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Generally, I consider CtP2 to be the best civ-game. Still, time to time, I find myself drawn back to playing an odd game of Civ 3. I want to post here a few things that I think are superior in Civ 3, both for my own referrence and possibly to provoke some discussion. Also, maybe outline the bad parts of Civ 3.
Diplomacy. Let's face it, Civ 3 has more flexible diplomacy, with the ability to make basically any proposal you would ever want to. The bargaining table rules. The part that sucks is, that the AI often gets some unreasonable deals. It will offer you all of its income for some tech, for instance, very often.
Combat system. OK, this is where CtP wins hands down. CtP offers a compliciated and stategical battle system, while Civ 3 has it a bit too random, and with far less depth involved. If you're attacking one Pikeman with 10 Knights, then several Knights attack simultaneously and kill the Pikeman easily... that's in CtP2. In Civ 3, it can take you 4 Knights to take one Pikeman out, which is ridicilous.
AI. OK, this is the big one. And this is the reason why I still play Civ 3 time to time. The Civ 3 AI not only provides a challenge, it seems to play intelligently at times. CtP2 AI can provide a challenge sometimes, but it does incredibly stupid things, and cheats obviously.
Civ 3 AI attacks in a way that no other AI does. I have had it send wave after wave of troops over the border, with naval bombardment support. On island maps, it will approach your land with a huge navy, bomb your improvements and land a sizeable force. It will do whatever it can to establish a stronghold on your land rather than wander around randomly. In a war, that AI has a decent concept of what its objectives are.
Sometimes that AI has moments of brilliance. For instance, I've seen it build Fortresses and populate them with defensive units on chokepoints! I have seen a sudden appearance of troops behind my main lines, taking a weakly defended city. And I have seen the AI work efficiently to cut off my supply of some strategic resource.
Civ 3 AI will also colonize as much land as it can, and will try to improve its cities at all times. Note that it doesn't get free Workers or anything, it terraforms fairly. And that terraforming is decent enough - at least the AI will never go for a super-science city that is starving, or something like that.
Diplomatically, while the AI might sometimes ask for ridicilous deals, or give up stuff too easily, it will also often make interesting offers, and actually have you think about tempting ones.
And, you should note how the Civ 3 AI moves it troops. Sure, it might sometimes make weird changes of direction, but generally, it has a front line, and it has its troops moving towards one of your cities - or sometimes several cities.
Now, the CtP2 AI. It's very poor at war. It doesn't have the concept of conquering some land. It can only go after your cities, one at a time, and it will usually not strike two targets - and it will certainly never make a massive assault from two directions - which Civ 3 AI sometimes does. CtP2 AI, when attacked, will assemble some stacks to retake whatever cities it does lose, but it will often not actually attack the cities. It would let its stacks get bombarded by artillery. And, again, I get the feeling that attacks are pretty random. In Civ 3, if my city gets attacked, I know the AI civ is serious, and there's more coming, while in CtP2, I sometimes get attacked once, and then see no hostility for 40 turns.
Another problem with CtP2 AI that I seem to run into is that it doesn't value peace. I usually find myself conquering most of some civ, leaving them small, and signing a ceasefire. No, the idiots will attack me with their small stack a few turns later... and if we end the war, they'll start it again soon... generally forcing me to destroy them.
Next thing. While the CtP2 AI can do a decent job in protecting its cities, at least as far as packing them with units goes, it's sometimes ridicilous. Sometimes most cities in an empire are unprotected. I have had my one Musketman cripple a whole civ, simply marching through their land, and burning most of their cities, undefended. By the time the Musketman was finally killed by some patrol stack, the civ was already crippled and out of competiton. It only had 4 cities out of a dozen remaining, and I sent two 12-stacks to dispose of them.
Also, when will the AI defend its conquests? If it takes your city, it will always move its units out, leaving you free to recapture the city next turn. Bah. OK, so noone forces me to exploit this and recapture the city, but it would also be extremely stupid not to do so.
CtP2 AI won't expand. Or will do so too much. Sometimes I see those stupid isolationists. Stuck on an island, colonize it all with 8 cities, do nothing for rest of the game, till I come and destroy them. Sometimes the AI stops expanding while there's still much place to colonize - and it generally has too few cities.
It cheats, IMO, too visibly. Sometimes by 15 turns in the game, it has a size 5 city surrounded with Farms. It's obvious sometimes that the AI has established its first cities through cheating... not that it helps it much, but the fact annoys me often.
Oh, and one more thing that both the Civ 3 and CtP2 AI fail at. They have no concept of victory. They just play the game, not apparently headed for any victory condition. Well, an exception is Civ3 late game, when the AI will really try to build the spaceship. But, if the AIs see you're going to win, it's not like they're trying to prevent you from doing so, if your relations are friendly.
