Civ3 vs. Civ4

[Arnelos]

As someone who actually LIKED Civ3 and played the heck of it for years (including beta testing for C3C), I still say Civ4 is better. The *game* is just so much more strategically interesting and fun.

That said, Civ3 had a better UI, graphics that could actually run on most systems, etc. Civ4 seems to have some pretty sloppy production when it comes to interfacing with a lot of graphics cards or using system resources. Hopefully, that's all patchable.

[Nailfoot]

Originally posted by tomcat ha
Ahh yes the councill. I loved them getting pissed when in anarchy. I so hate that i need to use a cracked version of civ2 because i lost my civ2 cd. I also miss the music that pissed my sisters off because i played civ2 so much for years. Ahh well its 2 comps later now. I still hope that on one day my civ2 cd will fall from the sky into my hands. I miss the intro, i miss the councill, i miss the wonder movies and i miss the music.

Here you go:

https://www.ebay.com

And the Fantastic Worlds expansion is right there too! Have fun.

[Khaim]

If your computer can run Civ IV, get it. It's a good game, and I'm sure they'll patch the really bad bugs soon.

That's a big "if" though. A lot of people are having trouble with the graphics, which are way more complicated than they need to be, and seem badly programmed on top of that.

[Arnelos]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Wait... you're saying that manual offering of sums of gold in Civ III, the absolute low of the franchize as far as friendly UI goes, is topped in Civ IV?

I'm just saying that, in general, the user interface in CivIV is less intuitive and user friendly than the one in Civ3.

Sure, all of the bells and whistles are nice, but they somewhat get in the way of having a simple and easy-to-use interface at times. This is worse for those of us with lower-end machines that have to disable the bells and whistles, but still get a suboptimal UI.

The *game* is awesome and certainly well above the previous Civ games. The UI, however, needs some work.

[VetLegion]

I hear you, I have a low end machine. I just disliked Civ III UI very very much. I don't have Civ IV yet, so I can't say.

[Falconius]

If you have the money to spend on upgrades, CIV 4 is a great game. After upgrading RAM, video card, and buying the game itself, I'm in over $400 !!!

That said, the game is great so far. It has a lot of personality that Civ 3 was lacking. I hated the bland yellowish background of Civ 3: whether you were looking at the terrain or the Civiliopedia, always the same bland yellow. Only two zoom levels in C3 also irked me. It had animated units you could barely see or distinguish because you couldn't zoom in close enough!

Playing my first C4 game as Rome on the Earth Map at Noble Level (the "even" level). Having fun, but the AI doesn't seem as challenging as in C3. My praetorians are knocking Germany on their butts. It's 1680 ad, and no one has declared war on me. I hope this changes at higher levels.

[Qwertqwert]

My computer is good enough I'm sure, 3000+, 6600GT, 2GB DDR400 RAM.

What I am asking is if this Civilization 4 is really worth $50 over Civilization 3, if you're not completly addicted to this game.

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by VetLegion
And, arhm, Civ2 is not simple, don't let me hear that ever again

How's that a negative? Some players loved Civ1/2 because it was very abstract and simple. You didn't need to think about where to spread your religions or where and how to get your resources or any such things.

[John-SJ]

Originally posted by VetLegion
I don't have Civ IV yet, but I'll put it this way: if Civ IV finally makes me uninstall Civ II, only then it's Da Bomb

I doubt I will be uninstalling Civ II anytime soon, but as of now, Civ III is on my short list of games to uninstall if I need disk space.

Put quite simply, CIV (IMO) is the best Civ game ever, and likely the best game ever! It really is that good!

[John-SJ]

Originally posted by Atahualpa

They are two different games. Civ 1/2 is great because it is simple, inspiring and straight forward.

I'd agree with that. Civ I/II are simple games, but in te way that chess is simple IMO. Sometimes simple games are the best, IMO.

[Sartaq]

I feel Civ IV is about getting back to basics. It also seems that they spent some serious time play balancing. So many great strat games have been utterly ruined by not taking the time to tweak the gameplay. I always prefer simple complexity over complex simplicity. Civ IV delivers, it feels very natural to play.

[spy14]

Very true, they could have taken the "make it awful pretty and screw the gameplay" road that some developers choose. Just a shame that its not quite finished yet