A very original question .. ;) Should I buy Civ3 ?

PDifolco · February 19, 2003, 11:58

Hello all

When Civ3 went out I didn't pay much attention, only when I saw PTW I realized that it was a real "Civ", not a damn ¤*$^ p o c like CTP (that I bought...).

I still didn't buy it, but instead got Civ2 out of the basement shelf, reinstalled, patched to MGE 1.3, and was amazed at the mass of good mods and scenarios available, as well as by the game itself that IMO did age quite well...

With Civ2 I can play LOTR, Roman Empire, WWII, Feudal Japan or SW scenarios, all very compelling and well-done. With Civ3 it looks like people will have much more difficulties producing mods due to the new tech complexities.

I'm an old-school strat/war gamer, was already 20+ when Civ1 was released, and have no problems playing "old" games as long as they are good.

So should I put 80 €+ in this game ? I'm already somewhat upset to have to pay for MP, but is it worth it game-wise ?.
OK Civ3 has better graphics and whizbang, but I'm not much of a whizbang fan, usuallly get fed up by animations after 1 hour, and have a very bottomline machine (Athlon 500) that coughs at anything 3D.

For the rest, from what I've read in reviews and sites, Civ3 doesn't seem to have fundamental new features over the 2, but has lost the infinite flexibility of Civ2.

So well, if someone here can convince me that I'm missing an all-time winner, please do !

Th0mas · February 19, 2003, 12:39

You won't get an unbaised view coming to this forum.

So true to form, I recommend you buy CIV3 as it is definately an improvement on civ2.

(Caveat: it will take time for your Civ2 playing habits and expectations to go, so you may find the experience frustrating to start with or even a bit of an anti-climax, but stick with it as it comes good in the end

)

vmxa1 · February 19, 2003, 13:51

I was going to say the same thing. Coming here you can expect to get mostly favorable views of Civ3.
I would be called a fanboy. It is one of the few games that I have stuck wiht after more than a year of playing.
I retired Civ2 for it.

ACooper · February 19, 2003, 14:30

Buy it. It will make you happy!

Alex · February 19, 2003, 15:55

Buy it. But be advised that the boatload of scenarios you could play in Civ2 will not be available in Civ3. Except for this sad situation, the game is well worth your money.

PDifolco · February 19, 2003, 17:20

Well, I knew this forum was biased pro- and posted on purpose !!

Guys I don't mean offense, but could you develop a little on why I'll be happy, its great, and so on ?

What I have is a reasonably pretty (for my modest tastes), stable, MP, moddable game with a boatload of interesting mods and scens (that's Civ 2 MGE

).

What has Civ3 that will make me happy to sink 100 € (yes, in France Civ3 and PTW each are at 50 € approx

...) ?

joncnunn · February 19, 2003, 17:50

Major differences betwwen Civ II & Civ III:

Civ II traights strictly described the AI and the only thing different about say playing a Yellow civ compared to a Blue civ was that there would be one less agressive oppoenent early on.

Civ III traights charestics are powerful enough to where different civs should not be played alike. (Example: Religious civs can afford to switch to Monarchy on the way to Republic. Non-Religious civs really can't afford both switchs. )

Anarchy is generally longer in Civ III (4 to 8 turns unless you are Religious)

By default, smaller maps in Civ III have fewer oppoenents and larger maps in Civ III have more oppoents.

Number of oppoenens in Civ III is also editable, I think something like 32 is the SP limit, provided you've created and/or cloned enough additional civs.

Most Great Wonders are less powerful in Civ III than Civ II.

Mere possesion of wonders don't increase your score in Civ III. Culture does, but captured wonders don't produce any culture, only ones you built do.

While planting a spy is easy in Civ III, and investiaging cities via Embassy or spy is also reasonably priced, in Civ III the other spy missions are usually too expensive for the probability of success and what the benfit would be.

Luxary Trading is completly different in Civ III, and techs can be bought on a per turn basis.

Civ III includes cultural expansion of cities and fliping off enemy cities.

By default, Civ III allows mining of grassland & plains tiles while disallowing Civ IIs irrigation of hills and transform.

While Civ II had Settlers & Engineers, Civ III has Settlers and Workers instead. Civ IIIs settlers can't work tiles, but can only form new cities (and join existing ones) They cost 2 pop units to build, but when they found a new city, that city is only pop 1. Workers can only improve tiles & join existing cities. Workers get 2X speed with Replaceable parts. Unless your Industrious, your Civ III workers are slower than your Civ II's settlers improving tiles.

Civ III does not have double irrigation. Instead, railing an irrigated tile increases the food by an additional unit and railing a mined tile increased the shields by an additional unit. There is also no Super Market in Civ III.