Diplomacy. Let's face it, Civ 3 has more flexible diplomacy, with the ability to make basically any proposal you would ever want to. The bargaining table rules. The part that sucks is, that the AI often gets some unreasonable deals. It will offer you all of its income for some tech, for instance, very often.
Combat system. OK, this is where CtP wins hands down. CtP offers a compliciated and stategical battle system, while Civ 3 has it a bit too random, and with far less depth involved. If you're attacking one Pikeman with 10 Knights, then several Knights attack simultaneously and kill the Pikeman easily... that's in CtP2. In Civ 3, it can take you 4 Knights to take one Pikeman out, which is ridicilous.
AI. OK, this is the big one. And this is the reason why I still play Civ 3 time to time. The Civ 3 AI not only provides a challenge, it seems to play intelligently at times. CtP2 AI can provide a challenge sometimes, but it does incredibly stupid things, and cheats obviously.
Civ 3 AI attacks in a way that no other AI does. I have had it send wave after wave of troops over the border, with naval bombardment support. On island maps, it will approach your land with a huge navy, bomb your improvements and land a sizeable force. It will do whatever it can to establish a stronghold on your land rather than wander around randomly. In a war, that AI has a decent concept of what its objectives are.
Sometimes that AI has moments of brilliance. For instance, I've seen it build Fortresses and populate them with defensive units on chokepoints! I have seen a sudden appearance of troops behind my main lines, taking a weakly defended city. And I have seen the AI work efficiently to cut off my supply of some strategic resource.
Civ 3 AI will also colonize as much land as it can, and will try to improve its cities at all times. Note that it doesn't get free Workers or anything, it terraforms fairly. And that terraforming is decent enough - at least the AI will never go for a super-science city that is starving, or something like that.
Diplomatically, while the AI might sometimes ask for ridicilous deals, or give up stuff too easily, it will also often make interesting offers, and actually have you think about tempting ones.
And, you should note how the Civ 3 AI moves it troops. Sure, it might sometimes make weird changes of direction, but generally, it has a front line, and it has its troops moving towards one of your cities - or sometimes several cities.
Now, the CtP2 AI. It's very poor at war. It doesn't have the concept of conquering some land. It can only go after your cities, one at a time, and it will usually not strike two targets - and it will certainly never make a massive assault from two directions - which Civ 3 AI sometimes does. CtP2 AI, when attacked, will assemble some stacks to retake whatever cities it does lose, but it will often not actually attack the cities. It would let its stacks get bombarded by artillery. And, again, I get the feeling that attacks are pretty random. In Civ 3, if my city gets attacked, I know the AI civ is serious, and there's more coming, while in CtP2, I sometimes get attacked once, and then see no hostility for 40 turns.
Another problem with CtP2 AI that I seem to run into is that it doesn't value peace. I usually find myself conquering most of some civ, leaving them small, and signing a ceasefire. No, the idiots will attack me with their small stack a few turns later... and if we end the war, they'll start it again soon... generally forcing me to destroy them.
Next thing. While the CtP2 AI can do a decent job in protecting its cities, at least as far as packing them with units goes, it's sometimes ridicilous. Sometimes most cities in an empire are unprotected. I have had my one Musketman cripple a whole civ, simply marching through their land, and burning most of their cities, undefended. By the time the Musketman was finally killed by some patrol stack, the civ was already crippled and out of competiton. It only had 4 cities out of a dozen remaining, and I sent two 12-stacks to dispose of them.
Also, when will the AI defend its conquests? If it takes your city, it will always move its units out, leaving you free to recapture the city next turn. Bah. OK, so noone forces me to exploit this and recapture the city, but it would also be extremely stupid not to do so.
CtP2 AI won't expand. Or will do so too much. Sometimes I see those stupid isolationists. Stuck on an island, colonize it all with 8 cities, do nothing for rest of the game, till I come and destroy them. Sometimes the AI stops expanding while there's still much place to colonize - and it generally has too few cities.
It cheats, IMO, too visibly. Sometimes by 15 turns in the game, it has a size 5 city surrounded with Farms. It's obvious sometimes that the AI has established its first cities through cheating... not that it helps it much, but the fact annoys me often.
Oh, and one more thing that both the Civ 3 and CtP2 AI fail at. They have no concept of victory. They just play the game, not apparently headed for any victory condition. Well, an exception is Civ3 late game, when the AI will really try to build the spaceship. But, if the AIs see you're going to win, it's not like they're trying to prevent you from doing so, if your relations are friendly.
) And with the unreasonable deals agreed. And also it is more flexible.
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