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I have never played any of the incarnations of Sid Meyer's Civilization.
I am interested in playing one of them.
Assuming that I'll only play one, which incarnation would you recommend? I don't mind old clunky graphics -- I'm just interested in playing a fun game.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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III is the only one I have, though I've played II as well.
If you're looking for a Civilization game that still has the original feel, and you don't care about it being somewhat old, check out the third one. I've had it for four years now, and it's still unbearably addicting.
You can get the Complete edition for about $20-30 in most stores, whereas IV still costs a buttload.
Posts: 292 | Registered: Jun 2006
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I liked 2 and 4. I really didn't care much for 3 though. Civ 4 is pretty polished, and added a lot of interesting features such as a skill tree for units as they became more experienced. It was a bit of a resource hog when it first came out. I think that later patches fixed that, though. I've also heard good things about the multiplayer.
Civ 2 is really polished, especially for its time. Due to its age, it's also going to run on a lot of systems that the newer ones won't.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I'd say it depends on what you expect from a game.
Do you want a simple game, or a game with more strategic depth? If you want the former, then go with Civ III. It quite easily boils down to building enough cities and pumping out units to conquer the AI. 777 is quite correct, in that it has more of the original feel, and is cheaper than the current version.
In my opinion, Civ 4 offers the most strategic variety. It's the version I play, but my experience is limited to single-player only.
Oh, and all versions of Civ are unbearably addicting. One....more....turn....
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I'll second Tom's recommendation of Alpha Centauri. Barring that, I'd probably go with Civ IV.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I want to play Civ III because that's the only one that I know of where you can play the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine). Long live Constantinople! Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Civ 2 is basically everything that made 1 amazing but vamped up. Its the version Orson Scott Card said he was completely addicted to. Of course that COULD be a drawback for you.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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I enjoyed the second one, but liked 3 far more, and it is, quite frankly, the game I've played most of, ever.
The fourth one adds a ton of new tweaks, fixes some things I disliked, and is generally very good.
I like em all, but I'd go for the most recent version. It simplifies a few things, and the interface is by far the best.
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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... and after getting addicted, you will slowly run into weird stuff like battleships getting destroyed while attacking bowmen.
This is when you may want to take a look at the Total War series where only you're to blame for any bonehead combat decisions Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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I also liked Civ II the best (I've only played up through III). But I also liked (and own) Alpha Centauri. Want me to send it to you for you to try?
Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Two has the original feel, but 4 has much better pacing. If you like long drawn out games that might consume your weekend, 2. if not, 4.
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I've enjoyed all the versions I've played (to some extent, at least). The first one was a classic, of course, but II was a tremendous improvement. I'm having a hard time separating III from II and IV in my mind. I guess I'd make my recommendation depending on how much you want to spend: IV is available for under $40 (sans expansion packs), III for under $20 (including expansions), and the first two for only a few bucks.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I've played and enjoyed I-III and Alpha Centauri. AC, to my memory, does the best job of creating the feeling that you're playing against leaders who want their cultures to survive and thrive rather than AI who want to win at any cost (having Gandhi and his sole remaining city threaten you with nuclear weapons is memorable, but not in a good way.)
They're all good games. I know some people bash III, but adding culture as a factor was an interesting element. I'd recommend the expanded version if you went that way, however (sometimes sold as "Civilization III complete".)
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Grab a copy of Freeciv. If you like it, buy Civ2. Otherwise, go for Civ4.
I've played 2, 3, and 4. If your computer can handle Civ4, then you should get that and not bother with Civ3. Civ3 introduced a lot of new game mechanics that are far more refined in Civ4.
Civ2 is still a great game, and there are thousands of good modpacks and scenarios available. If those aren't as important, you may want to give Freeciv a more serious look. They've branched off from the Civ2 style in a different direction from where Civ3 went. Freeciv is also now much less of an eyesore than Civ2.
Posts: 145 | Registered: Apr 2007
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Last time I tried Freeciv (several years ago, admitedly) the AI was lousy -- it was pretty much only worthwhile for playing with other humans.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Further, with Civ 4, I found a mod that adds revolutions and rebellions to the game.
Ever seen a huge, powerful nation collapse into civil war?
Ever see a nation of moderate size balkanize into three, four or even five or more tiny states?
It's awesome to see it happen in this version. Of course, sometimes you, the player, has to deal with civil war... and that CAN be fun, but not if it's constant. Sometimes, it's hard to hold onto land, and the strength it is supposed to give you .(Which is actually not a bad design at all...)
Posts: 1577 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I've only ever played Civ II, but it was seriously addictive. Eventually it got to the point where it wasn't even fun anymore, but I still kept playing. I ended up uninstalling it from my computer, breaking the cd into little pieces and throwing it away in order to break the addiction.
I thought Alpha Centauri was boring and unimpressive. There was never even the slightest worry that I would get addicted to that game.
