Get Away with you! The English Inventing Gravity - AND testing it and keeping in calibrated for the rest of the Planet (Even the French!) with an annual blood sacifice to a antediluvian cheese god in the mysterical land that is... Gloucestershire. Makes Civ 3 look like some little game you run on one of those mechnical difference engines. They will never catch on. Dwile Flonking is a superior game anyhow.
I've been trying to get into other Civ games, and the kind of visual clarity you get in CivIII is unmatched. I like how the ages transition, the general aesthetic of the land and the ambience when music is turned off. Very romantic, in a way.
Civ 4 is fantastic yeah. A proper heir to Civ 3 would be too close to Civ 3 to justify its own existence as a commercial product. If you want "Civ 3 2" we have to make it ourselves.
@@cuzon550 That's what I've been saying! :D The designs in Civ III were so brilliantly simple and straightforward that you could zoom WAY out on the map and still see what everything is (this unit is an Archer and that one's a Longbowman, this land is a Forest and that one's a Jungle, this land has Gold and that one has Iron) But Civ 4 and up put so much subtle nuance into all of the designs that you have to zoom in real close to see the distinctions :( When you can only see such a tiny glimpse of the map at a time, it doesn't feel like a strategic game where you're controlling an entire empire - it feels like a tactical game where you're only controlling one unit at a time.
@@Simpson17866 Civ4 looks too cartoonish, childish, overloaded with details, just visual mess overall tbh. I was so disappointed the day i bought and launched it so i returned to lovely old civ3 and never tried later games of civs series.
The visual clarity of Civ 3 is definitely something I've grown to appreciate so much because it tends to be lacking in modern games as a whole - not just the Civ franchise. You're absolutely right about it being refreshing! Civ 6 is a fantastic game, but the visual clarity is a mess. By the late game, it's hard to tell what's going on at a glance amidst the jumbled mess of districts, improvements, and wonders. Civ 5 is worse than 3 in this regard too, but I also appreciate how much clearer that game is than 6 when I go back and play it. Another point that wasn't addressed in this video: the added flavor from the little details on leader scenes is such a nice feature that I wish was expanded upon in later games. Watching the leaders change outfits depending on the era and address you with rich, customized quips is such a charming feature that I wish stuck in the later games. Leader scenes peaked in Civ 5 with the fully detailed throne rooms and outstanding voice acting, and Civ 6 completely dropped the ball in my opinion. 6 lacks both the charming quips of 3 and the stunning environments of 5. Sure, there's a little variety in what the leaders actually say, but they still lack the personality that the other games had. Many times, they just stand silently with an expression while a default line is listed on the screen.
I literally got this game on a whim back in the early 2000s from a flee-market i attended with me mum. I got for $5 back then. I dont have the original CD anymore from that time but it definitely captured me so well that Its still my favorite 4x game
my mom bought my older brother and me the complete edition of this game in the mid-2000s and I used to play it a ton. it'll forever be my favorite strategy game. kinda wanting to get back into it
It's funny how a lot of us have the same memories. I remember staying up all night playing it as a kid, and I'm about to spend $4.99 on the complete edition.
The grafics of modern 4x games are absolutely abominable. I am glad you mentioned the extra-icons that the civ 5 provides to be able to read that superfluous map. I sometimes played civ 5 just on the strategic map, which has beautiful icons for everything. The actual game map could very well be removed from the game without any loss to the gamplay.
Strategic mode is a significant improvement but it's admitting defeat and overcorrecting. Civ 3 shows you can actually have a unit on the map, you don't to turn it into a circle with a bow and arrow logo. The resource icons in Civ 5 and 6 are beautiful, better than the Civ 3 icons maybe. Why not actually integrate them into the map?
@@suedeciviii7142 I absolutely agree with you! Glad im not the only one who notices such things! Good example is also Colonization. Every unit and every terrain type explains itself perfectly!
@@suedeciviii7142 Chess 2 will come out one day, people will hate on it for centuries, but a millennium later people will swear that it is where the series peaked & was never matched by Chess 3, 4 & 5. Just wait & you'll see!
