To the Vets, what makes you coming back to this game?

[REDSHADOW]

Genuine question. We have 4,5,6, and even though 7 just came out. I hear people saying its sucks. So what does 3 have that 4,5,6 can not compare? Im going to ask this question on civ 4,5,6 forms because Im genuinely curious.

[woLf_toNy_woLf]

It is in 2D

For me, the feeling of gameplay is different, the later versions are so complicated while this one is just more simple.

And at the beginning, the world feel more unknown and empty, more to explore, you will get a joy to encounter other civilization in the dark and want to build new city as fast as possible to get more resource than the others.

Last but not least, there will be firework if your people love you.

[REDSHADOW]

Originally posted by woLf_toNy_woLf:

It is in 2D

For me, the feeling of gameplay is different, the later versions are so complicated while this one is just more simple.

And at the beginning, the world feel more unknown and empty, more to explore, you will get a joy to encounter other civilization in the dark and want to build new city as fast as possible to get more resource than the others.

Last but not least, there will be firework if your people love you.

There are no fireworks in later games?

[woLf_toNy_woLf]

Originally posted by REDSHADOW:

There are no fireworks in later games?

As I could remember with Civ 4, there are none. I am not sure with civ 567.
And they can let you expand palace if your people love you, not in civ 4 too.
So I guess this is one of the point that I like civ 3 more, more immersive.

[REDSHADOW]

Originally posted by woLf_toNy_woLf:

Originally posted by REDSHADOW:

There are no fireworks in later games?

As I could remember with Civ 4, there are none. I am not sure with civ 567.
And they can let you expand palace if your people love you, not in civ 4 too.
So I guess this is one of the point that I like civ 3 more, more immersive.

understandable thanks for sharing. For me I got in to civ through 5 but I bought 4 and 3 and even tried 2 to see how is it. But I like 3 because it reminds me of Age of empires 2. It feels a bit complex because there is not enough "eye candy" at least to me. But I appreciate it for what it was. But I like playing the scenario maps like WW2.

[Ail]

I made a mod for this one. I like my Mod. I want to play it.

[Reaper King]

1) I grew up with this game. My dad had the full disk set and this one of his favorite games. I have excellent memories watching my dad play this for years. This was the very first video game I ever got on steam. That's part of it.
2) The art style and music. I simply love the oldschool pixel art. Dont get me wrong civ 6 is beautiful as is civ 7 . But this games art is just the perfect combination of old school art with modernity. Then on the music front this game has the best sound track of all civs. It's not even close. The modern civs are to busy trying to match songs with nations and civ 4s music just isnt as memorable. Some of the songs of this game live rent free in my head.
3) The AI. The AI in this game is a cheating rat bastard who will take all of your best laid plans and ruin them. The Ai in this game is domineering, boosted to hell and back, and agressive. If they sense weakness they will just straight up demand things from you and if you refuse they will declare war. Not only that but when they declare war they bring the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hordes. It is not uncommon even in the middgame for the Ai to send multiple 30+ unit doom stacks at you. They also are much better then older games at keeping up tech wise. What this means is that the AI even on lower difficulties poses a serious challenge that requires expert useage of terrain, posistioning, technology, and unit composistion to build.
4) Diplomacy. This backs up the last topic. In Civ 6 if you breathe on an AI they denounce you and that's it no more interaction. The only thing you can trade for are art works and ammenities oh and gold. It's boring and a small shell of this game. In Civ 3 you can trade, techs, cities, gold, luxuries, buy and build alliances, create embargoes, build embassies, use embassies to spy. Oh, and if you declare war you can mend relations later. Being a war monger in civ 3 doesnt soft lock you out of diplomacy. I have succeeded in a diplomatic victory after spending 75 percent of the game brutally and viciously subjugating my lands.
5) Workers matter. Roads and production come from workers and directly changes how much production, how many resources and how quickly you travel. Railroads are game changers as they allow instant travel on them. Airports also change the game. Buidling and holding an airport on an enemy continent becomes a strategic neccessity to win the game
6) Pops. When your citizens get mad in this game they revolt stopping all production and if not handled quickly they can break things, burn things or become independent. If another nation nearbye has more culture they might join them. Then when taking an enemy city you actually have to garrison it or starve it out because a large pop city will otherwise revert back to it's old owner.

All of this is why I keep coming back. Because this game is far more punishing, far more strategic and far more interesting then the modern civ games. You can actually lose this game and thus you have to play smart which is why I love this game. Every action I take I feel I have to weigh it all out. Meanwhile in Civ 6 im just playing a fun city builder with no stakes.

[Valthejean]

The big thing for me is how much Firaxis has been refusing to optimize. Instead of actually optimizing their games so they run well with an actual empire, they restrict us by making maps smaller and smaller, or putting in city number limitations like in 7.

In 3, you can build an EMPIRE. There's a feeling of grandness in this grand strategy game, something that's been lost in current games lately. Plus I've been waiting for the mod maker of WW2 Global Gold to finally re-release that scenario with all of its assets. (The short version is the site that hosted all the art assets they had for it took them down because it's based in Germany....and, well....they have very restrictive laws related to Germany during WW2.) They're been working on a remake for it for ages now...probably wont ever happen, but I like to dream.

