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Why Civ2 is better than Civ3
I posted the following in Civfan in a Civ3/Civ2 poll (civ3 was winning) I'd like to see what you all think of this, I don't think I included all the problems but it expresses my general feelings:
A lot of people here seem to be the kind who played civ2, but never played MP, or who are new to the game. For this reason I'll resist the temptation to scream my head off at the results of the poll, and will go through a couple points that I feel make civ2 the far superior game.
1 - Strategic flexibility: Civ2 presented the player with many options all throughout the game. What government to go for? What techs to research? Who to attack, what cities to attack, where to explore, where to expand, how many cities to build, what units to build, what wonders to build, when and which improvements to build, and many more. Civ3 includes many of these choices, but others have been removed or the impact of choosing one over another has been dulled.
For example, now, when a player's capital is captured, it automatically moves to another usually nearby city. In civ2, the only way you could do this is if you had at least 1000 gold - it cost to relocate after your capital was captured. I have devastated many a civ and won many games by capturing my opponent's capital. It gives an important city to go for in an attack, one that can cripple the opponent if they lose it and thus a lot of strategic planning can go into taking and holding an opponents capital city and/or his wonder city. In civ3, it'll just relocate, so the only strategically important cities are the wonder cities. To make matters worse, cities culturally swap so easily that there will be no point trying to hold the city, it is far better just razing the city instead, thus the strategy involved in holding the city is removed too.
Second, wonders have been limited too. In civ2, a lot of planning went into making sure you have enough caravans to build a wonder when you get the tech for it. In civ3, now there is no such choice. The only way to plan for a wonder is to prebuild some shields towards the wonder. Even doing this it just means the person who got to work on the wonder first is going to finish it, unless you get really lucky and get a great leader. So basically it means the person who is in the lead in tech is going to finish wonders first, and a lot of that can go down to luck in start position. Not good.
Another strategically limiting factor is the lack of choice in techs. Now tech is split into several ages, artificially limiting the number of choices that you can make. As an example of what I used in civ2, in 2x2x small map duels, my tech path was horseback riding -> ceremonial burial -> alphabet -> code of laws -> monarchy, and afterwards in some cases warrior code -> feudalism -> chivalry. Now in civ3, the latter two techs would be put into the medieval era, thus I could not choose to research them. Thus, my choice of tech path is being artificially limited by the game, I need 15-20 other techs just so that I can go for these! An artificial limit with no reason behind it. And tech research is so slow, I am going to be forced to research a lot of techs that I have no use for whatsoever simply to get to what I want.
Another to look at is governments. In civ2, monarchy/republic were huge improvements over despotism, and the early game choice was to go for either monarchy, or republic. It was a long time before it was decided which government was the best to go for, and as it happens, it matters on the situation that you are in. However, in civ3, there is no reason to ever go for monarchy, as despotism is a far superior wartime government. Republic is not a very good one to go for either, due to the amount of time it takes to get there, due to the fact that you still have enormous corruption in it, and due to the fact that you cannot go to war without huge unhappiness penalties, even in a defensive war. Thus your choices are being hurt right from the start.
Another problem I will go through is roads. Roads are important in both civ2 and civ3 for transport and trade. They were also useful in attacking a civ - take control of their roads in an attack and you can capture cities much faster. However, in civ3 even this has been removed. Now you cannot use roads very effectively in an attack regardless of what the opponent does, because it's in his culture boundary. Thus the opponent can just sit there, taking no precautions, and be secure in the knowledge that you cannot blitz through his civ unless you have hundreds of fast units. Not a good thing in my opinion, because it has again taken some of the planning and strategy out of the game. Many games I have won and lost by taking or losing control of my road network.
Yet another problem is cities. In civ2, it was generally a good thing to have more cities. There are ways of building up a few cities to large size and high trade/production rapidly, but generally the best way to win is to have plenty of cities. It's your call weather you build 20 or 100. In civ3, there is no such flexibility. There is a fixed number of cities which is ideal depending on the size of the map, or if you're in despotism all you have to do is build hundreds of cities and rush out the units/improvements.
