Diffuculty comparison from II to III

[bodiki]

Good morn folks, I am going to be picking up a copy of Civ's III in a couple of days and I am curios about the diffuculty settings compared to Civ's II. Will playing the higher settings being more challenging than Civ II? I have been playing Civ's II for several years and now only play diety.

Any feedback would be helpfull. Thanks.

[vee4473]

well, since i don't play on the higher levels, I can't help ya,

but, try and get the conquests expansion . They made even more levels. higher than deity.

[Catt]

Re: Diffuculty comparison from II to III

Originally posted by bodiki
Good morn folks, I am going to be picking up a copy of Civ's III in a couple of days and I am curios about the diffuculty settings compared to Civ's II. Will playing the higher settings being more challenging than Civ II? I have been playing Civ's II for several years and now only play diety.

Any feedback would be helpfull. Thanks.

I never played Civ II, but have heard from lots of players who always played Deity in Civ II and found that the learning curve to playing Civ III at Deity is considerably steeper. I know of several regular posters who played only Deity in Civ II who regularly play Monarchy or Emperor in Civ III (even if they are capable of playing and winning at higher levels).

Catt

[vmxa1]

I would say yes. It is not hard to learn the methods to win at any level in CivII.

CivIII has or rather had some techniques that could get you in position to win at deity, if you did the micromanaging and did not run afoul of the start location or the RNG.

I have not tried Sid since the patch came out, but it will still be some task to beat it, even with decent location IMO.

They have made an effort to make the AI play better with each patch/addon. It is not a genius, but they have improved it.

The most obvious thing is you do not see tons of CivIII players talking about cruising at deity in civ3.

[vondrack]

I was playing Regent (or whatever it was called - the "no bonus/no malus" level) only in Civ2, regularly winning it. After getting Civ3, I naturally picked Regent again... and had my ass handed to me game after game after game. It was so frustrating. It forced me to search for tips (and I eventually ended up here at Poly).

I would say that Civ3 is more of a challenge than Civ2, as there are less cheap tricks you can use (this is not to say they are none, though - there still are plenty, just not as many and as cheap as in Civ2). Plus - the AI, however lame compared to a human - is a vast improvement over the Civ2 AI.

IMHO, the most difficult thing to get used to is the fact that Civ3 is not Civ2 plus a few new bells and whizzles. The game has been redesigned in many areas and as long as you will keep applying the same Civ2 strategies, ignoring the new/changed stuff, you will most probably find yourself losing badly. Do not start above Regent, whatever it was you played Civ2 at - and make sure you at least skim through the best threads Theseus compiled in the Strat forum. It will save you a lot of wasted time.

Enjoy!

[Capt Dizle]

Essentially Civ3 was created by taking anything and everything out of the gameplay that the AI could not effectively use. This was done to create the impression that the AI is good. It isn't.

Gameplay is linear and repetitive. Once you discover the ways and means to defeat the AI it is very mechanical and non-fulfilling. If you want to learn this you can go to civfanatics and look at the GOTM threads. You will quickly learn the tricks that will enable you to defeat vanilla and PTW on diety 95%+ of the time.

The momentum rush which was the bane of all previous civ games not only still exists in Civ3 but is even more powerful than it was in some other versions of Civ. Essentially the developer's attempts to eliminate the rush were a complete and abject failure. This reflects the level of professional ability at Firaxis today, which is lower than it was when BR was there by a factor of 10.

I have no loaded Conquest up yet but knowing Firaxis I would bet the lives of my grandchildren that it is more of the same schlock.

As will be Civ4 if Firaxis makes it.

[pedrojedi]

That was harsh.

Anyway, I can't say if jimmy is or isn't overcritical, since I did not went to that thread at civfanatics, nor tested any particular tip of theirs.

What I can say about it is that Civ3 is much more difficult than Civ2. Much of my gameplay style had to be completely changed, and I found out a lot of dogmas that should be changed to not keep losing. Poly's foruns were a great help, and I learned a lot here. If you browse this large archive long enough, you can find virtually any information you want about strategy, gameplay and style. I did take out the exact amount of information I wanted, enabling me to win without melting my brain at every game, at the same time that it keeps being challenging.

But definitely, it is very much more difficult.

[vondrack]

Yeah... linear and repetitive, sure...

Even if I admitted that this game (as almost any other, btw) becomes linear and repetitive after some time, there is a very simple solution - start playing against humans. PBEM/MP gets rid of this "linearity and repetitivness" very easily and very effectively, believe me.

[notyoueither]

jimmy's just bitter that his love letter was unrequited.

[Theseus]

bodiki, welcome aboard!!

Yes, III is more difficult (and overall *better*) than II. I also was a Deity player, and have pretty much settled on Emperor now.

jt is correct, in a way... if you want to play a linear game, you can, but this was true of all previous versions as well. III has more and more depth.

Check out the Apolyton University forum too.

[justjake73]

Civ2 was basically "you're human so we hate you." I play Regent (Prince) in III, and that's tough enough for me; in II, I could have conceivably gone higher if I didn't quit because of the asinine, backstabbing, hyprocritical, warmongering AI.

[EnduringBlue]

As far as differences from Civ2 to Civ3, my initial reactions were on the subject of Wonders...I always liked having auto-upgrade from Leonardo's workshop, and the must-offer-peace requirement imposed by Great Wall, both of which are negated. Carefully re-read descriptions of the Wonders; I believe you will find that the order in which you value them will change significantly.

Aesthetically, I miss the mini-movies that ran when you obtained each wonder.

The game mechanics are more complex. Delve into the game editor to see exactly what numbers are default values and what changes for the AI players between difficulty levels.

Personally I like playing Huge maps with ungodly amounts of AI opponents (if you're into that sort of masochism and have plenty of time on your hands, C3C with 31 players is a glorious mess as long as you don't mind dying of old age between turns)

Overall, the best part (for me) is the increased variety of methods of winning. Space Race is often unfulfilling unless you're playing a hard enough game that it was already challenging from Medieval onwards...now with diplomatic, cultural, domination, and my new favorite Elimination, replay value is greatly increased.

[vmxa1]

Everybody is always saying how they missed the wonder movies, but most just cursed them and click past them after about the 500th time one plays.

IIRC it ws the UN that could force peace.

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by notyoueither
jimmy's just bitter that his love letter was unrequited.

Which one?

[notyoueither]

You have sent them more?