[Civ Series] Which one should I play?

Kasey Chang · Post by **Kasey Chang** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 12:42 pm

Should I play Civ2 Gold (which comes with all those scenarios like X-Com Assault, MOM jr, etc.) or should I play Civ3 (plain, no PtW or Conq), or should I wait until I get Conq?

Austin · Post by **Austin** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 1:11 pm

I picked up Civ 3 Gold in a trade recently and have been hooked ever since. I can't comment on Civ2 other than to say that Civ3 is teh best game evah! Anyway, my little brother bought it on my reccomendation and he is also hooked now.

He bought Civ3 Complete though so to play by email I needed to expand my version. I couldn't find the expansions so I bought Civ3 complete and now have a Civ 3 Gold in the box at home... PM me if you want to trade for it or something.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 1:17 pm

I highly recommend playing Civ 3 with the Conquests "addon/patch" installed.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 1:21 pm

I'm not much a fan of the scenarios.

I found of the Civilization games, my favorite was SMAC, followed by Civ3/Conquests with the Rise & Rule addition. If you only have access to Civ3 (no Conquests), then do download Double Your Pleasure after you've played the vanilla game and got a feel for how things work (DYP/R&R add bunches of very interesting and fun complexity).

~Neal

CSL · Post by **CSL** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 1:42 pm

Civilization 2 Gold is far and away the best Civilization "experience". Don't let these Civ 3ers try and persuade you. Either that or play SMAC.

dfs · Post by **dfs** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 2:12 pm

fwiw I agree that the conquest expansion made it better, but I liked civ3 out of the box.

After the first one, I didn't really enjoy civ2. It just never felt right. The scenarios didn't do anything for me. OTOH the civ 3 scenarios are kind of fun.

I know it's blaspheme to some, but I think the multimedia was the best part of SMAC. I don't think the game plays well as a replayable solo 4x. Just my thinking.

After using the governers in civ3, I just can't see going back.

dbt1949 · Post by **dbt1949** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 2:43 pm

The Civ2 Fantasy scenarios were my all time favorites.
The graphics of Civ3 compared to Civ 2 is 1000% better.

Defiant · Post by **Defiant** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 3:33 pm

Civ 2 MPG or Civ 3 With Conquests are both enjoyable, but Colonization is the best.

Koz · Post by **Koz** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 3:47 pm

IMO, Civ 2 is a better game than Civ 3 (though more dated), but they're both top-notch games, so you can't really go wrong.

knob · Post by **knob** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 4:44 pm

Just trash them all and go with Rome: Total War. When you get bored of the city management and all that, go on a crusade against the Gauls and actually get to take part in your fights.

Noman · Post by **Noman** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 5:00 pm

Civ3 is the best game in the series.

Compared to Civ2, it has far better implementation of borders and colonies. The introduction of culture also affects a lot of things. There are also resources (both luxury or strategic) that add tons of depth to the overall game. For example, to have swordsmen you have to have an access to iron. Which can be in your land (within your borders) but to know that you have to have certain civilzation advances or it can be somewhere else. Resources like oil and rubber are very crucial during the late game scenarios. You can wage a war to grab a resource for you or if it's in the no-man's land, you can build a colony or a city there. You can also trade these resources but the opponents often ask a very high price unless you have them impressed by your culture or if you can trade them another strategic resource in return. Luxury resources (gems, sugar, tobacco) can make your citizens happy.

Resources also play a great role in combat. When attacking an enemy you can grab the area that has let's say iron and then destroy the roads, thus causing your enemy to not have access and so not being able to build units that require iron.

Trade model is also a lot better compared to Civ2. You can establish trade routes within and across continents.

If you get Civ3:Conquests, you 'll get lot of updates to the base game and some pretty nifty scenarios as well.

I have been following this series since Civ1. I loved Civ1 and played the game for insane amount of hours. But then I could never get into Civ2, since it seemed an expansion or a remake of Civ1. Civ3 on the other hand, really introduced new things to the series while keeping the base game intact. One of the best games ever.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 6:00 pm

I heart Noman.

To me SMAC > Civ 3 > Civ 1 > Civ 2

They're all worth playing, but some are more fun than others. Civ 2 did nothing better than Civ 1 other than graphics and wiping out the infinite movement/settlers bug (which is pretty much why I'm so unfair to it). Lots of people didn't like that Civ 3 plays a different game than Civ 2, which is why you'll see folks rail against some of the strategic elements that it added that modified the nature of gameplay. As far as cool strategic elements go, however, SMAC has Civ3 beat despite being the older game.

~Neal

Faldarian · Post by **Faldarian** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 7:16 pm

Noman wrote: Compared to Civ2, it has far better implementation of borders and colonies. The introduction of culture also affects a lot of things. There are also resources (both luxury or strategic) that add tons of depth to the overall game. For example, to have swordsmen you have to have an access to iron. Which can be in your land (within your borders) but to know that you have to have certain civilzation advances or it can be somewhere else. Resources like oil and rubber are very crucial during the late game scenarios. You can wage a war to grab a resource for you or if it's in the no-man's land, you can build a colony or a city there. You can also trade these resources but the opponents often ask a very high price unless you have them impressed by your culture or if you can trade them another strategic resource in return. Luxury resources (gems, sugar, tobacco) can make your citizens happy.