A final problem I will go through is culture. Culture is a great idea at first glance. Playing the actual game though, you realise there are problems. Why bother capturing a city when three turns later it's going to revolt? Why bother garrisoning a captured city with ten units when it can still revolt and you can lose virtually all you army? There should be no way a city with half as many military units in it never mind with twice it's population in units should be able to revolt - how would the population pull this off? The game should be called Genocide 3 really, as all I do when I go to war is raze cities unless I can blitz through my opponents empire in a few turns! Sure I feel like I'm controlling an empire, the Mongol empire or the Huns, not the Babylonians or Chinese! Not like in Civ2 when an opponents captured empire would be very beneficial to my production and it generally wasn't a great thing to destroy all their cities. Culture could be implemented well, but in my opinion it should be done in such a way that undefended cities are the only ones that can flip, and other cities generate partisan type units appropriate to the technology of the invaded civ (for example warriors, archers, knights, etc). This would give you a reason to garrison cities and slow down invasions without making city capture pointless.
2 - Suitability for MP - Ok, civ2 wasn't the most ideal game for multiplay. A lot of people might find it slow/boring although certain settings can help alleviate that problem. A lot of people here seem to think that civ3 is going to be a great game for multiplay. However, in my opinion this is not going to be the case, for several reasons.
First, the game is slow. I've played 7 player medium map games in MP, and the wait between turns can become almost unbearable. There's nothing worse than waiting a few minutes in the early game just to move a couple units, and waiting 10-20 minutes in the later game waiting for players to move. Civ2 ran like the wind on my pc, but civ3 is slow even in single play. There was a simultaneous play option, but it was poorly implemented (the host players units could move faster and wipe out your army before you even got a chance to move) and required a few modifications to the game files. I dread to think what multiplay will be like in civ3 - I don't want to be waiting 20 minutes in the early game!
Another problem is the lack of strategic choices - the way the game is set up there is much less of a gap between good players and beginners, which is a bad thing in my opinion. Look at the previous section for examples of this.
Strategic resources cause a problem now too. Too much of the game now goes down to start position alone, which is really bad. Start positions were a major source of complaint in civ2, but now, imagine the advantage if you by chance get control of all the iron on the map. I for one would never trade it, I'd simply build hundreds of swordsmen and start conquering. There is nothing my opponents can do about it either, I will dominate the game early on. And it is harder to catch up in techs too, because diplomats have been removed. That's okay in SP, but disaster in MP as without trading there is no way to get the techs you need.
Summary: Civ2 in general offers far more choices to the player than civ3. Although civ3 offers many new features, most of them are not implemented well and thus they do not add to the game and in some cases can seriously detract from the enjoyment. Because of how slow the game runs and because of the limited strategic choices and poorly implemented features of the game, it will not without considerable modifications be viable for multiplay.
A lot of people here seem to be the kind who played civ2, but never played MP, or who are new to the game. For this reason I'll resist the temptation to scream my head off at the results of the poll, and will go through a couple points that I feel make civ2 the far superior game.
1 - Strategic flexibility: Civ2 presented the player with many options all throughout the game. What government to go for? What techs to research? Who to attack, what cities to attack, where to explore, where to expand, how many cities to build, what units to build, what wonders to build, when and which improvements to build, and many more. Civ3 includes many of these choices, but others have been removed or the impact of choosing one over another has been dulled.
For example, now, when a player's capital is captured, it automatically moves to another usually nearby city. In civ2, the only way you could do this is if you had at least 1000 gold - it cost to relocate after your capital was captured. I have devastated many a civ and won many games by capturing my opponent's capital. It gives an important city to go for in an attack, one that can cripple the opponent if they lose it and thus a lot of strategic planning can go into taking and holding an opponents capital city and/or his wonder city. In civ3, it'll just relocate, so the only strategically important cities are the wonder cities. To make matters worse, cities culturally swap so easily that there will be no point trying to hold the city, it is far better just razing the city instead, thus the strategy involved in holding the city is removed too.
Second, wonders have been limited too. In civ2, a lot of planning went into making sure you have enough caravans to build a wonder when you get the tech for it. In civ3, now there is no such choice. The only way to plan for a wonder is to prebuild some shields towards the wonder. Even doing this it just means the person who got to work on the wonder first is going to finish it, unless you get really lucky and get a great leader. So basically it means the person who is in the lead in tech is going to finish wonders first, and a lot of that can go down to luck in start position. Not good.
Another strategically limiting factor is the lack of choice in techs. Now tech is split into several ages, artificially limiting the number of choices that you can make. As an example of what I used in civ2, in 2x2x small map duels, my tech path was horseback riding -> ceremonial burial -> alphabet -> code of laws -> monarchy, and afterwards in some cases warrior code -> feudalism -> chivalry. Now in civ3, the latter two techs would be put into the medieval era, thus I could not choose to research them. Thus, my choice of tech path is being artificially limited by the game, I need 15-20 other techs just so that I can go for these! An artificial limit with no reason behind it. And tech research is so slow, I am going to be forced to research a lot of techs that I have no use for whatsoever simply to get to what I want.
