+ and - for all civ games

[Securion]

First of all, my english sux.

And now some questions...

1. I know there are more civ games out there than Civ3 and SMAX, but how good are they really? Are they all that bad?

2. I also know that most of us SMAX players are looking desperatly for a SMAX2 or atleast something similar to SMAX. Have anyone found anything? What game are most "lookalike" in gameplay to SMAX?

3. Does the other civ titles have anything to offer a civ2/smax player? If not, what are the major drawbacks for these titles?
(from a SMAX point of view)



Hey! Im talking to you!

[The Mad Monk]

Civ2 outclasses Civ3 in-oh-so-many ways. It's certainly cheap enough for you to but it and see for yourself -- plus there's tons of scenarios and mods out there for it.

If you dont care about wonder movies, the high council or building your palace, Civ2: Test Of Time has some very cool features that makes it a modmaker's dream. Now if only some modmakers had bought it...

MoO2 is the game that brought me into this genre. That's enough reason for you to try it right there.

[Alex]

CTP2 is not a bad game, provided it is properly modded. But no, you won't find many games whose gameplay is similar to that of SMAC... except Civilization, of course...

[Adalbertus]

I played Civ1 and Civ2 more than would be good. I like those games.
I bought CTP2, French version. Gameplay was not too excitingly new. Some nice ideas (stacked combat, enhanced diplomacy, build queues), but implementation was poor to non-existent. AI was made "tough" by giving it size 7 cities when you had size 1. These problems seem to have resolved by the modders. What made me furious about the game was the instability. I installed it about four times, one of the installations I could play more than 100 turns without reproducible crash (crash, you had to go back 10 years not to get the same crash, play 15 years, crash, go back 10 years ...). And I wiped it off my harddisk after I tried to install FixMod and my C:\ partition got corrupt so that I had to reinstall Windows. Two times the same. But maybe this is different with other computers/language versions.

Then I bought SMAC. Aaah. The best Civ game I've seen. The strategic limits are set by my phantasy and not by some programmers who want to make the game "hard".

Civ 3: I've got it but after a few games it didn't really excite me. The wonder movies are important - atmosphere wise. The Book of Planet in SMAC is one of the best things of the game, because it provides a storyline (without appearing forced) and creates atmosphere. The Book of Planet made me wanting to play green Deirde. SMAC takes me into, in Civ3 I just feel like a bureaucrat.
My brother likes CivCTP (= CTP1), mainly because the space colonies, I've heard it is also better than CTP2 when it comes to multiplayer.

I don't know the other Civ games, however.

[Jethro83]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Civ2 outclasses Civ3 in-oh-so-many ways. It's certainly cheap enough for you to but it and see for yourself -- plus there's tons of scenarios and mods out there for it.

Hopefully, the Firaxians are bunkering up in their underground offices preparing an XP for Civ III that is much more mod friendly. I miss being able to play a WWI mod as Germany and crushing the Allies, or a Colonization mod, as a native American civ which then catches up with the English and storms through Europe.

If you dont care about wonder movies, the high council or building your palace, Civ2: Test Of Time has some very cool features that makes it a modmaker's dream. Now if only some modmakers had bought it...

I know of some Civ2: ToT mods on www.civfanatics.com , but haven't tried them out for myself yet. But yes, if only more modmakers bought it. There is limitless potential in that one.

MoO2 is the game that brought me into this genre. That's enough reason for you to try it right there.

Haven't tried MoO2, but I wasn't too impressed with MoO1. I hope MoO3 is worth the wait and doesn't have the shortfalls I found in MoO1.


Anyway, Colonization is also a decent game in the Civ genre. Although I'd really like to see an option where you can play as one of the native Indian tribes. It would be cool to be able to play as the Aztecs, drive the Spaniards away, and use their firearms and horses to conquer the whole of America, and drive the English, French and Dutch out as well.

SMAC is another classic. Not only does it have the charms of Civ games, but it also has a deep plot, and many mysteries to unravel. It is a nice thing being able to be the University of Planet, and discovering the unknown before anybody else. Can't comment on SMAX because all of a sudden, it disappeared before I could buy it. The store clerks at Electronics Boutique denied that it ever existed (not really), and I'm not into the whole E-Commerce thing (I don't even have a credit card yet anyway). Still, SMAC is good enough without its expansion set.