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Also, if you are just looking for fun turn based strategy rather than specifically the Civ games, I'd suggest checking out Galactic Civilizations 2 or one of the Total War games. I have and love Rome and Medieval Total War, but I haven't played the new one yet.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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mr_porteiro_head: I've been following the freeciv development pretty closely over the past few years. The 2.0 release had a much better AI than the earlier versions. Right now, it is very effective at waging war, but the diplomatic stuff is still catching up. In the past few months, though, they've made some pretty big improvements to the negotiating code.
In general, it seems like the post-2.0 freeciv community is much less focused on the multi-player battles. The game is much more balanced nowadays, and the biggest factions of players seem to be solo and "longturn" players. (That last one is pretty neat: you play a multiplayer game with one turn per day. It's great if you can't afford to get sucked into the really time-consuming games.) A quick check shows that the single-player forum is at least twice as active as the multi-player forum.
Since I own so many of the Civ games, I don't play freeciv a lot any more (especially since I've gotten the mac-native Civ4), but when I'm in the mood for modding a game, freeciv can't be beat. Even Civ4 with its python scripting isn't as flexible as freeciv.
On a different note: One of my favorite mods for Civ4 is the Ethnically Diverse Units mod. It adds a lot of variety to the graphics and makes it easier to identify the units' owner at high zoom levels.
Posts: 145 | Registered: Apr 2007
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In case any of you were interested, I just downloaded the trailer for Civilization: Revolution on XBOX Live. It is an E3 trailer, so it's mostly just pre-rendered crap, but it looks intriguing. Especially if you believe the tagline, which is simply a quote from Sid Meier: "This is the game I've always wanted to make."
Sometimes I get really wary when people say stuff like that--the "movie we always wanted to make" version of the Matrix (part 3) was an affront to God and man--but sometimes it works out pretty well also.
Posts: 82 | Registered: Apr 2007
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I really enjoyed civ 4. A word of warning...avoid nukes. They tend make everyone get pissed at you, and fighting with several people at once can make things difficult.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
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I liked II and IV better than III. I had III for a few weeks or so, but then it exploded in my CD drive and I didn't buy a replacement - I waited until IV went down to $40.
My problem with III was that the technology tree seemed too rigid. I had to complete all of a certain level of technology to go on to the next section. That meant I couldn't go for railroad directly (as an example) until the previous levels were done. I prefer to aim for a few specific discoveries and catch up on others as I can.
I also found that Civ II became too easy. I don't have that problem with IV. I have started more games than I have finished - usually because I don't have time to play a game through from beginning to end and forget where I was when I get back to it, so I end up just starting a new game. I kind of like that there are more ways to win than just being the first one to complete the space ship or killing off everyone else. (Although I'm going to try the killing off everyone else method, sometime.)
One thing I don't like about IV is that the choices for leaders seems to be limited compared to II. I think there are male and female choices for every civilization, where in IV there are some civilizations with two males or just one male or female. I suppose there's a mod for that, though I haven't checked.
Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I didn't like Civ3. Don't really know why, I just didn't. Civ2 was my favorite game of all time. Now I'm not sure if it's Civ4 or Civ2. Hmm...
Posts: 354 | Registered: Jan 2006
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Corruption was definitely broken in Civ III, and it was pretty annoying, but there were mods that took care of the problem, as I remember.
One thing that I really disliked in Civ I and II, and which bothered me as much as corruption in Civ III did, was the lack of distinct borders. I hated having an opponent send a settler into the depths of my territory and found a city.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Yes, Civ 1 and 2 were missing borders. But Civ 3 didn't really fix the problem. Yes, they could found cities in your borders, but they could move across easily enough. And your diplomatic options were so limited that it was basically: tell them to go away; they don't tell them to go away; they don't either: choose to declare war in which case you are the one who broke the treaty or: sit there and take it
The other thing I didn't like about civ 3 was how easy it was to get resource screwed. In 4 there are usually a couple of options (armies do work without horses, and you can either get copper or iron for a lot of units, and there are many which don't need any resource at all). In 3 if you had no iron and no horses, you are pretty much useless until gunpowder. If you then have no gunpowder, you lose the game.
Posts: 354 | Registered: Jan 2006
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Out of curiosity, what are some good mods for civ4. When it first came out, it seemed to have a ton of potential, and I'm curious to see if that really materialized.
Posts: 2437 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Oh, I absolutely agree that the implementation of borders in III was flawed, but at least they were there. There's no doubt that IV is the better game, and that its approach to borders is better than that of its predecessor.
I actually kind of liked the possibility of getting resource srewed in III, though; more than once I had the experiencing of discovering that I didn't have the rescources to build units that I'd discovered how to build, and end up waging a war to secure them. That was a lot of fun.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Ricree, there's one called...hm...Fall from Heaven 2, I think, that's quite good. Uses the Civ IV engine to build a very good, well fleshed out fantasy game.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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