Poll: What is the best Civilization game?

[WoW Killer]

Civ 3. No really, Civ 3.

Well it's the one I played the most. For me it's the one that's the most upgraded of the original system, whereas the others are different games in essence. You can't really prefer Civ 1 or 2 to Civ 3, unless you've never played them all. But when it comes to Civ 3 versus Civ 4, then that's a conundrum, because they're both good games in different ways.

I love the whole series by the way, and I would never want to choose between them. But since you've asked, it's Civ 3.

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

I'm sorry, without Civilization 2: Test of Time included on this list, this can only be for the second best civilization game.

Civilization V in my book mainly because I hated fighting wars in the other Civ games because the stacks of doom took most of the strategy out of combat and all the enjoyment.

If you posted this one one of the civ forums, theyd probably hop all over you for a strategy vs tactics discussion.

Anyhoo, even worse than the stack of doom was that they took away zone of control in civ 4, so there was simply no benefit to holding the high ground with an inferior force-- the stack could walk right past you unimpeded. No need for forts, because anyone can just walk past them.

Hehe don't I know it. Saying anything good about civ v or implying that some aspect of civ iv where not perfect on the civ fanatics forum I'd be lynched and hanging from the nearest lamp post within the hour.

 

[joe-h2o]

Civ 4 really is great. It certainly has issues - network play on large maps in late game is subject to the frequent "game out of sync" error that they never managed to fix, even in the later expansions. Makes multiplayer very annoying.

Still, those are minor points in an otherwise excellent game.

I never picked up Civ5 since at the time it came out my network gaming buddies for Civ4 were a mix of Mac and PC users and *unforgivably* for a game released in the modern era as a cross platform title, the multiplayer was OS specific (ie, either all Mac users or all Windows users, but not both mixed). Given all the terrible bugs on release, and the withholding of some key iconic leaders from the series from the release to be clearly released as paid DLC (hello, Ghengis Kahn!), I skipped it.

From all the reports of people who do own V, I'm glad I did not splash out full price for it - maybe I'll pick it up when it's £5 on steam in the future.

 

[Vrach]

From all the reports of people who do own V, I'm glad I did not splash out full price for it - maybe I'll pick it up when it's £5 on steam in the future.

Was up for 7,5 euro this weekend actually, so close

 

[octafish]

Hmmm, I think I only want to play V from now on for the hex based combat, I almost lost my life to the addictive one more turn nature of II, but IV has Nimoy and the most awesome music. It is tough. But if you've played V and gotten hooked, I say buy V.

 

[Sean951]

The correct answer is Total War from Rome onwards. =P

 

[Goofguy]

I'd have to say Civ 4 but for what it's worth, I've only ever played 2 of the other games in the poll so my opinion is not a completely impartial and learned one.

 

[chimeracreator]

Five wins it for me because the combat is more fun and allows for a more reliable pacifist run. It clearly can use more polish so hopefully Gods and Kings will give it that along with extra features.

 

[thiosk]

Civilization V in my book mainly because I hated fighting wars in the other Civ games because the stacks of doom took most of the strategy out of combat and all the enjoyment.

If you posted this one one of the civ forums, theyd probably hop all over you for a strategy vs tactics discussion.

Hehe don't I know it. Saying anything good about civ v or implying that some aspect of civ iv where not perfect on the civ fanatics forum I'd be lynched and hanging from the nearest lamp post within the hour.[/quote]

Thats very true. They'll shout someone down with very nasty vitriol.

Specifically, the claim is that CIV is a strategic game, while CivV is is tactical. A game of pure strategy by their logic makes stacks of doom a necessity, and taking that away makes it a lousy tactical toy game.

I don't agree, of course. I hated the SoD and would not have bothered with CivV had it not eliminated them-- they aren't fun to play with. I don't LIKE to build 250 units and blob over the map with them. I want to control territory beautifully and with style-- I don't like building giant stacks and I don't like using them. As a result, my empire tends to be extremely weak to them.

