Which is the “best” Civ (1-6) and why?

[PhroX]

It was 20 odd years ago, but I remember CtP being surprisingly good for a first go at making a Civ-like game, although it was still clearly weaker than its contemporaries Civ2: ToT and SMAC so I didn't play that much of it.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I never did get into SMAC, but I owned CtP 2, and played a ton of it. It took me a while to realize that it wasn't actually a "real" Civ game. I initially thought it was just an expansion/upgrade of Civ 2.

I guess it was technically a Civ sequel, since it was made by Activision, but it wasn't a true "Sid Meier" Civ game.

 

[Takhisis]

I miss the advisors from earlier games like civ3, one of my few grudges with IV is how they replaced them with "i do only dumb tile management" governors.
The outstanding leaderheads somewhat make up for it, but there could have been more atmo if they didn't drop all other faces.

Something that I really miss from Civ 1- 3 was how the backgrounds behind the leaderheads would change to reflect how advanced they were and in Civ 3 how the leaderheads would actually change clothes/appearance to match their era. Most of the mid-game outfits were clownish and silly, but it was still a very nice feature, to see the leaderheads change every era. Civ 4 did that with the music both for the gameplay, as well as the leaderheads, which was awesome... I just wish that they would have gone whole hog and changed the leaderheads outfits and backgrounds with the eras as well.

If you two don't mind I'll repost these comments over at the now open subforum where a bunch of crazy modders are busy perpetrating an open-source civilization game of their own.

 

[B-29_Bomber]

- Scale - You can play with up to 65,000 tiles on the map and 31 civs in Civ3, and it will never crash. It will be slow with those settings, but still, you can build larger empires than in any later version, especially Civ5, which punishes expansion harshly. For an empire-building strategy game, I will always prefer one where you have 20 cities to one where you have 5. CivIV was not quite as good as CivIII in this regard (both due to city maintenance costs, and the dreaded Memory Allocation Failures), and CivV/VI were distinctly worse (especially V).

Thank you for confirming a feeling I've had for years. Obviously, I've voted for Civ3. Not late later Civs are bad mind you, but they always had some issues for me:

1) The maps from 4 on always felt so incredibly small and since those later civs all ran on computers far more powerful than the computers than ran Civ3 at launch, it always felt like a major disservice to the franchise.

2) Civ from 4 on seemed hell bent on building up new game mechanics without building out the foundation of the game (the foundation being the AI). Leaving later games feeling like a clunky mess. Bare in mind, 4 is far from the worst offender, and is hardly a bad game (arguably none of the games are bad), but it was definitely the beginning of a trend towards mechanical complexity without giving a damn about the AI. I personally think the release of Civ 5 was them realizing that they had gone in too deep and were trying to get back out, but then the fan backlash happened and they reintroduced those mechanics back into the game with the expansions.

Does that mean that Civ 3 couldn't be improved? Of course not! I think Firaxis should've added in the lost mechanics of Civ 2, like caravans/trade routes. With that the game would be as close to perfect as a game could get.

Frankly, Civ 3 has given me some of my best gaming moments I've ever had.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

I voted for 2.

It's just the one I enjoyed the most.

 

[Senethro]

Turn based AI is awaiting its John Carmack. Hopefully that kid hasn't been employed by Actiblizz or whoever straight out of school and been driven out the games industry by terrible conditions.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Civ 4 for me. Being part of the BUG team made it special in a way that I can't describe. I played so many games testing and fine tuning BAT and Better BAT AI that I have lost count of the hours I've played. I estimate more than 5000+

If that isn't dedication, I don't know what is.

Now if you will excuse me, Monty needs a butt kicking...

 

[amadeus]

I tried putting in everyone's user ID numbers into LibreOffice to try and calculate the mean user IDs of who picked what because, broadly, time of joining CFC seems to correlate to what version of the game is their favorite. However, removing all of the HTML characters and sifting through the usernames was a time-consuming process that failed when I tried to automate it.

 

[Hygro]

Yesterday I DL'd and played civ3 just because. Emperor level, too lazy to micromanage my cities, frequent disorder, etc. Got a tech lead in the industrial ages, bankrupted my enemies with my crack, and set my slider to 100%. Demanded the biggest enemy into furious, got my spy caught, paid everyone off to war against him, and won the UN victory. Stayed up 4 hours past my intended 3am cutoff time with "one more turn!"

 

[Takhisis]

intended (…) cutoff time

You people never learn…

 

[Hygro]

I didn't think I was gonna finish a large map with 12 civs in one sitting!

 

[Takhisis]

I didn't think

Exactly. You didn't think. *stern disappointed parent gaze*

 

[Akka]

1) The maps from 4 on always felt so incredibly small and since those later civs all ran on computers far more powerful than the computers than ran Civ3 at launch, it always felt like a major disservice to the franchise.

