oh of course. all my sentiments about Civ IV pertains to BtS.
When 3 came out, I bought it at launch and it was a buggy mess that put me off the franchise entirely until a few weeks ago. I bought 5 then but might grab 4 since the Complete Edition on sale at Amazon for nine bucks.
Haven’t played 5 yet but I played a whole lot of 2 over the years and it sounds at though 4 may be a little more familiar.
Also, that’s a lot of numbers.
I will go against the grain and vote for 5, because I despise the stack of doom that seemed to dominate combat from the mid to end game of 4. Also it’s purrtee, and I don’t mind the DLC additions. I’m hoping they’re going to get around to doing an expansion at some point, I want to more features!
Civ 3 promised multiplayer on release, which was not actually implemented until the expansion came out much later. That was the first disappointment. The “army” unit was extremely underwhelming, and was supposed to be the big innovation for combat. It ended up costing a bunch of resources, but sucking more than just having spent the shields on an extra unit instead.
The last time I played the game, post-expansion, it was impossible to prevent infinite corruption in some of your cities while going for a conquest victory. These cities still required upkeep, and counted against your city total for happiness calculations, but could not produce any shields or commerce. This made the end game even MORE of a slog than other civ titles, as it artificially slowed you down even when you had a huge tech and economy advantage. The last thing Civ should have done to “improve” civ2 was make the “wrap up” endgame phase take even longer.
Also, strategic resources ruined many (possibly even most) of my Civ3 games. You rolled the dice when deciding your early strategy, and if the dice weren’t in your favor regarding strategic resources, you lose. Even worse was that you didn’t actually get to see the results of that dice roll until halfway through the game, after you’d invested 5 or 6 hours into it.
Overall, Civ3 sucked. It sucked even compared to average games, let alone other civ games. Luckily the civ franchise faithful had Alpha Centauri to tide us over until Civ4 was released, which was an immediate improvement to 3, and only got better with the Beyond the Sword expansion.
Civilizationgames are like Star Trek movies. The odd numbered ones disappoint, and the even numbered ones are great!
Not at all. It loads fast, you can have a quick game. You can also play it while doing other stuff, doesn’t take over the computer like modern games.
There are only two things I miss about Civ 4. One is spamming my missionaries to the four corners of the globe; nothing sweeter than religious victory. The other is “Baba Yetu”, the best damn piece of video game music ever written.
Not if you ignore them…
I guess IV, but it’s hard.
The loss of religion was a huge mistake, and I’m not a fan of the revamped civics system. The combat in 5 is a bit better, though I’m not as big a fan as most. I’d prefer limited stacking ability (say, 3 units) so you could combine arms. In any event the AI is so deeply crappy it undermines that gain. I like the city-states, though they need to be less important and less numerous than the base settings call for. And the base map scripts suck.
IMO there were two huge steps forward: the hex system is far, far better, and I love the redesigned way that cities and borders expand. Those two things alone would keep me from going back to IV.
I still have not been happy with the way any Civ game has handled trade; I’d like to see the return of trade routes and piracy from Civ 2, (with less micromanagement).
Four. It’s a much better game and Civ V even close.
Missed edit window: The combat system for Civ V is a joke. 1UPT doesn’t work, because the AI simply sucks at it. Sure, the combat system for Civ IV is basically create one (or two) massive SOD’s, but it still requires a bit of planning in the way of units. Civ V’s “civic” system is also a joke. Civ IV was much better in this regard as there is a bit of strategy (i.e., using caste system + state property). The only thing I can say about Civ V that I like better than Civ IV is how Firaxis handled city growth and the use of hexagonal tiles instead of square tiles. I still prefer Civ IV, though. The replayability is absolutely tremendous.
Wow, something** Omg a Black Conservative** and I completely agree on.
Well, call me crazy, but I hate it. Like, SERIOUSLY hate it.