Another to look at is governments. In civ2, monarchy/republic were huge improvements over despotism, and the early game choice was to go for either monarchy, or republic. It was a long time before it was decided which government was the best to go for, and as it happens, it matters on the situation that you are in. However, in civ3, there is no reason to ever go for monarchy, as despotism is a far superior wartime government. Republic is not a very good one to go for either, due to the amount of time it takes to get there, due to the fact that you still have enormous corruption in it, and due to the fact that you cannot go to war without huge unhappiness penalties, even in a defensive war. Thus your choices are being hurt right from the start.
Another problem I will go through is roads. Roads are important in both civ2 and civ3 for transport and trade. They were also useful in attacking a civ - take control of their roads in an attack and you can capture cities much faster. However, in civ3 even this has been removed. Now you cannot use roads very effectively in an attack regardless of what the opponent does, because it's in his culture boundary. Thus the opponent can just sit there, taking no precautions, and be secure in the knowledge that you cannot blitz through his civ unless you have hundreds of fast units. Not a good thing in my opinion, because it has again taken some of the planning and strategy out of the game. Many games I have won and lost by taking or losing control of my road network.
Yet another problem is cities. In civ2, it was generally a good thing to have more cities. There are ways of building up a few cities to large size and high trade/production rapidly, but generally the best way to win is to have plenty of cities. It's your call weather you build 20 or 100. In civ3, there is no such flexibility. There is a fixed number of cities which is ideal depending on the size of the map, or if you're in despotism all you have to do is build hundreds of cities and rush out the units/improvements.
A final problem I will go through is culture. Culture is a great idea at first glance. Playing the actual game though, you realise there are problems. Why bother capturing a city when three turns later it's going to revolt? Why bother garrisoning a captured city with ten units when it can still revolt and you can lose virtually all you army? There should be no way a city with half as many military units in it never mind with twice it's population in units should be able to revolt - how would the population pull this off? The game should be called Genocide 3 really, as all I do when I go to war is raze cities unless I can blitz through my opponents empire in a few turns! Sure I feel like I'm controlling an empire, the Mongol empire or the Huns, not the Babylonians or Chinese! Not like in Civ2 when an opponents captured empire would be very beneficial to my production and it generally wasn't a great thing to destroy all their cities. Culture could be implemented well, but in my opinion it should be done in such a way that undefended cities are the only ones that can flip, and other cities generate partisan type units appropriate to the technology of the invaded civ (for example warriors, archers, knights, etc). This would give you a reason to garrison cities and slow down invasions without making city capture pointless.
2 - Suitability for MP - Ok, civ2 wasn't the most ideal game for multiplay. A lot of people might find it slow/boring although certain settings can help alleviate that problem. A lot of people here seem to think that civ3 is going to be a great game for multiplay. However, in my opinion this is not going to be the case, for several reasons.
First, the game is slow. I've played 7 player medium map games in MP, and the wait between turns can become almost unbearable. There's nothing worse than waiting a few minutes in the early game just to move a couple units, and waiting 10-20 minutes in the later game waiting for players to move. Civ2 ran like the wind on my pc, but civ3 is slow even in single play. There was a simultaneous play option, but it was poorly implemented (the host players units could move faster and wipe out your army before you even got a chance to move) and required a few modifications to the game files. I dread to think what multiplay will be like in civ3 - I don't want to be waiting 20 minutes in the early game!
Another problem is the lack of strategic choices - the way the game is set up there is much less of a gap between good players and beginners, which is a bad thing in my opinion. Look at the previous section for examples of this.
Strategic resources cause a problem now too. Too much of the game now goes down to start position alone, which is really bad. Start positions were a major source of complaint in civ2, but now, imagine the advantage if you by chance get control of all the iron on the map. I for one would never trade it, I'd simply build hundreds of swordsmen and start conquering. There is nothing my opponents can do about it either, I will dominate the game early on. And it is harder to catch up in techs too, because diplomats have been removed. That's okay in SP, but disaster in MP as without trading there is no way to get the techs you need.
Summary: Civ2 in general offers far more choices to the player than civ3. Although civ3 offers many new features, most of them are not implemented well and thus they do not add to the game and in some cases can seriously detract from the enjoyment. Because of how slow the game runs and because of the limited strategic choices and poorly implemented features of the game, it will not without considerable modifications be viable for multiplay.
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