Stock Exchanges are only found in PTW. PTW also has a structure called Commercial Docks.

The Eliminator · February 19, 2003, 18:36

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but in your guys' opinion, would it be worth it to buy PTW if you have no intention of paying MP? Is the gameplaying any better?

Thoth · February 19, 2003, 18:42

I like the game. With a few mods, I find PTW to be every bit as addictive as Civ II was. The lack of scenario support is disapointing, but it does have sufficient moddability to produce varied gameplay.

I'd suggest heading over to the Strategy forum and reading the post linked to in the "Must Read ..." thread. In addition to giving you an excellent leg up on strategy, it should give you an idea of whether or not you'll like the game. Civ III definitely has a different flavour to Civ II, and not all Civ II players like it.

joncnunn · February 19, 2003, 19:11

The Eliminator, while I don't have PTW myself, this is what I've heard about PTW:

1. The Barbarbians are much smarrter in PTW, they no longer charge head long into your units and instead try to go around them and sack an undefended city. This pretty much elimates the barb hut poping tactic.

2. Provided you have a recent PTW patch, the AI is also smarter. For instance, it will no longer uselessly irrigate grassland tiles under Despotism unless there's a bonus food or it's needed to form an irrigation chain to plains.

3. Workers are more expensive to buy in PTW; this is probably due to the numeous structures that consume workers in PTW.

4. I like the idea of Stock Exchanges & Commerical Docks in PTW.

asleepathewheel · February 19, 2003, 20:19

I would advise buying PTW even if you don't want it for mp.

It is just a more complete game, more civs, more intuitive interfaces (espionage) ai is harder. a better game, imho

Cyclotron · February 19, 2003, 20:30

PDifolco, Civ3 is a definite improvement over Civ2 and is worth your purchase. However, you should note that the capability to create scenarios, and thus the number of scenarios available to you for downloading, is much less than it was in Civ2 due to a somewhat dissapointing editor and the increased complexity of Civ3, i.e. animated unit graphics.

The choice is yours. Many here have found Civ3 to be an excellent game (including myself), and if you buy it, I hope you do to.

Nubclear · February 19, 2003, 21:25

For a more balanced review, post this in the Civ2 forums (they'll say no, but you'll find out WHY

. Then you can compare it to here and balance it out)

Master Zen · February 20, 2003, 00:43

Buying Civ3:

if you're a die-hard scenario fan, NO. Other than that, the game is pretty fun with the 1.29f patch.

Buying PTW:

My computer is too slow for MP so I play PTW SP only. I loove it. It's the game that should've been made in the first place.

However, about BUYING it, well, PTW never came out in my country so I had to get it through "other means"

Master Zen · February 20, 2003, 00:47

Quote:

Originally posted by joncnunn

4. I like the idea of Stock Exchanges & Commerical Docks in PTW.

There's also the Civil Defense, which gives even more defensive bonuses to cities (as if they need it!)

Another cool thing about PTW is the editor, it is much more flexible than the Civ3 editor, you can give aircraft larger ranges etc.

TacticalGrace · February 20, 2003, 06:52

buy it on Ebay. You can get civ3+PTW for a bargain price (should be able to get them for less than $15)

statusperfect · February 20, 2003, 07:18

Buy!

Spec · February 20, 2003, 11:05

NO! BUY EMPIRE EARTH!!!! NOW!!!

Watch this

http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/dos...iew/30012.html

SpencerH · February 20, 2003, 12:03

Since you're a civ player you know what the game is about so I'd say buy it if the money is no big deal. Experienced civ players seem to either love it or hate it very quickly.

On the other hand PtW is due to be patched (again) soon. If that patch does not address the major deficiencys and money is tight I'd say wait till the whole lot goes gold and dont pay more than $10 for both games.

The Eliminator · February 20, 2003, 13:57

Another quick one fellas, have the graphics, sounds, or speed of late game turns changed at all from Civ3 to PTW?

Willem · February 20, 2003, 13:59

Quote:

Originally posted by PDifolco
Well, I knew this forum was biased pro- and posted on purpose !!

Guys I don't mean offense, but could you develop a little on why I'll be happy, its great, and so on ?

What I have is a reasonably pretty (for my modest tastes), stable, MP, moddable game with a boatload of interesting mods and scens (that's Civ 2 MGE

).

What has Civ3 that will make me happy to sink 100 € (yes, in France Civ3 and PTW each are at 50 € approx

...) ?

Well one thing that's been improved since Civ II, is the AI can actually kick some butt once in awhile. Be prepared to get a good thrashing at first trying to get used to the change, it will do things you just didn't expect. Definitely more of a challenge on that score.