I bought the Civ3 tin when it came out (still have the box) and thought the game was OK, but what “killed” it for me was a (imho) stupid feature the designers put in there, and that was the timer at the end of your session that told you how long the current game has taken. I was playing my first real game (usually on a new title my first couple of games are on easier levels so I can get an idea of the play mechanics) and made it to 1800 AD, when I quit/retired and was told that the total amount of time I’ve been playing was 37 hours+.
A freakin’ work-week to get to 1800 AD. Maybe I wasn’t playing it right, but it’s not as if I was a total noob at Civ: at the time I could beat Diety on Civ 2 most attempts (never tried an OCC however).
Anyway, I gave up on that game, and Civ 3, pretty much at that moment.
Hint to game designers: if you want me to waste a lot of time playing your game, don’t tell me how much time I’m wasting! Maybe it’s just me, but I’ll start thinking of better things I can do with my life.
Civ 1 was a great game, however. But the point is understood. 
Like I said earlier, I will fire off a game of Civ 2 every once in a while, pretty much for the reasons An Gadai mentioned: It’s quick loading/playing, doesn’t hog your computer (but for some reason it can make my fan whir like a s.o.b.), and, if needed, you can play it while doing other stuff.
And, you know, sometimes when I play a computer game I just want to kick ass and not be challenged. I’ve kind of gone past the point in my life where I want to spend a 100 hours at a computer game in a losing effort.
How does BtS differ from the regular game? I have both on my Steam account, but only D/L’d Civ 4 and 5, not the expansion packs/versions.
I also can D/L Civ4 Warlords and Colonization. Any words on those?
I really appreciate the comments, everybody.
I loved Civilization 1 thru 4, but try as a might I just can’t bring myself to like 5. You know your game is in big trouble when its lead developer bails a month after his game launches.
I’ll echo what others are saying here and say you should stick with Civ 4: Beyond the Sword. Here is a page that lists all the additions. The xpac makes some needed balance changes and adds more of what you like: new civs, units, wonders, buildings, and tech.
I’ve played Civ 5 quite a bit. As of now I’m burned out of it. What really caused me to stop was that huge patch they did a while back that made, at least imho, happiness even more a pain in the ass.
I can’t really imagine me picking the game up again. I’ve found that I haven’t missed it.
Seriously, the happiness set-up is insanely retarded.
Expanding on what I said upthread about using the modding tools to tinker with Civ V, I’d like to point out that once you get the hang of the basics (and the tutorials are decent) you can easily modify all civ traits to give an Indian-style reduction in unhappiness from population (and/or from number of cities). It makes my preferred style of many large cities much more workable.
All of the worthwhile features that Warlords has are also included in BtS.
The remake of Colonization is not as good as the original Colonization. In the remake, the game is too centered around the war for independence, and the game itself doesn’t seem to realize that a Pyrrhic victory is less desirable than prosperous autonomy.
Also, I’ve been playing a fair bit of SMAC lately, and it holds up pretty well.
I tried Civ 2 again recently and I really like these aspects of the experience. What hurts the game for me is the more primitive UI. I can live with the graphics and the relatively limited gameplay compared to Civ4 but the absence of features like build-road-to and stacked movement can make it very tedious.
Come to think of it, perhaps Freeciv (which I have never played) can give me a Civ-2 like experience with a better user interface. Perhaps someone who has played Freeciv can comment?
Coming back to the topic, I haven’t played 5 myself. I have played a bit of 4 and like it quite a lot. Threads like this seem to confirm that 5 is perhaps not worth the upgrade quite yet.
Although to be perfectly honest, I am not sure I have the time for any brand of Civ no matter how great. Growing older can be a drag that way…
A game of Civilization Revolution is maybe two to three hours. It’s perfect for me, who has the same problem with Civ on the PC.
Don’t forget that civ revolution is available for your ipad/iphone as well. 8 bucks for a modern civ game? Hell yeah!