 

[Warforger]

Civ 3. No really, Civ 3.

Well it's the one I played the most. For me it's the one that's the most upgraded of the original system, whereas the others are different games in essence. You can't really prefer Civ 1 or 2 to Civ 3, unless you've never played them all. But when it comes to Civ 3 versus Civ 4, then that's a conundrum, because they're both good games in different ways.

I love the whole series by the way, and I would never want to choose between them. But since you've asked, it's Civ 3.

I only have Civ 2, but what I like about it is that you can edit units. This leads to much lulz with paradropping tanks. Can you do that in 3?

My only complaint is global warming, it's so retarded, it's needless boring and so tedious to fix, it takes so long to re-irrigate all those tiles. The whole mechanic makes you try to get Environmentalism ASAP as to postpone it until after the game is done.

 

[Darknacht]

Advanced Civilization is easily the best Civ game.

 

[ImperialSunlight]

Civ III is my favourite, IV and V just seem to play the game for you a lot of the time. I've been told II is also really good, but haven't played it.

This. I really disliked all the automation with the workers and exploration, among other things. Management was a lot more fun in Civ III.

 

[dancinginfernal]

If you asked me last week, I would have said Civ V is the most recommendable Civilization game.

However, I booted up Civ IV this past Sunday, and was greeted to something I had completely forgotten in my years since playing the game last.

Spoiler: Jesus Christ It's Beautiful

But in addition to that, the gameplay runs a lot more smoothly than Civ V, which crashes a lot for me, even on my fairly up-to-date rig. Not to mention the AI seems broken in V what with being so batshit bipolar and terribly incompetent, moreso than with past Civilization games.

Also IV has quite the modding community, there's a lot of good stuff out there yo. And Leonard Nemoy.

Nemoy, Ahoy!

 

[BoogieManFL]

I don't know if Alpha Centauri is a "Civilization game" even if it's made by the same developer, but I've played most of them and I still like it best. I wish they'd make a new one so bad. It makes me sad I didn't know of it when it was new. Such an awesome game. The techs are brilliant, and the voice overs? Superior. Love that game. Terraforming with the formers is enjoyable, more so than the workers in the Civ games. Combat allows for good strategy too.

In addition to that, even years later I still vividly remember the different faction leaders and their voices, much more memorable than other games of the same type.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Ummm....

I'll have to say none of the above and go with Galactic Civilizations 2.

It's Civilization. IN SPACE. With AIs that have differing behaviors and special abilities. And random events that REALLY shake up the game. And a shipbuilder that lets you build your own 3D ships and equip them with lasers, missiles, engines, etc. I love it.

Then again, my only other Civ games I've played are Civ 2 The Test of Time (which was pretty fun. Sank LOADS of hours into it.) and Civ 5 which...I didn't play much of, but I didn't like it all that much for some reason.

 

[BoogieManFL]

Ummm....

I'll have to say none of the above and go with Galactic Civilizations 2.

It's Civilization. IN SPACE. With AIs that have differing behaviors and special abilities. And random events that REALLY shake up the game. And a shipbuilder that lets you build your own 3D ships and equip them with lasers, missiles, engines, etc. I love it.

Then again, my only other Civ games I've played are Civ 2 The Test of Time (which was pretty fun. Sank LOADS of hours into it.) and Civ 5 which...I didn't play much of, but I didn't like it all that much for some reason.

I played that for a bit, quite a while ago. I quit when I noticed that virtually every empire was choosing the exact same tech path and had ships equipped almost identically. Perhaps they patched it since then, but, that sucked.

 

[4Aces]

AC has customization. You can choose what armor, weapons, and special kit to use. You can choose Zerg attackers, decently balanced units, or just go for the mini-deathstars hovering around shooting black holes into everything. Two words - Anti-Grav Terraformers!