Plus on the same token, it's much more challenging trying to conquer other nations in Civ III, unlike the way you could rip through a civ with just a couple of Howitzers and a Tank before. Conquest requires alot more planning and strategy than it did before, at least if you hope to avoid losing all your troops on a futile campaign. But it's much more satisfying if you end up being the one kicking butt.

Willem · February 20, 2003, 14:04

Quote:

Originally posted by The Eliminator
Don't mean to hijack the thread, but in your guys' opinion, would it be worth it to buy PTW if you have no intention of paying MP? Is the gameplaying any better?

Yes, definitely! The improved stack movement and the rally points make it so much easier to manage your forces. I'd recommend the XP for those two things alone. And if you're into editing at all, it has some nice new features you can tinker with.

Master Zen · February 20, 2003, 14:44

Quote:

Originally posted by The Eliminator
Another quick one fellas, have the graphics, sounds, or speed of late game turns changed at all from Civ3 to PTW?

graphics and sounds are basically the same, the scenario packs include different terrain graphics though, some of them are pretty good.

Speed hasn't changed, if your computer is as slow as mine, you'll have 15-turns on huge maps by the industrial age...But anything on standard is pretty playable.

One graphical change I saw in PTW is that the leaderheads are of poorer quality... however I'm not sure if this is because of the not-so-legal version of PTW I got..

SpencerH · February 20, 2003, 15:28

There are new graphics for the units and a few changes to the city build possibilities from 1.29 to PtW 1.14.

Nubclear · February 20, 2003, 17:15

Quote:

Originally posted by PDifolco
Hello all

When Civ3 went out I didn't pay much attention, only when I saw PTW I realized that it was a real "Civ", not a damn ¤*$^ p o c like CTP (that I bought...).

I still didn't buy it, but instead got Civ2 out of the basement shelf, reinstalled, patched to MGE 1.3, and was amazed at the mass of good mods and scenarios available, as well as by the game itself that IMO did age quite well...

With Civ2 I can play LOTR, Roman Empire, WWII, Feudal Japan or SW scenarios, all very compelling and well-done. With Civ3 it looks like people will have much more difficulties producing mods due to the new tech complexities.

That is true. There really are no great scenarios out for Civ3.

Quote:

I'm an old-school strat/war gamer, was already 20+ when Civ1 was released, and have no problems playing "old" games as long as they are good.

I personally got bored of it quite easily. I couldn't finish a game at all....

Quote:

So should I put 80 €+ in this game ? I'm already somewhat upset to have to pay for MP, but is it worth it game-wise ?.

NO! Even with the patch, I hear PtW multiplayer still sucks.

Quote:

OK Civ3 has better graphics and whizbang, but I'm not much of a whizbang fan, usuallly get fed up by animations after 1 hour, and have a very bottomline machine (Athlon 500) that coughs at anything 3D.

Civ3 will probably need something more powerful than your machine to run at an enjoyable level.

If youi want me to critisize the game fully, just say so.

Theseus · February 21, 2003, 00:43

Yup, all fanboys here at 'poly.

I am.

Buy it, come here, we'll help you learn to kick ass and take names.

Th0mas · February 21, 2003, 05:52

Quote:

Originally posted by PDifolco
*snip*
OK Civ3 has better graphics and whizbang, but I'm not much of a whizbang fan, usuallly get fed up by animations after 1 hour, and have a very bottomline machine (Athlon 500) that coughs at anything 3D.
*snip*

Just a quick comment, your CPU speed is not really the bottleneck to system performance in Civ3, unless you are playing on huge maps during modern times.

I have an AMD K6-2 380 and I have no problems running standard and large maps, however I have 380+Mb ram and would like more.

PDifolco · February 21, 2003, 05:59

Thx all !
EBay is not really a possibility, I'm in Europe and p&h will be a killer, even admitting I find sellers accepting orders from Europe...

I'm really pissed off to have to buy an expansion to have MP (that I won't use much if at all) and "new" features that should have been in a patch .... cash cow marketing

!

I still enjoy Civ2 (that I bought only when price dropped, having to pay for a game + 2 expansions + MP game was stg of a theft), and IMO the new Civ3 features don't make for the loss of mods/scenarios I suppose I'll do the same here and wait for a Civ3+PTW bundle for less than 30€.

The Pioneer · February 21, 2003, 07:18

YES!

The Eliminator · February 21, 2003, 14:19

I checked and PTW goes for about $45 CAD, a little steep for an expansion pack! Will check on eBay, hopefully it can be had for cheap.

I love the idea of radars and airbases, Celts and Vikings, and especially Koreans, now I'll have a new favourite civ to destroy in all my games (sorry russia).