Any Civ 3 fans out there?

[ChristianWeeks]

I've just recently gotten an urge to dig through my piles of CD's and play some Civ 3 again. I've always been a huge fan of civilization, but stopped at 3 because the cheesy graphics and artstyle of 4 reaalllly turned me off. Anybody else here still enjoy Civ 3? :)

[Stoat]

No, I stopped at two because three hacked me off. The best part of one and two, for me, was a leisurely explore at the beginning. Plus, every once in a while, circumstances landed *just* in my favor and I managed to become an advanced Civ while everybody else was in the Stone Age, so I could crush them beneath my awesome tanks and stealth bombers. Oh, the pleasure of those well-earned guillotine graphics at three in the morning!

As of three, they jiggered the gameplay so every civ advanced at about the same pace. I'm sure they told themselves that was more realistic, but that's ahistorical. Have these people never heard of New Guinea? Plus, other civs advanced so fast territorially that you had no choice but to throw up cities as fast as you possibly could or you'd be beaten in the first hundred rounds.

Ruined my fun. The graphics were nice, though.

[ChristianWeeks]

Ah stinks to hear your experience with it, but I have to disagree. It all depends on the difficulty to me. If I played on chieften or warlord, I could easily be in the modern age before everybody else was even in the industrial age. But as the difficulty increases, that gap decreases real fast.

One thing I didnt like about 2 is that I would, like you, destroy stone age civilizations with stealth bombers and tanks, but if I left 1 city unguarded, then the civ that captured it would take a technology. Thats frustrating, especially since as SOON as they get that technology, they trade it with every other civ in the world, so if you get careless, they can get advanced very quickly.

But yeah now that you point it out, I agree on expansion. The first quarter of the game is just a rat race to get the most territory, and its real difficult connecting everything with roads and defending all the cities at the pace thatyou have to expand.

I also dont like the corruption system... No longer can you have a democratic, corruptionless, utopian world. Everything sucks when you get so far away from the capital.

Despite all taht though I still like Civ 3 better, mainly because of territory and the strategic resource aspect. Its always fun advancing faster than enemies and then having to attack to secure resources.

[Stoat]

I was embarrassed to play at chieftan or warlord level :)

[AsaB]

I actually started playing Civ at the 4th installment, I haven't tried the other 3. I'm obviously no veteran but I still don't see what's so offputting about the graphic and art in nr.4, I personally find it lovely! Admittedly a wee simplistic/cartoony but I think it works.

I love starting a new game, all the fun is in exploring, deciding what technologies to discover, see the empire get bigger etc. The actual war part tends to bore me! I guess I'm too much of a pacifist to enjoy it, heh.

However, what you guys said about civilizations not developing at the same speed in the earlier games makes much more sense, I wish they'd still have that. Maybe keeping the game politically correct, hm?

[ChristianWeeks]

Ah its that simplistic, cartoony feel that turns me off. Idk, just doesnt fit the deep strategic gameplay that I'm used to. Ah well, a matter of preference.

But yeah, the beginning is always funnest to me. Exploring and saying "oh damn theres 3 cows and a wheat all by a river! get a settler there ASAP!!"

Once the whole globe is revealed and you meet all your neighbors, it gets much more boring. I've never been able to actually complete a conquest victory, mainly because I usualy play on much larger maps, and because the constant conquering / razing, from city to city, gets monotonous fast. But its definitely enjoyable looking at the map and seeing your enormous empire dwarf over the rest of the world's nations :)

I've onl gotten to regent difficulty, and the last several games I've played I have pretty much dominated. So I should move onto monarchy, but idk, i like regent :)