I love that the community is doing this, though I'm curious why Civ 3 in particular. My understanding was that "classic" (for lack of a better term) Civ fans tend to prefer either 2 or 4, and that 3 was considered to be not as good. But perhaps I was mistaken as to the community's opinions on the games.
For me the most classic one is Civ III by a mile. 4 was way too modern/ flashy for me and 2 too old school. But maybe I was just born at the right time for 3.
You can turn off a lot of the Civ 4 flash and it will feel more like Civ III.
But to each his own. Civ 4 was the first one that really, really hooked me.
For me it was Civ 4's modability that made it the best for me. Because when I got tired of playing Civ 4's normal game, I could install the Fall From Heaven mod and play a completely different game. Wizards, golems, angels, demons, spells, wild animals instead of barbarians (which could be tamed and turned into your own units if you had units with the right promotions)... it made for a completely different gameplay experience.
If I hadn't quit computer games cold turkey (when I realized I was showing all the signs of addiction) over a decade ago, I would still have Civ IV installed and still be playing it today. It just didn't get old, because of how varied the game could become.
I can definitely vouch for the 2 or 4 narrative, those have always been my favorites of the 'Modernish' civ games, but my favorite will always be CivNet (Civ 1 with multiplayer). There is some real simplicity in Civ 1 that makes it much better suited to a multiplayer experience than the later entries. It is a real pain to get any non-hotseat multiplayer working nowawdays, but well-worth it.
Agree, wish there were quality of life improvements to Civ1 that kept the simplicity and aesthetics fully intact, while modernizing some of the tedious mid/late game stuff like managing each city in a large empire based on some straightforward goals like 'more science' or 'fastest path to rocketry' or whatnot.
Freeciv unfortunately has none of the charm of Civ1.
I love civ 1 so so much.
Here's a perspective on "why civ 3" by one of the best civ 3 players: https://youtu.be/IOvWgfZiHGo?si=uvTWTaRQsfxE_ffN
Thank you for the link. It is enlightening for someone who likes to play the game, but is not obsessive about a particular version. (I like the idea of Civilization, and will play it for that reason alone. More often than not, I will choose an older version simply because it is faster to load and play than for the intrinsic merits of the ruleset itself.)
Because it was born out of the Civ3 modding community which has been wanting a remake for 20+ years.
Sounds like you've been listening to Civ4 fans. ;) 3 is just as active on steam and has a very active and loyal multiplayer league.
Fair enough, thanks!
FreeCiv covers civ 1 and 2 more or less.
Personally, I didn't play much of 2 or 3, so I don't have strong feelings either way.
Freeciv's point of interest is that it's not trying to exactly replicate any one of the original Civs: it has its default ruleset plus others that are closer to the original games, but it's very easy to make your own.
Which FreeCiv? The one you install locally, or the one you play via browser on the Web?
https://freecivweb.com/
The latter has more, like Multiplayer 2.4 Dragoon, and Multiplayer 2.5 Elephant(in development), which weren't available locally when I last looked.
There is also https://github.com/longturn/freeciv21 which has an acceptable local client, and finally does not slow down so much when playing larger maps with many AIs, like both FreeCiv and FreeCivWeb tend to do.
https://longturn.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
I tried that, recently, and barely espcaped a relapse. (Phew!)
UnCiv covers civ 5 as well so I think there's a place for something in between
especially since openciv3 aims to fix some of civ 3's shortcomings
Til! I should give UnCiv a try, I've sunk a lot of hours into 5 but didn't know about this.
3 is my favorite in the series, but maybe that's not a popular take.
Anecdata:
I'm a Civ3 hater, give me 2 or 4 any day. 3 is my least favorite version of the game.
But, OTOH, my wife is ride or die for Civ3.
I must admit that there is a certain sense of nostalgia I get from playing Civ 3 that I never got from any of the other Civ games, but that's probably just because it was the first Civ game I played and got really hooked on as a young kid.
> with capabilities inspired by the best of the 4X genre and lessons learned from modding Civ3. Our vision is to make Civ3 as it could have been
Looks to not be a straight remake. I wonder whether 3 is a preferable target because things like graphical complexity in >= 4 is too much.
Well, "capabilities" is carrying a lot of weight there. One of the main objectives is to design it for unrestricted modding to accommodate all of the wishlisted features, but "out of the box" the default game mode will be 1:1 in mechanics with some QoL improvements. The inspiration is mostly for designing systems in a way that can be easily reconfigured or extended to behave in other ways. We hope that by the time we reach feature parity, people will have already built some mods to do things that were impossible with Civ3.
As mentioned above this was started by Civ3 modders, and we all have our passionate reasons for preferring it over other entries, but you're not wrong that doing this with a 3D engine would be a whole `nother ballgame. There are actually Civ4 and Civ5 remakes underway which have both opted for 2D implementations.
civ 5 is now the most popular among hardcore civ fans. still in the top 100 games on steam. more than 2x the player count of its sequel
It is a great game, and the Vox Populi mod has given it so much more life.
