Should I get "Civ 3," or "Civ: CTP"?

Cafe Society
1

Or, without the abbreviations, would I be happier buying “Civilization III,” or “Civilization: Call to Power”?

And, to muddle the issue a little more, I’m a Mac user.

Now, “Civ 3” is brand new, and seems like a good, solid program…nice improvements over “Civ 2.” It even has a built-in editor.

But, on the other hand, Civ 3 seems a little too solid—more like “simplistic”—in some areas. Most notably, towards the combat “units.” They actually seem to have fewer abilities than those in Civ 2. And, due to a “feature” of the new game engine, the player will often encounter as ridiculous situations as a unit of hoplites defeating a 20th-century mechanized infantry unit. That, for some reason, is really unappealing for me, the consumer.

And then you have “Call to Power.” It’s a few years older, but it seems to have quite a few more special (even exotic) abilities for available for it’s combat units. As well as more governments to choose from; technological advances that reach into the future; ocean and space-based cities(!), etc.

But…I’m not sure if CTP’s engine suffers from the same design flaw that creates the “super Hoplite” type situation. And the whole thing lacks some pretty nifty features that are in Civ 3…like specific resource requirements (like horses, or oil) for some units to be built, or the measuring of your civilization’s “culture” during the game.

Plus, I don’t know if it can be hacked/edited with any ease, if even at all.

Normally, I’d ask a question like this on a message board specifically for gamers…but I kind of get the feeling that this particular question would be a little like asking “Who’s the better captain; Kirk or Picard?” on a Star Trek board. If you catch my drift.

So, I ask you, fellow dopers…which should I buy: “Civ 3” or “CTP”?

2

You can pick up CTP II for 15USD at Game Stop. If you call around your town maybe you can find it in a bargain bin for even less. I heard it was a mutt so I passed on it.

Civ 3 costs a lot more but was worth it for me. The thing about ancient units beating industrial era units is mostly BS. I’ve never seen it, not once. They will damage industrial or modern era units, though, and you’ll see cavalry or even knights pick off damaged tanks if you leave them in the open. If that bugs you too much you can adjust unit strengths via the game editor.

It’s not a perfect game, but I don’t suppose many people ever find a game that’s perfect for them.

Unless you have a kick-ass computer you’ll probably want to stick to medium or smaller size maps. You’ll also have to unlearn some old civ habits. Poking around CivFanatic’s or Apolyton’s strategy section looking for newbie hints will get you up and dominating in no time. Or you can do it yourself and suffer through a few blunders like building the Forbidden Palace on an island or staging a revolution during your golden age. It’s more fun that way, IMO.

I went back to Civ II after playing Civ III to try out the different challenges (single city, early deity launch, etc.) and while it’s still a great game I prefer Civ III now.

Now if you’d asked Civ III vs. Europa Universalis 2… well, that’s another story. I’d still say Civ III but if EU2 had comparable AI it would win. Get both.

3

I have on a few rare occasions seen something weird like a pikeman beating a tank. Maybe five times in all the games I’ve played.

Anyone who thinks this ruins the game isn’t thinking about it straight. There’s a level of abstraction involved in this game, and as evidenced by Vietnam, the Zulu wars, and other conflicts, it is quite normal for a technologically backwards enemy to hand technologically superior enemy the occasional defeat. Certainly a player with tanks fighting a player with swordsmen enjoys an advantage so massive the occasional fluke defeat means little. If you have 25 tanks and they have 50 pikemen you absolutely are going to win the war unless you are an idiot of the most astounding magnitude.

Civ: Call to Power is a truly awful game, one of the worst I’ve ever paid money for. It’s terribly dull and the game’s special units are hugely overpowered and frankly become a bit irritating. The game simply does not have the appeal of ANY other Civ game; I’d much rather play the original Civ. Actually, I would much rather play the original “Empire.”

Civ 3, IMHO, is a huge improvement on all previous Civ games. You do have to learn some new strategies but it’s an absolute hoot all the same.

I agree witgh Ironikinit’s recommendation of EU2. Get both. EU is a different sort of game.

4

CTP had a few decent ideas (water cities, space layer), but horribly implemented. The units got out of whack really fast, so unless you were the one in the lead, it got really hard to catch up. And that evolutionary leap (or whatever the science win condition was) never really seemed as impressive as building a ship to Alpha Centauri. I promised myself I’d never buy another Civ game again. The Civ3 came out, this time with Sid Meier’s name on it. Civ3 brought me back to that warm fuzzy “I’m going to conquer the world tonight” feeling.

I guess the best recommendation I can give is this: I uninstalled CTP after about a week. CivIII caused me to go without sleep and (just once) miss work.

5

I have played both and found Civ III to be the far superior game.

JMHO.

6

I have both, but haven’t even loaded CTP yet. CIV III is great!

7

Forget them both and play Civ II again. Civ III made some good improvements (culture, etc) but some really awful ones. You can’t really have a big civ at all anymore because the corruption gets stupidly high. Farmland? No, Bronze Age farms clearly produce just the same as modern ones do. All sorts of bonehead smack-against-the-wall issues. And no more Wonder movies, either. And no Elvis!