2) Civ from 4 on seemed hell bent on building up new game mechanics without building out the foundation of the game (the foundation being the AI). Leaving later games feeling like a clunky mess. Bare in mind, 4 is far from the worst offender, and is hardly a bad game (arguably none of the games are bad), but it was definitely the beginning of a trend towards mechanical complexity without giving a damn about the AI. I personally think the release of Civ 5 was them realizing that they had gone in too deep and were trying to get back out, but then the fan backlash happened and they reintroduced those mechanics back into the game with the expansions.

I would disagree strongly about these points when it comes to Civ4.
Maps in Civ4 can be just as huge as on Civ3. Computer requirements might have been higher at the time, but today both can ran on a toaster so the difference is irrelevant by now.
As for AI, it's a weird criticism to do to Civ4 as I feel it was actually the best in the franchise when it comes to use the different systems available while at the same time being also the one with the strongest AI personalities.

I understand your criticism for game AFTER Civ4, where both are rather on-point, but not for Civ4 itself, which if anything is the LEAST subject to both in the whole franchise.

 

[B-29_Bomber]

I would disagree strongly about these points when it comes to Civ4.
Maps in Civ4 can be just as huge as on Civ3. Computer requirements might have been higher at the time, but today both can ran on a toaster so the difference is irrelevant by now.
As for AI, it's a weird criticism to do to Civ4 as I feel it was actually the best in the franchise when it comes to use the different systems available while at the same time being also the one with the strongest AI personalities.

I understand your criticism for game AFTER Civ4, where both are rather on-point, but not for Civ4 itself, which if anything is the LEAST subject to both in the whole franchise.

1) I said Civ 4 maps felt small.

2) I never said the AI in Civ 4 was bad, only that Civ 4 marked the beginning of a trend towards putting in as many mechanics as possible. Keep in mind, I said the "beginning of a trend". Being the beginning of a bad trend doesn't mean that it's particularly bad, hell, it could even be the exact opposite of bad, however, it does contain the underlying issues that became such a problem later on.

Over all, I never said Civ 4 was a bad game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not so sure, Civ 3 introduced a lot of new concepts and complexity that its AI never matched too. How well does it understand culture borders, surprise attacks, culture victory, securing scarce resources (including contingencies for depletion), or playing around units with access to bombardment, for instance?

 

[aelf]

Arguably, complex mechanics worsens the AI problem.

In Civ4, IIRC, Deity wins took time to figure out and become somewhat common. Most people played some levels below that. In Civ 6, winning on Deity and Immortal quickly became no big deal. What then mattered was how fast you win. I suspect it's because the AI can't really handle policy cards, 1UPT and districts.

Less sophisticated AI can work with simple mechanics to present a fun challenge. Single player TBS can be seen as a puzzle game with random elements anyway. If you want a truly reactive opponent, it's still better to play other humans.

 

[Kyriakos]

I'm not so sure, Civ 3 introduced a lot of new concepts and complexity that its AI never matched too. How well does it understand culture borders, surprise attacks, culture victory, securing scarce resources (including contingencies for depletion), or playing around units with access to bombardment, for instance?

There aren't "surprise attacks" in CivIII, unless the attacker lives next to you. Otherwise the computer will go on continent-spanning crusades with vast stacks of units (without declaring war before it enters your territory), so you will know what is coming
The AI cheats in other ways too. For example it knows when you are running a deficit and will then ask you for money (or else) so that if you comply you'll be forced to sell buildings in the next turn.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

There aren't "surprise attacks" in CivIII, unless the attacker lives next to you. Otherwise the computer will go on continent-spanning crusades with vast stacks of units (without declaring war before it enters your territory), so you will know what is coming
The AI cheats in other ways too. For example it knows when you are running a deficit and will then ask you for money (or else) so that if you comply you'll be forced to sell buildings in the next turn.

I was referring to the player tactics of open borders stabbing the AI. I'm not sure if Civ 3 ever patched that, but for a while it was possible to alpha strike it something fierce...Civ 3 didn't have the expulsion mechanic like 4 at that point.

 

[Kyriakos]

I was referring to the player tactics of open borders stabbing the AI. I'm not sure if Civ 3 ever patched that, but for a while it was possible to alpha strike it something fierce...Civ 3 didn't have the expulsion mechanic like 4 at that point.

I am not sure what you mean by "expulsion mechanic". In CivIII you usually will get to ask the AI once to remove its troops from your territory, and only the second time will you give an ultimatum

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I am not sure what you mean by "expulsion mechanic". In CivIII you usually will get to ask the AI once to remove its troops from your territory, and only the second time will you give an ultimatum

You don't understand. I am not/was not talking about you asking AI to leave. I am talking about the player blowing up a large number of AI cities using open borders before it can react.