I love modern strategy games for going to new depths and advancing accessibility, but there's something about the elegant simplicity of 2000's games like Civ 3, Red Alert 2, AoE2, and Empire Earth that really helps distinguish them from today.
It is amazing how many people Civ 5 and 6 were able to drive towards this incredible franchise. I'm critical of certain elements of newer games but they are SUCH a blessing for fans of Civ 3.
AoE2 and Empire Earth were hardly "elegantly simple". Just look at all the hidden attack bonuses in AoE2 that are not written anywhere. All you got was "Good against X" in description, and that was sometimes wrong. The same applies to Empire Earth, game about a huge number of bonuses you build your civilization with, a large number of "ages" you ploug true is not simple. Tetris, Arkanoid, etc. might be elegantly simple. Especially nowadays you have indies some indie games that, due to limited resources and need to come with a formula, go for the elegant simplicity you are praising.
@@colombodoesstuff7653 I think simplicity is relative. Civ 3 is certainly a complex game, but the city screen comparison with Civ 6 gets the point across. A lot of the tabs in the Civ 6 city screen are for systems that just don't exist in civ 3. But yes, with RTS' specifically, I don't think there's the same creeping increases in complexity. SC2 was in many ways toned down from Brood War (in case it needs to be said, complexity is not inherently good or bad)
@@colombodoesstuff7653 Nah, you're right on that front. I'm talking more on the graphical level, there's something very endearing about the sprites and lowpoly models!
Hey Suede Im now at 430BC (the end part of your 2nd vid) on the non-exploit Sid difficulty Iroquois map you did a few months ago. Only difference is I'm playing as the Celts. I've just conquered all Mongol territory, settling new cities there and doing great so far. I'm even keeping up in tech with my surrounding neighbours, where I went into the Middle Ages in 750BC. I'm confident I wont need the Great Library to hold up in tech compared to AI. I'll keep you up as I'm going along!
Suede, I cannot thank you enough for being the voice of Civ III on UA-cam. I've been waiting for someone like you to come around and articulate what the rest of us have been thinking. I started playing Civ III when I was a kid and haven't stopped since. It truly has some of the best UI and reply I've ever experiences in a RTS. I really thought it was nostalgia, but year after year, I keep coming back. Civ III is really special and I'm glad you're continuing the legacy with your unbelievable dedication to the game, from masterful strategies to tier lists, Suede thank you!
Thanks for your strategy articles years ago drakan! If you ever took an interest in a succession game, a COTM game, or something over at the HoF, I believe people would welcome you.
@@Spoonwood Thank you Spoonwood, that's very kind of you. I'm glad you enjoyed reading them! Recently I've retaken activity back at CFC; looking forward to Civ VIIs launch. Kind regards
I'd love to see a video of you playing a standard Civ 3 game whilst sticking with the official strategy guide from Prima to determine if it's a good guide or not
Hey Suede, I'm enjoying these new videos. Couldn't agree more about the presentation; I'm so tired of modern strategy/management games either attempting realistic graphics or going cartoony. If it's a strategy game, I want a strategic view of things!
Chess has more strategic depth than Civ3? Actually chess has lots of tactical complexity but strategy is based on one goal: checkmate the enemy king. Yes there are positional considerations, but in the end if you don't have the proper visualization, calculation, memorization (gotta know them opening variations and basic endings) and pattern recognition ability you ain't gonna be no expert, let alone Master and beyond. Tactics have been said to be 99% of chess; more realistically as GM Nicolas Huschenbeth puts it: "Tactics are the foundation of everything else." And one might add they are practically unique to chess, having little or no similarity to war or anything else. OTOH with especially Civ3 and 4 IMO a player has various plausible ways to win, while terrain, combat, worker actions, production, diplomacy and other aspects of the game give him or her a feeling of actually navigating a culture through history. There are other games that do that, or try to, but few have been so enduring. While Civ3 may not exactly be humanity's greatest achievement it certainly ranks up there as an honorable mention.