8

I kind of enjoyed C2P, mainly due to one game where I was in the lead, then somehow all my earth cities were gone or rebeled. I was stuck in space. It was a classic race, me to rebuild my empire and them to advance in tech. Also I did like the future units.

Even w/ that one great game, the space sreen does get tiresome to actually use (toggle back and forth). The underwater cities are pretty cool though.

9

That was caused by a bug in the original release; it’s been fixed. I’d imagine the farmland thing was a bug too because I certainly haven’t encountered that.

10

You can get pretty big in Civ III. Just build the Forbidden Palace near your original capital. Then invade someone, and when you get a leader use him to rush-build a palace in the middle of their former territory. As far as outlying cities go, use workers to plant and then cut down forests. The cities remain quite useless, but at least they function. In my current game, I have the entire eastern hemisphere, plus Greenland, and am invading Canada. Mwa ha ha.

“Call to Power” isn’t very good. Half the time it’ll start you out in some truly awful location. I get nostalgic about Civ II from time to time, but can’t find the CD.

11

I don’t believe I have the original release. It’s difficult and not encouraged by the game to have a big civ. The continent specific Wonders are back from the first Civ, which is silly. In Civ II as I recall, you build irrigation like in Civ III, but eventually you could upgrade it to “farmland”. Also, you could travel on rivers like roads. Granted, I don’t particularly like to fight, and maybe that’s why I don’t get why people like Civ III - I don’t have enough wars to really know which game is best there. I like to, you know, build a civilization. Like the game is supposed to be about letting you do. And it bugs the crap out of me when the third installment is less fun than the second.

I miss Elvis.

12

I thought Call to Power was pretty fun. Though you could get some pretty wacky match-ups in battles. And defenders always got a huge advantage- Even just a wall around a city would make it annoyingly difficult to capture. Some of the wierdness-

-Archers shooting down a squadron of bombers I had :confused:

-The best one was when I had a city which only had a Lawyer garrisoned in it (non-combat unit). The city got attacked by 9 Samurai…and somehow the lawyer managed to kill them all! O_o

I can only imagine he buried their corpses in litigation :wink:

13

Of those two Civ III is better than CTP - which IMO is a total dog. Civ II is better than either, but better again was its sequel Alpha Centauri.

It shows what happens when that spacecraft you launch at the end of Civ II gets to AC. The crew have split into 7 factions: the environmentalists, the UN, the survivalists, the fundamentalists, etc. Each have their own characteristic strengths and weaknesses.

So you have a whole new SF tech tree, units, and wonders. And you can design your own units as you play a game.

And it turns out the planet they land on is inhabited - kinda.

14

Freeciv

It’s free. It’s also multiplayer, although I haven’t tried playing againts any humans.

15

Culture alone, IMO, makes CIII better than CII. Like Zsofia, I try to stay out of wars as much as possible and build my civ up-oftentimes, my cities will have three spearmen defending them right up until I discover gunpowder. They will have all the city improvements for those three units of spearmen to take advantage of, however. CIII rewards that play style, in a fashion-whiles it’s not nearly as quick as a military domination of a civilization, it’s a lot less messy and costly. Plus, there’s no unrest; the people WANTED to join your civilization.

And for those who have the complaint about the ancient units defeating the modern ones, I usually have this to say; if you think this is some huge game bug, try NEVER building a newer unit than the spearman. I think the resulting massacre will quickly disabuse you of the notion. The element of luck remains in the game so that it’s not an absolute given that whichever civ develops tanks first can just roll over everyone as soon as they have 9 or 10 of them.

16

Oh, okay. I never played Civ II much.

I only go to war if one of the other Civs is being a PITA.

I have no problem building large Civs. In fact, I had to turn off the Domination Victory so I can play longer.

Funny, for me the second one is the least fun of the three.

Not In Anger, you want my Civ II disc? It’s certainly not getting any use around here.

17

I got hooked on this game CivIII earlier this year. I just bought it last week- what was I thinking??? I have never bought a game…but it is my precious now he he he he he.

I am new to this type of game- how the hell do I get people to get on the galleys and travel or am I dreaming?

Off to play

18

There’s two ways. If the galley is in a city, you need to click the Board button. If the galley is not in a city and next to a coastline, move the unit you want to get on board up next to the galley. Next time that unit has a move, just move it into the galley square and it will board automatically unless the galley is full.

19

Just move them onto the ship like it was just another square.

I miss the Wonder movies most of all.

20

One more vote for CivIII here, and another big thumbs down for CTP. I love Civ III, and at this point, I’m pretty sure I’ve played it more than the other two combined. I almost never start wars in the game, and consider myself to have played a “perfect” game if I can win it without firing a single shot. It is harder to have super-gigantic multi-continent empires, which is more realistic, imo. Even so, I have beaten the game through the Domination victory condition, so it’s not impossible.

Nvme77: You can put up to two units on a galley. If the unit and the galley are both in a city, select the unit and press the “Board Transport” button on the bottom of the screen. Alternatively, if the boat if just off the coast, you can get a unit on board by having it move into the square the boat it on.