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197# THE FIRST ONLINE RELEASE It's a new internet age and Civ3 is the first civ game of it, says Rasbelin 196# WHAT MAKES A GOOD CAR Not exactly a "if civ3 was a car" comparison 195# CIV III AND MOO3, PART II: TBS HAS A FUTURE We're here to stay! 194# CIVILIZATION III, A SHOE TOO BIG? The realistic faction speaks 193# THE ULTIMATE GAME? Is there such thing? COLUMN ARCHIVE

With Civ3 upcoming (Webmaster's note: the article was written prior to the release of Civ3), there have been a lot of people discussing whether the this sequel has enough changes to be called a sequel. So I have decided to look at a few sequeled games I have played for comparison.

First, My Opinion. I think that if a game deserves a sequel, it is because the original was good enough to warrant it. What the players will want is more of the same, but better. To make a different game and call it after a previous seller is just a cheap grab for cash. Imagine if Age Of Empires was published as a sequel to Civilization.

Now, let's take a look at some games, and how they dealt with their sequels.

MONKEY ISLAND
OK, so an adventure doesn't exactly compare to strategy games, but it seemed a good place to start looking at sequels.
Secret Of Monkey Island used the useful SCUMM interface for inventory and combination, and easy mouse clicks for movement.
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge was almost exactly the same, with a bit of interface streamlining, and replacing the inventory listing with graphics for objects. Also could set the difficulty. Good sequel. Accessible to newbies, and still the same gameplay as in Secret.
Curse Of Monkey Island was some years later, and included a lot of improved graphics and sound. Nevertheless, the gameplay was almost identical to before. The interface, while not the basic SCUMM we were used to, was almost the same in execution, and seemed like a graphical SCUMM instead of a text one. This made the game easy to play for newcomers, too.
Escape From Monkey Island, while keeping similar puzzle structure, changed the interface and removed mouse support, making it annoyingly difficult for Monkey Island vets, and I wonder if newcomers would find it easy to play?

QUESTRON
This was back in the days that I was disappointed if a sequel wasn't exactly like the original in anything but plot and landscape. Questron made you able to obtain almost unlimited gold, food, or hitpoints, but Questron II limited me to a mere 65535 gold, which made me upset. It was irritating because that would barely buy a full loadout of spells (also no longer unlimited). But the dungeon auto mapping was an irresistible improvement.

ULTIMA
Being a Questron and Legacy Of The Ancients vet, a lot of the game mechanics threw me. But hey, this is a different game, not a sequel, right? It all started with
Akalabeth (earlier, if you listen to the creator), which only had going into dungeons.
Ultima added a countryside to walk around in and an overarching plot, as well as the dungeons.
Ultima II had 4 time zones to travel in, and some other worlds as well.
Ultima III got rid of all the extra landscapes, but added the ability to have groups, and tactical combat. While quite different from Ultima II, it was a worthy sequel to Ultima.
Ultima IV, while changing radically the goal and manner of achieving the quest, had almost Identical gameplay to Ultima III, adding only the option to recruit for your party.
And that's as far as I've gotten in the series, though I've looked at some of the sequels. It looks like minor modifications were made with each iteration, while keeping the gameplay the same.

THE BARD'S TALE
The original game had a city to walk around in, lots of classes to fill your party with, 4 magic classes and the unique bard class. You had to go back to the adventurer's guild to save.
Bard's Tale II had some refinements to gameplay, several cities to walk around in, and a wilderness in between, too. I'm not sure if this one had the archmage class added or we got that in?
Bard's Tale III, which had one city with a wilderness around it, several other worlds to access, 2 new magic classes in addition to the archmage, and some really interesting spells. But the gameplay was basically the same as it ever was. Good sequel.

SIM CITY
SimCity Was a fine game, with budgets, zoning, pollution, traffic, and more to deal with. I didn't play it that much, but enough to appreciate the improvements in?
SimCity 2000. The new isometric view, plumbing, and more flexible zoning improve the game, but keep the gameplay almost identical to the first. Enough so that players often refer to the original now as SimCity Lite. Reminds me a lot of the difference between Civilization and Civilization II.
I never got SimCity 3000, so I can't say what that is like.

