Civ III vs IV

[Lacrymas]

Given GOG's current sale and my long-term desire to get into the Civs, I pose a question - which is better and why? Is Civ even good at all? Discuss.

 

[LizardWizard]

IV has god tier mods.

Wouldn't play either vanilla, might as well just boot up Alpha Centauri

 

[luj1]

Alpha Centauri > Civ II > Civ III

 

[Trashos]

Civ4 is a masterpiece of a strategy game, and I don't think it will be topped soon. Even better with the BTS expansion.

 

[Starwars]

I think some of the BTS additions are pretty bad actually but even so, you can't really go wrong with Civ IV. It's a fantastic game.

III sucks.

 

[hoothoot]

IIIs alright but IV has way more depth.

 

[oscar]

Civ IV + expansions is perfection and even unmodded is a very solid, well-balanced yet fun experience. I'd get a couple of games under your belt before touching the mods (some of them do some crazy stuff with the engine).

III is a bit meh

 

[Circuit the Short]

Civ 4 + Dune Wars is the best civ experience.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

vanilla, 1.0, i remember civ4 having serious issues and lack of content. with patches, mods and all the nine yards, civ4 hands down.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I think this is the thread you're refencing Lacrymas

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...he-most-complex-civ-game.111706/#post-4799647

 

[and 8 others]

As so many others have already written, Civ 4 + BTS is near perfection. I must have spent 100s of hrs playing it, and I still come back to it every few years.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

it's waaaaaaaaaaaaay far from perfection, but it's the best we have available. that'll do.

 

[Destroid]

Civ3 really pissed me off after playing Alpha Centauri. Civ4 is better.

 

[hoothoot]

Anyone can recommend some mods for Civ4?

 

[catfood]

It's moments like these that make me wish Skyway was still posting.

Anyway as always SMAC > any Civ game.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I couldn't play more than 10 hours of civ 3. It's been decades so I forget why but I fucking hated it, it wasn't mere disappointment.

 

[Tigranes]

Civ 4 will remain, for all its flaws, the last good civ on this planet.

 

[Lacrymas]

So, what this thread tells me is just to play Alpha Centauri instead? Sounds good.

 

[BING XI LAO]

I am going to have to make a thread posting screenshots from a variety of civ4 mods and discussing some of the unique stuff they do. TREMENDOUS stuff

 

[coldcrow]

Best mods are: Realism Invictus, Dune Wars, K-Mod, Rise from the Ashes (fall from heaven modmod)

 

[SniperHF]

The only thing I really don't like about IV is espionage's excesses. On top of that disabling espionage is kind of dumb in how it works as well because it converts the buildings into culture which somewhat Borks the culture system.
Thankfully there's the "End of Espionage" mod which removes all that crap.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Civ IV is to Civ III as Civ II is to Civilization. Prove me wrong!

 

[Destroid]

So, what this thread tells me is just to play Alpha Centauri instead? Sounds good.

NO ! alpha centauri is not worthy,play CIV 5 instead !

Don't you mean Civ 6?

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I never liked CivIII. I dunno why, honestly, I loved II and for years it was a constant presence in my HD when I was a kid and teen. III never sat right with me. The cartoony art, the "settler race" nature of the early game push, the boring doomstackish combat, the shit boring AI, etc. Honestly, only reason I ever touched it was to play the Fallout Mod, which was damn good.

IV would be pure perfection if it didn't run like ABSOLUTE DOGSHIT in modern systems, due to being an old-ass implementation of Gamebryo and full of other third-party programs and code that is simply OLD AS FUCK. Game suffers from massive performance and memory leak issues. Its doesn't even have 64-bit support.

Also, let's be frank here: IV was a good game, yes. But the truth is, IV exists mainly as a modding plataform. Nobody plays IV vanilla.

If those problems somehow went away, it could easily become the most absurdly epic civilization game ever. Imagine bigger-than-huge worldmaps with over fifty civilizations, ultra-detailed maps, giant tech-trees, vast barbarian hordes, etc etc. Considering how modabble IV is, the sky is the limit. Or would be, IF the engine was not ABSOLUTE DOGSHIT.

So, what this thread tells me is just to play Alpha Centauri instead? Sounds good.

The truth is that a good chunk of innovations in the newer civ games since SMAC is pretty much porting SMAC features.
Like Sociological Engineering -> Civics in IV.

Makes you wonder how Firaxis developed III after SMAC. Hard to believe it was the same developers.

 

[Endemic]

Makes you wonder how Firaxis developed III after SMAC. Hard to believe it was the same developers.

It's worth noting that Firaxis initially produced an American Civil War game, and that was successful enough to merit a sequel. I remember playing the Gettysburg demo several times back in '97.

It wasn't the same developers each time - Reynolds left in 2000, and he was a big part of why SMAC is memorable. SMAC was inventive because of an IP issue, essentially. They had to rework a lot of things to avoid infringing on the Civ copyright and attracting legal' attention. Coincidentally some of the classic Civ mechanics (instant contact with other Civ leaders, that somehow survived the whole thousands of years game) made more sense in the scifi setting. Lead designers changed after each subsequent Civ game.

Incidentally, I think Call to Power's engine is a bit better for having the orbital layer.