Older Civs for a Civ IV newbie?

[RGBVideo]

All Civilization-styled games I've so far encountered have been wonderful games I've enjoyed -- Civilization, Civilization 2, Alpha Centauri, Call to Power, Civilization 3, Civilization 4. I'll always remember the first time I played the original Civilization in 1992.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Solver
It's funny how everyone praises Civ4, but seems to ignore or just miss the fact how many things in Civ4 have been inspired by the CtP series.

- Diehard freak

Examples? I can't think of anything in Civ4 that isn't either new or in Civ2/3/SMAC.

[Solver]

Religion. CtP's religion system wasn't as detailed as Civ4, but still, you had these missionary-like units that would spread religion into foreign cities. If you managed to do that, you received a part of their income. Certainly has similarities to Civ4 religion.

Upgradeable terrain improvements (cottages that grow into something better). Only in CtP you paid to upgrade. Oh, actually the whole deal with a commerce-boosting terrain improvement is CtP.

Fisheries. SMAC had water cities and general water terraforming, CtP introduced water improvements for coastal cities.

City bombardment, sort of. You could bombard cities with siege units in CtP. It damaged the defenders directly, but given the very different combat system in CtP, the effect was that of simplifying the actual attack when you make it.

CtP was also the first game to have a health system of some sort, along the lines of Civ4. Too many people caused overcrowding, which slowed growth (kind of like Civ4 unhealthiness slows growth). Late in the game, bioweapons would have similar effects against the population as big Civ4 unhealthiness does.

Mind you, Civ3 is actually newer than CtP. But in Civ3, I can only think of one noticeable thing that is CtP inspired, which is paying support costs for troops not from one specific city, but from your overall budget. Civ4, on the other hand, has quite a number of things similar to CtP, though people usually don't know it.

[fed1943]

Originally posted by VJ
All Civilization-styled games I've so far encountered have been wonderful games I've enjoyed -- Civilization, Civilization 2, Alpha Centauri, Call to Power, Civilization 3, Civilization 4. I'll always remember the first time I played the original Civilization in 1992.

Same here.

And, the older Master of Magic (IMO it belongs to the same trait).

Best regards,

[Nikolai]

Solver: Wasn't borders something CTP had first too? Or was that SMAC? I can't remember which came first right now. I never played CTP, but didn't it come out sometime near SMAC?

[Solver]

Borders were in SMAC. Both it and CtP came out in 1999.

CtP had a sort-of implementation of borders, but it was weak. There were no visible borders, but area within (IIRC) 2 tiles of a city was considered to belong to that civ. AI civs would sometimes ask you to withdraw troops if you entered that area - you could ask the same of them. But CtP didn't have real borders until CtP2, which was a 2000 game.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Solver
Religion. CtP's religion system wasn't as detailed as Civ4, but still, you had these missionary-like units that would spread religion into foreign cities. If you managed to do that, you received a part of their income. Certainly has similarities to Civ4 religion.

I don't really remember that part (wasn't it just a single mission for one of the units?), but Civ4's religion is leaps and bounds beyond that. There weren't even specific "religions" per se, were there? Just a flag to say whether a city was giving part of its income to another civ.

Upgradeable terrain improvements (cottages that grow into something better). Only in CtP you paid to upgrade.

I don't think there's a link. CtP's represented increasing improvement efficiency with technology. Cottages growing is unrelated.

Oh, actually the whole deal with a commerce-boosting terrain improvement is CtP.

Oh come on, that's trivial and roads boosted commerce beforehand.

Fisheries. SMAC had water cities and general water terraforming, CtP introduced water improvements for coastal cities.

I'll give you that.

City bombardment, sort of. You could bombard cities with siege units in CtP. It damaged the defenders directly, but given the very different combat system in CtP, the effect was that of simplifying the actual attack when you make it.

SMAC had bombardment.

CtP was also the first game to have a health system of some sort, along the lines of Civ4. Too many people caused overcrowding, which slowed growth (kind of like Civ4 unhealthiness slows growth). Late in the game, bioweapons would have similar effects against the population as big Civ4 unhealthiness does.

I'll give you the relation there, since that was CtP's implementation of the Aquaduct/Hospital system (which was merged into the Health system in Civ4).