I started playing Civ 3 because I found it to be the least addicting entry and it's really focused on the core gameplay. It's still addicting, but there are so many bells and whistles in the newer games that I can't pull myself away and that ruins my day.
It's still reasonably addictive but nowhere near Civ 6. That's not necessarily good, but it certainly has a different feel to it I think what matters isn't "how hard is it to put down". What matters is how excited I am to pick it up
@@suedeciviii7142 I owned Civ 3 when it came out, but I preferred 2 at the time and then I got into 4. So I never really gave Civ 3 a fair shake til a couple months ago and it's such a fun and challenging entry, and has just a hint of nostalgia for me.
Suede I love and hate your channel. I love that you are still making content for a 23-year-old game with such passion and devotion. I hate how much you make me want to play Civ III and ignore every responsibility I have. Now talking about the point of the video, I agree with you, mostly. I have played a lot of IV, V and VI but I keep returning to III because the game loop is just fun. VI is just too easy when you know what you are doing and kind of goofy with some of the options. I feel like the devs were afraid that we would lose interest if there were no OP strategies. That's why I like V the most after III. Sure, there's only one strategy that's viable most of the time, 4 cities tradition-rationalism, but the game is hard so you need to minmax at the best of your abilities. The problem is that after playing it a couple times it gets old withouth mods. Can't really talk about IV because I only played it with mods. The things I disagree are about trading techs and the doomstack-based combat in III. Trading techs is tedious and the logic behind it can be sort of deceptive when you don't know everything about the game. For example, how much a tech costs is not obviously clear.The doomstack system is OK but combat in V and VI is just so much better and more strategic. I feel like the hexagons and the one unit per tile are the best changes the series have experienced so is kind of hard to go back. Still, III is the best from the series. But as everyone else here I'm biased because it was my entry to the series.
I will agree that in single player, 1 unit per tile is an issue. But in multiplayer, it's balanced so that people don't stack their units, even though they're technically allowed to, which is S tier IMO
I've been playing this game from 19 years old till today and i am 42 !! I just cant stop so i couldnt agree with you more. Civ 3 and medieval total war 2 are my addiction..
This video is very Civ 3 pilled. I can't imagine the reality where Suede bought Rome Total War Instead of Rome 2. In that reality I might be watching the UA-cam channel 'Suede RTW' now.
Akthually, I can tell all these things in Civ 5. The icons just make everything less ambiguous and clearer, removing a significant mental overhead. For instance, if you have plain, farm and river, what is the tile yield? Well it depends on tech, but plain is 1 food and one shield, farm adds 1 food, and river will add another food with Civil Service for the total of 3 food one shield. So you can do this small math every single time your are checking your yields, planning city, or deciding which tiles to improve, or you can turn on these fucking icons and the game will do the math for you. I do it in Alpha Centauri as well. IMHO, you find visual clarity in Civ 3 compared to other civs because you have 10k hours in it. Civ 3 is the only mainline civ game I never played (1, 2 for long time, 4, 5, and 6) and IMO graphically it looks very messy to me. I can't tell if the green are normal forests, jungles, or have some special improvements, since they look slightly different, but still sameish green blobs (e.g., at 7:21). Equally, there are a lot of icons and I cannot even begin to guess what they might be doing.
You make a very good case. In this video you can clearly see how the appearance of foreign leaders is a great instant reminder of how advanced their civs are. Civ 2 did this in a different way in the diplomacy screen (the weaponry they present to you changes) but this is a real selling point for me. I also like that you can choose Feudalism as a government, even if it is pretty terrible. Some nations -- incl. the Polish-Lithuanian "commonwealth" -- did actually have that for centuries. This is a really small thing but I also like how SDI Defense was changed from Civ 2 to 3. Instead of a building enabled by the Laser tech that magically protects a city and its radius from nuclear attack and doubles unit defense against conventional missiles, it is a Small Wonder that only works 75% of the time and requires you to maintain 5 SAM batteries. It's nice to see Ronald Reagan's wet dreams downgraded in importance.
