OT: Civ3 Complete poll

[Fyron]

EaX said:
i never play civ3, but i'm actually playing civ call to power, i like it so far.... anyone play it? did you like it?

I played CTP 2. Had a lot of interesting concepts. It is about what Civ 3 should have been, only combined with more Civ 2 ToT aspects.

Of course, the more I played CTP, the more I saw that Sid Meier the Hack just stole concepts from CTP rather than came up with anything new for Civ 3...

[EaX]

well.... i'll guess i'm not buying civ3, however i've alpha centauri hey mylon did you say crossfire was abandonware????, strange..., how many MB it's?

[Lisif Deoral]

I bought the original Civ3 (the 2001 edition, that is) and no other expansions/rereleases/whatever and I must say I preferred it over Civ2 (I bought the "ultimate civ2 classic collection" or whatever it was called in the US, the box with all scenarios and multiplayer support).

I think the only change over Civ2 I didn't like much was special units (such as hoplites, chariots, musketeers, etc.), but the new diplomacy system, culture ratings, resources etc. were nice.

Also, I was glad they removed caravans and the other tricks for building a wonder in 1 turn!

I missed the custom unit system of Alpha Centauri, but it only worked if you managed to keep some unit design slots empty (that is, if you actually did not use it!). I always filled up all the slots quite soon, and from then onwards unit design became a really boring routine of tracking down every single one-of-a-kind unit on the map and then retrofitting or disbanding it to be able to use its slot for another unit.

As for multiplayer support, I never managed to complete a MP game with Civ2 and I soon lost interest in it. Simply tooooooo slow, it badly needed true simultaneous turns.

This said, I was really disappointed by Civ2 and its scenario discs. It didn't improve much over Civ1 and the only scenarios I played more than once were "East wind, rain" and "World War: 1979". :\

[Gozra]

Was just forced to buy Civ3 (long story) I have been playing. It appears to be a bit flawed even their latest version. Conquest multiplayer and Conquest single player are not the same files or games. That cause some problems. What is weird is that there seems to be no technical reason that this turnd out to be so. makes it harder to mod a game and play it among friends. But I have spent about 40 hours playing it another 1040 hours of playing to get my investment back. (Just kidding) At this point I have to say CIVIII almost worked.

[Alneyan]

Singleplayer conquests are different because they have more nations; multiplayer conquests only have six or seven nations in total (a game with six players is already very slow, so it would be awful with fifteen players).

I would say the game can be enjoyed, though it will not be my favourite game ever (then again, I have never been fond of Civilization games). Still, it did work better for me than Civ II, so I would probably recommand the game.

[Yimboli]

CTP2 had good stuff in it, I especially like all the wonders and the ability to advance into the future (Diamond Age!). The thing I think it has over Civ 3 is the old-fashioned way it does technology. The number of research points required to make an upgrade is the same for each advance, for all players. It's simple, it's how it's always been done, and it lets me be that technology race that beats everyone out of the wonders. The way Civ3 does it is incredibly annoying. The more people that have a technology, the easier it is to research. While this is arguably more realistic, it pisses me off - I'm the guy that always plays a variation of Psilon in moo2, i always max out research racial benefits, I LOVE playing the technology race, but you can't do that in civ3. Unless you whore your technology out to the highest bidder, you fall behind. I really don't like civ3's technology system.

The main reason CTP2 didn't quite catch on was the fact that it was rushed for release. There's a long story about Civ: CtP and Civilization games, how they split, who had the trademark, and I think the battle was coming to an end in Sid Meier's favor, so the game was released prematurely. Result: CtP2 has a HORRIBLE AI. Some other things are bugged. Civ3's AI is much better.

However, CtP2's source code was released like half a year ago, and since some of the mods are already amazing, and make the AI quite challenging, I see nothing but good things in the future for CtP2!!

Check www.apolyton.net for more information on CtP2, moo, Civ, RoN, GalCiv, etc.

~ Tim ~