[REDSHADOW]

Originally posted by Valthejean:

The big thing for me is how much Firaxis has been refusing to optimize. Instead of actually optimizing their games so they run well with an actual empire, they restrict us by making maps smaller and smaller, or putting in city number limitations like in 7.

In 3, you can build an EMPIRE. There's a feeling of grandness in this grand strategy game, something that's been lost in current games lately. Plus I've been waiting for the mod maker of WW2 Global Gold to finally re-release that scenario with all of its assets. (The short version is the site that hosted all the art assets they had for it took them down because it's based in Germany....and, well....they have very restrictive laws related to Germany during WW2.) They're been working on a remake for it for ages now...probably wont ever happen, but I like to dream.

Tell me more. What do you mean "you can build an EMPIRE" in 3. elaborate. Also what is the mod you are talking about Global gold? Is it just for 3 or is it to be for 3,4, and 5?

[Valthejean]

Originally posted by REDSHADOW:

Tell me more. What do you mean "you can build an EMPIRE" in 3. elaborate. Also what is the mod you are talking about Global gold? Is it just for 3 or is it to be for 3,4, and 5?

Quite literally building an empire. In the modern civ games, you don't get to develop a lot of settlements. In 3, you can have a massive empire. I don't mind having playing tall as an option, I've done it in 3 plenty of times, but every iteration after 3 has gotten less and less landmass/settlements over time. Maps can be huge in 3, and you can have a buttload of settlements to boot. The game just feels much larger in scale than in the later games.

And WW2 Global Gold is a custom scenario for Civ3, set during WW2. It expands on each faction, uses a global world map, and has a lot of depth and fun to it. I'm sure there are plenty of WW2 scenarios in the other games, it's a very popular time period for strategy game scenarios.

[Reaper King]

Originally posted by Valthejean:

Originally posted by REDSHADOW:

Tell me more. What do you mean "you can build an EMPIRE" in 3. elaborate. Also what is the mod you are talking about Global gold? Is it just for 3 or is it to be for 3,4, and 5?

Quite literally building an empire. In the modern civ games, you don't get to develop a lot of settlements. In 3, you can have a massive empire. I don't mind having playing tall as an option, I've done it in 3 plenty of times, but every iteration after 3 has gotten less and less landmass/settlements over time. Maps can be huge in 3, and you can have a buttload of settlements to boot. The game just feels much larger in scale than in the later games.

And WW2 Global Gold is a custom scenario for Civ3, set during WW2. It expands on each faction, uses a global world map, and has a lot of depth and fun to it. I'm sure there are plenty of WW2 scenarios in the other games, it's a very popular time period for strategy game scenarios.

This. In Civ 3 Conquest runs are a pure joy. The AI is a challenge and every bit of land you take you can actually use. Civ 4 is the first one that really hard caps expansion where they soft lock the amount of cities you can have through maintenance. Meanwhile in civ 3 so long as you can keep the cities garrisoned and dont build poorly in those cities you economy wont take a hit for gobbling up the entire map. This also make early game more fun as optimizing how to build settlers actually is encouraged as every city you build will help you long term.

[Tembies]

Strikes a perfect balance between the creative chaos of the first two entries and the wider slew of approaches of management in the later games. Also the AI is probably the best fit so single player doesn't become as much of a bore- some might say "harder" but I'd just say the best at playing the game its given.

[spacewizard786]

Heavy nostalgic factor for me. I was exploring classical Celtic music, heard the song Kells by Anuna and immediately remembered 20+ years ago playing Civ 3 when it was on CD ROM. The game is very open ended and I like that there are mods for it now.

[Rockhopper]

My friends and I spent many all-nighters playing the original Civilization on my buddy's 386 back in the early 90's. When Civilization II came out, that was a game-changer, and we continued to have fun playing that. Civilization III is like those two games, only turned up to 11. I like some parts of the following Civilizations, but none have come close to that original feel last offered in Civilization III.

[Clionerd]

I'm coming at it from Civ2. I played Civ2 for decades without realizing what a horribly clunky and unbalanced game it was. Civ3 is like Civ2 with more sanity and balance added.

[greengoo]

pretty simple. you can not manage 256 city's in Civ 4 to 7.

you can not feel your in charge of a real nation in the latter game. look at the USA or any modern nation, for that matter then place it into a Civ game over Civ 3? you cant do it.
literally you cant, you could model it on a one of the USA states may be. to a tune of 1 to 6 city's worth, and they call that a nation???

nar you need a civ with more then 20 city's to be even a small nation in are world. the Civ game have gotten batter but they totally lost the plot.

also you have move move option in Civ 3 with 8 directions over 6 in later games.

the map is absolutely tiny in later game and due to how the city's now expand out of the starting hex........ just make the map feel even smaller. there is no grand scale any more in Civ 6 or later.

next a good tech run can take nearly 16 to 24 hours, a nice game that spans the test of time. while the modern game cant last that long due to the optimisation for multi player.

lastly i want to play wide and tall, not tall or wide. i what 30 to 200 city;s not 3 to 6.

yes Civ 3 is not perfect, but its a better Civilisation builder than later game as it at lest under stand the scale of a real civilisation, which later game cant even grasp, due to how they have been optimised for torment /multiplayer games.