MASTER OF ORION
The original hooked me but good. Each world had a bunch of sliders to allocate the production of your colony. If you didn't put enough into ecology, your colony would get polluted and unable to sustain a high population. You could build missile bases (as many as you want) and ships at the same time, adjusting the sliders at will. The research system was involving on its own. The research points collected from colonies could be allocated between fields of research by sliders, and choose which thing to research in each field. You could build a few large ships, or tons of tiny ships, depending on your playing style. It also had a goodly amount of unique races, each with their own abilities. It was Great!
Master Of Orion II had a lot of welcome improvements, such as having multiple worlds per system, Customizable races, Improved combat options, and bunches of new techs. But it was also heavily (and I mean HEAVILY) influenced by Master Of Magic. Instead of sliders to manage your colonies, you moved workers around. Instead of a host of other effects, There were buildings to be built in your colonies, only one of each, and no building a building and a ship at the same time. Instead of multiple simultaneous research lines, you could only research one thing at a time, and could only pick the field of research, not which thing in the field. Instead of being able to build large or small ships to your preference, The game rewarded builders of large ships because of a ship limiting feature that depends on number, not size. The list goes on. There were so many changes to the basic gameplay that it didn't feel like the same game anymore, and I ended up uninstalling it.
After such a bad experience with Master Of Orion II, I haven't given Master Of Orion III a serious look. But what I've heard sounds disturbing enough to discourage me. Whatever comes out, I feel it won't be like the great Master Of Orion.

HEROES OF MIGHT AND MAGIC
It sort of started with a game called King's Bounty, which might be referred to as Hero Of Might And Magic. Going out and purchasing the services of various creatures to fight in your army.
Heroes Of Might And Magic Allowed you to control multiple heroes, build up the various castles, and (Wow!) Lifted the limits of how many creatures you could have in your armies, an improvement they've never gone back on.
Heroes Of Might And Magic II Improved the magic system, added a couple of castle and hero types, and added a secondary skills system.
Heroes Of Might And Magic III revised the 8 castles, doubled the amount of heroes, divided the magic system into 4 schools, diversified the secondary skills options, and made some other small tweaks. Through it all, the gameplay remains remarkably the same. Just as engrossing as when it first began. These guys know how to make a sequel!
Heroes Of Might And Magic IV is coming, with the ability to have multiple heroes or no heroes in an army, yet more castle revision, and so on. I expect it will still have the same great gameplay as the rest.

And now, the biggie.

CIVILIZATION
Civ was a great game, no doubt about it. Engrossed a lot of us (and still does!) for a long while. But they made a sequel anyway.
Civilization II came along with improved graphics, Some tweaks to gameplay, and some new techs, units, and buildings. That's about it. Yet people have described it as Brilliant . Some of the same people who are now condemning Civ3 for not being different enough. But when Civ2 came out, the gameplay was basically the same, with some new wrinkles, and this was good enough for most of us. Even though by today's standards, the improvements from civ1 to civ2 (except for the graphics) would barely qualify as an expansion pack.
Now Civilization III is on the horizon and coming closer. The graphics have been updated, and there are some gameplay tweaks, which is basically what we got from Civ1 to Civ2. But in addition, there are the added features of resources and culture. The question, in determining a sequel, is not whether these changes are good. The question is whether the changes make it a different game. From What I've seen, It seems you can still use all the same tactics in Civ3 that you did in previous iterations, they just won't work as well. That makes it a good sequel.

I have left off numerous series because I have played only one of the group, and cannot judge how good the sequel process was. Series such as XCOM, Duke Nukem, Baldur's Gate, Warcraft, Journeyman Project, Age Of Empires, Links, Dark Forces, Xwing, Command And Conquer, and so on. I expect that some of them kept and expanded on the gameplay of their predecessors, while others capitalized only on the names of the originals, making new games.

One way to make new games with established names without corrupting the sequels of the original, is to make spinoffs. Might And Magic did this successfully with the Heroes Of Might And Magic turn based strategy, Crusaders Of Might And Magic first person play, and who knows what else. This has also been begun with Command and Conquer: Renegade, a first person shooter set in the Command And Conquer universe.

To some people, it seems that if a game doesn't get made over unrecognizably into a different game, then it's not a sequel. I disagree. I think that if a game becomes something different, it is no longer a sequel, it is a new game.

But that is just My Opinion.

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I love Civ, but I still dabble in a few other games

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