[Sikander]

Civ 1: I played this game to death, it was fascinating and had a lot of depth.

Colonization: A less well-known Civ game, and AFAIK the first spinoff. It was an interesting idea (playing a colonial state in the western hemisphere) and there were a lot of interesting economic things to do, and probably the best city division of labor system done in a Civ type game AFAIK. This game suffered from a few developmental problems which AFAIK were never solved, so there are still a few parts of the game which are buggy or feel incomplete. It's still a fun game to play, and I fire it up at least once a year.

Civ 2: I didn't buy this until the MGE came out because I was already so burned out playing Civ 1. As a different game Civ 2 didn't really add that much to Civ 1, but as an update it did a great job of fixing bugs, adding acceptable graphics and expanding the game through multiplayer and player modification capabilities. All in all the second best value next to SMAC.

Master of Orion 2: Another quality game, set in space (4x). The relationship to Civ is probably less profound for this game than for any other on this list. That however is a good thing. This game allows many optional ways to play, including the ability to design your own race. Races are like factions in SMAC, and like SMAC their are 7 total. Thus besides all of the methods you might use or not in each game, you may choose to play a different race, which might change your strategy completely. Also this game has leaders (only eight, but they are cool and powerful), a decent espionage game, and last but not least .... ship design. This is really cool, as you play your ship battles out on a tactical screen, so it's like a game within a game.

Master of Magic: My favorite idea carried out in a Civ type game, I fervently hope that MoM 2 some day is made. Basically, this is a civ type game set in a fantasy world. Every player is a Wizard and controls a city populated by creatures of a particular race. Wizards can be selected from a pre-designed group, or designed by the player using a point system similar to MOO2 above. Suffice it to say that the number of potential types of Wizards and the ways that their capabilities could be utilized was enormous. An immense amount of gameplay just deciding which approach to take. Every particular race also has it's capabilities, from buildings it can build to units it can make. Finally each player could have up to 6 heroes, which could be outfitted with weapons, armor and other magical items found, bought, captured or built during gameplay. The interactions between all of the different units, spells, heroes, and abilities made this game a pleasure to contemplate as well as play. Tactical combats as above were fought on a small tactical map which represented one square on the strategic map.

Anyway, I though I'd mention some games that haven't been mentioned yet. IMO SMAC/X is the best of the Civ type games, simply based upon the number of hours I've played it and how much I have enjoyed thinking / talking about it. MoM was potentially the best, but it runs on that crappy 386 DOS that requires a boot disk to work properly. It is still fun though and well worth having, as are Colonization and MOO2. Civ 2 is the best of the actual Civ series by far and away, and now sells for about 10$ new. Civ 3 is a waste of money IMO, it's worse than Civ 2 in more ways than it is better.

[Adalbertus]

Oh yeah, forgot about Colonization. It has the eternal merits of being the only game where ICS is not the best way to go, simply because a newly founded city s*cks. City improvements and terraforming add a lot to a citie's productivity, and in the end you'll need strong cities that are easy to defend. So there is some natural desire to limit oneself to 8-12 cities, so that micromanaging doesn't become a pain.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Adalbertus
Oh yeah, forgot about Colonization. It has the eternal merits of being the only game where ICS is not the best way to go, simply because a newly founded city s*cks. City improvements and terraforming add a lot to a citie's productivity, and in the end you'll need strong cities that are easy to defend. So there is some natural desire to limit oneself to 8-12 cities, so that micromanaging doesn't become a pain.

True, and the one square city radius really limited how big your cities could get as well. I usually invested in Farmers and Fishermen as quickly as I could in order to get my food production up. I would however build small cities which would only extract a particular resource. They didn't need much infrastructure, and I simply hauled out their production every other turn or so. Silver mining tended to be handled best this way.

[John Paul Jones]

Similiar to the MOO genre, but perhaps not as complex - Imperium Galactica ][ is also worth a look at. The colonies, city-screens and battles are all hardware-rendered in 3D (something the civ3-makers should have seriously considered) and the soundtrack is excellent.