iron). Definitely not the most efficient way to fight a war.


You're also in luck with the editor; I made a cross-platform one over the past few years, which you can read about and download from my signature. It's not quite as complete as the Windows one, but lets you change almost every setting, including to some values that the standard editor doesn't allow (like giving buildings negative maintenance costs).

Once you stop getting wrapped up in the aesthetics (which are awful IMHO) and ignoring what the AI leaders are actually saying to you ("Soon my numberless Warriors shall destroy you"), Civ4 is actually quite a good game. You lose a lot of the stress about wasted overflow, which actually makes the game much more enjoyable. Among other things.

Yeah, it actually is a pretty good games, at least with Beyond The Sword. I agree with vorlon_mi that espionage isn't that great (but when has it ever really been great in Civ?), but I've never actually seen an Apostolic Palace victory, and IMO the impassable mountains are actually arguably an improvement - it's always unfortunate in Civ3 how a mountain chain like the Alps is often as much of an advantage for the attacker as for the defender.

Has no one ever created a Civ3 clone on the Civ4 engine?

I've wondered this for quite awhile, too. A sort of "Civ3 rules for Civ4". Besides the isometric vs. square tile map, it seems like it should be, pretty much, possible.

 

[dilettante]

Civ3's UI, gameplay, graphics, and generally everything else + Civ4's grand diplomacy/religious alliance-warfare + Civ5's city states & intrigue/espionage = shut up and take my money!

All kidding aside, the only thing I wish for in Civ3 is Civ4's diplomacy. If someone were to release a Civ3 reboot with that addition (or AI memory decay and AI willing to be allied with), Civ3 would just own every version hands down. That's my one complaint in an otherwise awesome game.

oh if i only had a million dollars, i would buy Civ3 from 2k and i'll pay a bunch of modders to fix the spaghetti code to make it moddable so the entire Civ3 community modders can have at it.

 

[Rodrig0]

To quote Buttercup:

I get your point. Though I would say Civ3 is still a very fun game, it has a huge amount of problems. Like you said, the game seems to try and screw you over as badly as possible while allowing the AI to play against each other fairly, so you will see stalemates in combat when you are fighting due to some "hidden mechanic" that is in the game. No way can I lose 4 swordsmen to a lone spearman while attacking a town with no walls settled on grassland.

RNG for "Random"? Yeah right! We know it always favors the AI. There's a world conspiracy to try to convince us that the game is random, but we know better. The truth cannot be hidden!

But worse than that, what really kills my games is the awful espionage mechanics. Ever tried to flip a 1 pop city when you have tons of gold?

Inca -> Spy -> Propaganda -> Scroll aaaall the way down to find that damned city -> Select city -> Safe -> Execute -> Failed

Now repeat that until you expend 60K gold and you'll see how tedious it is.

 

[MPK]

But worse than that, what really kills my games is the awful espionage mechanics. Ever tried to flip a 1 pop city when you have tons of gold?

Inca -> Spy -> Propaganda -> Scroll aaaall the way down to find that damned city -> Select city -> Safe -> Execute -> Failed

Now repeat that until you expend 60K gold and you'll see how tedious it is.

=== Is there any way to change this in the Editor? [anyone?]-

Yes I find espionage in Civ3 annoying to say the least. Pity it's not like it is in Civ2. I very much in enjoy hitting Civ2 cities with large numbers of spys.

 

[agonistes]

I love III the best. Never tried I. The border addition was HUGE. The editor is by far the best. Pollution and volcanoes suck, but they can be disabled.

In IV, I like the vassal state ability. I hate it when civs die off. I spend a lot of time trying to prop up weak civs.

But it feels like they started go off into left field with IV, and just kept on going with V until they drove off the planet. I mean... why take the best editor out there and make it less user friendly?

Don't throw eggs, but I also like the idea of religions. I sometimes play out crusades in my games.

IV also has distinctive cities. That would be nice for a Civ VI version of Civ III. A certain look for each city based on what culture each citizen is from, plus additional buildings and wonders showing up.

Don't use espianage much, can't speak to it, but III is just about perfect.

Get rid of the city cap limit. I KNOW there is a mod, but the mod means YOU can build more cities, the civs won't, and you can't trade your illegal cities to the other civs... they don't show up in your city list.

Game speed gets sloooooooow in III.

I'd love to play on a 340x340 map with no city limit and a fast turn time.

Now, if I were to improve III, other than vassals and religions, I think I would turn units into actual armies, with the battle graphics similar to Caesar III.

Each army would have stats of defense and offense vs. certain types of other armies. Each unit could be joined to another unit, and stats would be blended. So scrolling over a unit, you would see the unit count scores, experience, etc.

Example, you make an army of infantry riflemen. Then you build some cavalry, and add it to the army. Then you make some cannons, and add them.

argh, gotta go.

 

[MarkR]

I brought Civ 4, played it twice and gave it away to my nephew.

Civ I to III had a nice big strategic feel to them. IV seemed to be heading down an Age of Empires approach. They claim to be strategy but are really about managing a few cities well.

No game is strategic in concept when you have to spend your time building a farm to get sheep to produce food. That’s a city mayor’s job, not the world leaders!

Give me my modded Civ III any day.

 

[Bowsling]

That is a problem common between both games - worker automation and governors suck. Just pretend they accept large sums of money from "private investors" to do their job the way you do.

 

[Theov]

Civ3's UI, gameplay, graphics, and generally everything else + Civ4's grand diplomacy/religious alliance-warfare + Civ5's city states & intrigue/espionage = shut up and take my money!

All kidding aside, the only thing I wish for in Civ3 is Civ4's diplomacy. If someone were to release a Civ3 reboot with that addition (or AI memory decay and AI willing to be allied with), Civ3 would just own every version hands down. That's my one complaint in an otherwise awesome game.

oh if i only had a million dollars, i would buy Civ3 from 2k and i'll pay a bunch of modders to fix the spaghetti code to make it moddable so the entire Civ3 community modders can have at it.

I don't like the religions in civ4, but I do like the corporation idea.
Some other things can stay, but health's got to move.
For the rest - the Civ4 engine has the possibility to make a civ3 clone with some additions.