Mind you, Civ3 is actually newer than CtP. But in Civ3, I can only think of one noticeable thing that is CtP inspired, which is paying support costs for troops not from one specific city, but from your overall budget.

I think everyone had figured out that was a good idea given the MM involved in base support.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Solver
Borders were in SMAC. Both it and CtP came out in 1999.

CtP had a sort-of implementation of borders, but it was weak. There were no visible borders, but area within (IIRC) 2 tiles of a city was considered to belong to that civ. AI civs would sometimes ask you to withdraw troops if you entered that area - you could ask the same of them. But CtP didn't have real borders until CtP2, which was a 2000 game.

Civ2 had exactly the same border mechanic.

[Solver]

Civ2 had exactly the same border mechanic.

But I think there was no withdrawal agreement. Granted, SMAC was the first game to do borders properly.

I don't really remember that part (wasn't it just a single mission for one of the units?), but Civ4's religion is leaps and bounds beyond that. There weren't even specific "religions" per se, were there? Just a flag to say whether a city was giving part of its income to another civ.

Civ4, itself, is way ahead of CtP. I'm not trying to say otherwise, I'm trying to show which Civ4 concepts are similar to / inspired by CtP. Yes, the CtP system was an on/off flag, and a mission of a specific unit. Though actually the unit had more missions.

I don't think there's a link. CtP's represented increasing improvement efficiency with technology. Cottages growing is unrelated.

There may or may not be a link, but it is similar - terrain improvements that become better over time. What they represent is irrelevant, it's the idea of their growth/evolution that is.

Oh come on, that's trivial and roads boosted commerce beforehand.

Okay, but roads never excluded any other improvement, so you just spammed them everywhere. CtP's trading posts were a real terrain improvement, as in they couldn't coexist with others.

SMAC had bombardment.

SMAC had artillery. Which functioned rather differently. But okay, it can be argued either way, as it's not easy to say whether Civ4 bombardment is closer to SMAC or CtP bombardment. This idea was advanced well further in Civ4, at any rate.

I think everyone had figured out that was a good idea given the MM involved in base support.

I only wish "everyone" had figured out more good ideas for Civ3. But as a Civ3 thing, this is less relevant to my main point.

Oh, another CtP-ish thing in Civ4. Specialists. I know they were around since Civ1, but the Civ4 version is much more interesting and advanced. In that way, it's similar to CtP, where you had different sorts of specialists similar to those in Civ4 - Merchants and Engineers, for example.

Something I miss from CtP are missiles that can be carried by subs or bombers...

[Harovan]

To be exact, neither the borders in CtP2 nor in Civ3 were really borders, as you did not have sovereign rights over your territory. The only method to reliably get rid of intruders was by starting a war and kill them. In CtP2 there was also an option to expel non-combat units, but since they came back in the very next turn, this was just a repeated annoyance and needless micromanagement, until you lost your temper and attacked them nonetheless. If memory serves right, you could even found a city in enemy territory. In Civ3 this was a declaration of war, in CtP2 not even this, IIRC.

Civ4 is the first Civ game with real borders.

[Solver]

Well, in CtP2, Civ3 and SMAC you could ask the AIs to get the hell out of your land. They would, too, however, except for SMAC, they would pretty much come right back in.

[Harovan]

In Civ3 it took a few tries to ask friendly to get out without force, to get to the option, that expelled them directly. And yes, they came right back in. That was so wonderful exploitable, as far as settler/defender pairs go. I loved to trap them (encircle with units) on some area inside my territory, until I had enough and cracked the jackpot. Every settler gave 2 free workers, who albeit working at half speed, cost me nothing until the end of the game. How wonderful imbalancing.

Although adding them to your cities gave you a wonderful multicultural mix of your citizens, similar to modern metropoles, a nice touch that I miss somewhat in Civ4.

[Solver]

I'm very glad that with Civ4 the decision was made to have entering borders constitute a declaration of war without a treaty. This settles the whole silly thing of AIs coming right back in, adds more realism and strategy .

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
And a word from the wise - completely bypass the Call to Power series.

Amen to that.

[Solver]

And one more CtP-ish thing in Civ4. First strikes. CtP had ranged units, Civ4 has the first strike system - the end result is pretty similar. These units have better survivability because they can, during one stage of the combat, damage the enemy without being at risk themselves.