Of course, it also comes with a healthy does of dated graphics, so you have to decide if you are hardcore enough (aka - jaded by all the console-itis crap we are constantly being pelted by - like Civ5) or if you want 3d models with animations and special effects to make everything look nice before you nuke the crap out of it.

For those that have only played Civ5, then it is not your fault. You are young enough to expect that game companies actually pay attention to themselves, and keep records of what they did in previous releases. Unfortunately, that logic is controlled by The Magic Eight ball. We wish people controlled the companies, but it is the magic infinity balls, they have all the power.

Oh magic Eight ball, will we ever see a sequel to Alpha Centauri?
"Reply hazy, try again"

Reply courtesy of http://www.ask8ball.net/
(the unofficial CEO tool of choice)

Cheers!

 

[chimeracreator]

For those that have only played Civ5, then it is not your fault. You are young enough to expect that game companies actually pay attention to themselves, and keep records of what they did in previous releases. Unfortunately, that logic is controlled by The Magic Eight ball. We wish people controlled the companies, but it is the magic infinity balls, they have all the power.

To be fair Civ IV is still on sale via Steam so people who want it can still go and try it. That said, the changes that Civ V made make sense from a development standpoint. They set out to update the game and that meant rebuilding a lot of components from a completely new code base. So they decided to focus on what the core of the Civilization series was which is: the tech tree, multiple victory paths, diverse cultures and addictive game play.

They also managed to make it so terrain was infinitely more important than before and affected not only your initial build decisions but your long term policy and tech choices, which makes replay a lot more fun because you may end up as the Aztecs next to two cows and a sheep in the middle of a giant continent or be the Russians on a tiny two by two island with no visible resources. Both are produce very different games and it makes replay a lot more fun.

In the process they cut out a lot of the more exotic elements that didn't have a huge impact on game play which IV had such as religion, espionage and features added by the expansions such as vassal states. They also failed to create a proper tactical AI, but given that they had to remake that entirely from scratch odds are it wasn't easy.

Now that Fraxis has a solid core to work from again they're following IV's example of branching out into the more exotic elements and seeing what they can do with it. Religion will apparently further enhance the importance of terrain and espionage will make the AI's appear slightly less schizophrenic. With some luck they'll also sort out some balance and basic mechanical issues while improving the AI, but we need to see what they produce before anyone can say if it works or not.

 

[woodaba]

Alright, I think I've made my decision. I'm going to get Civ IV complete edition, along with Alpha Centauri, but I'm gonna check Civ V out when the expansion comes out. Thanks for all your help everybody!

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

Civilization V in my book mainly because I hated fighting wars in the other Civ games because the stacks of doom took most of the strategy out of combat and all the enjoyment.

If you posted this one one of the civ forums, theyd probably hop all over you for a strategy vs tactics discussion.

Hehe don't I know it. Saying anything good about civ v or implying that some aspect of civ iv where not perfect on the civ fanatics forum I'd be lynched and hanging from the nearest lamp post within the hour.

Thats very true. They'll shout someone down with very nasty vitriol.

Specifically, the claim is that CIV is a strategic game, while CivV is is tactical. A game of pure strategy by their logic makes stacks of doom a necessity, and taking that away makes it a lousy tactical toy game.

I don't agree, of course. I hated the SoD and would not have bothered with CivV had it not eliminated them-- they aren't fun to play with. I don't LIKE to build 250 units and blob over the map with them. I want to control territory beautifully and with style-- I don't like building giant stacks and I don't like using them. As a result, my empire tends to be extremely weak to them.[/quote]

I never actually heard this argument before so thanks for the heads up with that one. Me and my friend back when we played multiplayer Civ IV religiously found that just using a massive amount of seige weapons and other units that cause collateral to the enemy units, (essentially just using them as cannon fodder) was the only real strategy involved with capturing a city. I found this made units worthless as a dead unit was often easily replaced with 5 others within a turn.