VP has hands down the best AI that the Civ series has ever seen. My "wow" moment was when the enemy parachuted to my hinterlands to pillage my critical resources. In comparison, the official AI couldn't even pull off an amphibious attack.
Can I tangent on your question here and ask what others think of Civ 7 now? When I learned about it I thought it was a day 1 game purchase for me for sure, but I held off when I saw a stream of bad reviews. I figured I'd come back when they ironed the problems out (as they've done in every major Civ release to my memory). Haven't taken the plunge yet.
They built it as a railroady board game instead of a sandbox video game. The rumors from their experimental workshop test and latest announcement make me hopeful for a big update in the spring. Until then, it doesn’t feel worth playing it more than a couple times through. Every game feels the same.
Trying to streamline the series into a boardgame seems to be a trend. Even Civ6 felt more like a boardgame for points than a sandbox already, even though it was still rather enjoyable.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Ed Beach has been a board game designer in the past. Which is not to say he's the wrong guy for the job, he has done some great work on Civ5 BNW and Civ6. But perhaps he went overboard on 7.
It is _rough_. People say it has gotten better since release, but if you have not played it before, and were to play it fresh right now, it is not great. The UI is both dense and vapid at the same time, UI glitches/bugs, jarring all-or-nothing lock-step advancement of ages, etc.
I’ve played and loved Civ 1/4/5/6 for hundreds of hours each. They have always been a bit rough around the edges on launch, but 7 is the first time I’ve felt like they a) released a half-finished game, b) reduced the game to something that is just plain unenjoyable, and c) made me feel ripped off. It’s a massive downgrade in so many different ways and I would pick any previous version over 7. I have loved playing Civ for decades but 7 killed my interest in the game completely.
I was big into Civ4. Put about 100 hours into Civ5 and felt that I'd entirely exhausted its strategic depth. Didn't bother with Civ6. Tom Chick hasn't bothered reviewing Civ7 but doesn't seem to be a fan based on forum comments, so I won't be bothering to play it.
I'm holding off on 7 myself. I think they deviated too hard from the formula such that it doesn't look like it's even still a Civ game. And while I'm open-minded enough to try it, I wasn't going to drop $70 on a game I had reason to suspect I would dislike. I figured I would wait until it was on game pass, or on sale for $5 someday.
More recently I read that they are going to update the game such that you don't have to switch civs. That's a good start (though I still don't think I will like the era system at all), but reading the initial reviews a year ago I found out that the game cuts off abruptly in the mid 20th century, rather than going to the information age like normal. To me, that is blatantly unfinished, so I'm not planning to get the game until they fix that as well.
Civ is like TOS Star Trek movies: You can mostly avoid the even numbered ones!
With TOS Star Trek movies, the usual claim is that you should avoid the odd numbered ones.
With the exception of Civ2, which was excellent.
Except that 6 is far and away the best
I actually preferred Civ 3 to 2 and 4. It scratched a certain itch.
3 has a really nice feel when you manage to get the early timing attacks off against the neighbours, but the later half of the game is too solved - the game ends with infantry + artillery stacks being the only units you need, and with the 3x4 city grid bring optimal.
4 in contrast had a bunch of different paths to power, and those worked even on high difficulties. There were also no optimal city grid the same way (though still being denser than civ5).
3 is still my favourite of the series. 5 was good too, but 3 overall feels complete and had great graphics.
The modding community was gigantic for 3 and was simply amazing being a part of it.
I very much enjoy Civ 2 and 3 and would've played 3 more, but the 3d rendered sprites make it much more of a pain to add anything graphical to.
There's Freeciv [1] for IV, and Unciv [2] for V. I doesn't have many fans, VI is too recent, and VII, well... Let's not talk about VII.
> Civ fans tend to prefer [...]
I'd say, each entry in the series gets love. The saying goes: "Your favorite Civ game is the first one you ever played". In my experience, that's pretty true (Still stuck on V).
[1] https://www.freeciv.org/
[2] https://github.com/yairm210/Unciv
Yeah as a Civilization: Call to Power fan I have to say the “first game in the series I tried” affinity bonus is overwhelming.
Alpha Centauri was objectively the best though.
https://paeantosmac.wordpress.com/ This you may appreciate
Interestingly enough, the Call to Power series was unaffiliated with Sid Meier's Civilization and was developed after Activision licensed the name from the board game Civilization was unauthorizedly based upon. There was a sequel called just "Call to Power II" in case you missed it, which had it's source code released in 2003 in case you're feeling nostalgic.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/civilization-ownership-dispute...
I think the first Civ I played WAS III (maybe II at a friend's house once before?) and it ain't my fav. It sits below IV and V and even VI and I don't really like VI all that much either...
Civ 1 and 2 have already been done, so if you want to play those, hit up freeciv.
I'm aware. But why rebuild 3 rather than 4, in that case?
Because 4 was a travesty unless you’re REALLY into religion.
3 was a great game for those who prefer building over war, and the first one with a proper non-military victory option.
that was my first thought, I was gonna show my husband this but he's a Civ 2 ride or die
Is 3 the one with forced retirement?
Not sure, I only started the series with 4.