This is actually what makes me like Civ 2 a great deal more than 3. While it may be more realistic to have to have the resources in this matter, it just didn't click with me from a gameplay standpoint since you could be totally screwed at the end of a many hour game simply because you didn't locate aluminum, rubber or uranium at the right time.

It also make combat a certainty, something that you can actually avoid altogether with the right amount of pacifism and money in Civ2.

As a combat game I don't like either of them; I enjoyed the empire building and the race to see how fast I could get to space, with the military campaigning to be just another way of defending my interests. Civ3 kind of turns it into more of a military scenario in every game, and it wasn't a change I liked much.

Both are great games, but I personally like Civ 2 the best of the series.

Thunderspark · Post by **Thunderspark** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 9:00 pm

I've only played SMAC and Civ3. I thought both were fun for a while. SMAC had more options and features, but I had trouble telling the units from the terrain. Civ3 looks very nice, but I was disappointed that they took some things out that were in SMAC (government features, planetary council, making units). However, if you do play Civ3 instead, make sure to get the Double your pleasure or Rise and Rule(?) mods depending which version of Civ3 you have. I don't have Conquests, so I used the DyP mod.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 10:48 am

Kudos to Noman, and honorable mention to The Meal. Civ3 is the superior design, although not without its flaws and unpopular features (culture flipping, corruption). I've heard that Civ4 will address players' complaints.

Start with plain-vanilla Civ to learn the new features like culture and resources. Then add the Conquests expansion and play the tutorial scenarios to learn the new victory conditions. The regular scenarios are good if you like to play Civ as a wargame. So play those or not. When you are comfortable with Conquests, add the Rise and Rule mod. Rise and Rule really takes Civ3 to its fullest potential. With this approach, you can get many hundreds of hours of enjoyment from this game.

Carpet_pissr · Post by **Carpet_pissr** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 12:55 pm

Meal said: I'm not much a fan of the scenarios.

To be honest, I have not even played the scenarios in Conquests, but the game play and balance changes made in the code itself using Conquests on top of Civ 3 are worth the ten bucks imo. Debate about whether or not we should have to pay to get this game balancing "patch" is probably a discussion for a separate thread.

I have heard that the Age of Discovery scenario is one of the better ones, but I have never been real interested in any mods that emulate historical events, from Civ 1 forward. I tried a lot of the World War ones, Rome, etc...just never got into them since they started me out in what feels like mid to late game to me. For me the fun is in the beginning.

The whole draw for me to Civ in the first place is the sandbox aspect, the complete openess, and potential of your one, lone starting settler surrounded by blackness to create a sprawling, developed empire.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 2:52 pm

Add me to the SMAC is the best Civ game. If they mixed that with Civ III with a good AI then I think you could have me hooked for a long time. If you litereally mean Civ Games then III is still moving forward, but it was still MotS making it perfect for someone who is interested in, but has never played one of the games.

TommyTutone · Post by **TommyTutone** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 4:12 pm

SMAC is easily the best as it used a gameplay similar to Civ2 and introduced the borders that were used in Civ3.

Civ2 would be next on the scale for the purity of the gameplay.

I did not care for the use of resources in Civ3, nor did I enjoy the seemingly impossible challenge presented by the AI at even the lowest levels (it was disturbingly efficient in dumping down city after city).

Civ1 is great, but Civ2 does everything it does, but better.

GuidoTKP · Post by **GuidoTKP** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 4:28 pm

Yeah, I think I'd have to put SMAC at the top of the Civ game heap as well. There was just way too much cool stuff in that game.

Peacedog · Post by **Peacedog** » Thu Jan 06, 2005 5:37 pm

Yeah, I think I'd have to put SMAC at the top of the Civ game heap as well. There was just way too much cool stuff in that game.

As steep as the "funky technology" maid the learning curve, I'd agree. It just did tons of wonderful things for the genre. So much fun that even the warts (the entire unit maitenence interface *shudder*) didn't matter.

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Fri Jan 07, 2005 11:02 am

Carpet_pissr wrote: I tried a lot of the World War ones, Rome, etc...just never got into them since they started me out in what feels like mid to late game to me. For me the fun is in the beginning.

The whole draw for me to Civ in the first place is the sandbox aspect, the complete openess, and potential of your one, lone starting settler surrounded by blackness to create a sprawling, developed empire.

I agree; in general, scenario-based games have a weak core design -- I much prefer "open play" games whose challenge is inherent in the rules. But Civ3's ancient world scenarios are worth a look. The Rise of Rome feels particularly authentic, if you like Roman history. Each scenario that I've played so far has had a unique challenge that added enough interest to justify the scripted beginning. My main complaint is that they're all pretty wargame-oriented. In an expansion called "Conquests", that's forgivable...but being a wargame isn't Civ's strongest suit.