I play Civ 3 daily. Whenever I find 30 minutes to spare I load up a random tiny map with archipelago setup and I try to break personal record of exterminating 4 civs in 15 minutes in Warlord mode.
YES bring back simplicity and elegance to our games. Civ6 has too many notifications, mechanics, things to pursue very turn, i just get so tired playing it. Recently played Guild Wars 1 and 2. The simplicity of 1 is an absolute vibe. 2 just overwhelms the player with flashiness and stuff to do and doesn't let the player breathe. Wish our games would let us breathe and explore!
Civ3: Forever by Firaxis revamp with a ton of new mechanics, eliminating exploits, subtle updates and balancing recalcs (+ color schemes and slight graphic changes to make it feel new) by Popular Demand ✊✊🏿✊🏻
I played A LOT of civ3 during the pandemic (civ3 + a good podcast is a great combination), but eventually tried to make the move to civ4. I quickly went back to civ3 though, mainly because the geography of the map felt much more varied and consequential in civ3. I can still vividly remember the geographical features of civ3 maps I played years ago (and what podcast I was listening to at the time interestingly), whereas all my civ 4 games seemed to take place on a map constisting of two big ovals. And the cheapness of terraforming, and the even and generous distribution of luxuries and food resources, resulted in games that were comfortable but quite unmemorable.
This will be a wild comment, but when I couldn't yet read English (was like 7-8 years old) I used to think that the Dyes icon was 'Punch' as in that Drink they always showed in American TV shows.
You should try Civ 1 some day. Here is why: Pros: Nice graphics (clearer than civ2 imo) Simple, easy UI Can be played with keyboard only (makes playing much faster) No excessive bonuses like in later civs No insane governments like in civ2 City location more important. You don't have to play as republic to win No flips You can make canal cities as long as you want Earth map (optional) Pyramids give you no anarchy (Much cooler than some granaries (and makes more sense!)) Stacks of doom possible but have their own risks (they are not the optimal strategy) No Scientific Great Leaders You can't mine grasslands (You have to think more about settling in plains vs grasslands) Mods (map editor really) Puppy kicking minigame "Cons": Shield maintenance (makes game more balanced and realistic) Food maintenance for workers/settlers (Limits blind expansionism and worker armies) Zone of control (Easier defense without tedious micro) No luxury and strategic resources (Luxuries + marketplace make game too easy, and as to strategics at least you don't have to rush conquer half of the map to get coal before riflemen/infantry) Caravans (They are not that Op and you are rewarded for trading with civilizations that are difficult to access) Buying cities (Allows economy - focused gameplay) Sound (Well, it's there... sometimes) Bad pathfinding, no stack moves (You have fewer units so you don't need stack moves anyway) Bad AI (While there are no unique units or abilities and AIs are bad at the game, civs have different levels of expansionism, aggression and development which makes them unique in their own way) No multiplayer* (Having fun with friends is overrated anyway) Simple tech trading (You don't waste hours on talking to different civs, also limits your snowball when you get the tech lead) Easier than civ3 when you get the hang of it. (You can make fun challenges though) Palace (Who doesn't love it?) *Multiplayer is possible but afaik no one plays it
*And* the modern era music is the best in the series :v Fascinating to hear such a passionate defence for probably the Civ game (other than 1) that I've probably thought least about since I stopped playing it. Well, other than that modern era music, anyway...
My steam store is so similar, I travel back and forth between civ 3 and aoe2 maybe a little stardew here and there because I loved harvest moon so much. I try some new games but always end up back on civ three. I have!! to keep those pesky Celt’s off of the iron ore at all costs.
Probably. I mean I do like the 3d addition after it, but it also means: Multi-units that I don't like as much and that one has to wait for our AI age to properly begin to mod it even. Civ3 was so moddable(and amateurs with alot of heart and incentive where of the biggest contributors to those mods) and probably has still the largest modding community of all civ games and even more moddable today. Plus cause there isn't so much focus on grafics(which are still so beautiful all things considering however) the focus is kept on the actual part of the game. I mean if you don't think that planet busting is a nice thing to do to yourself(imminent death) and your planet(destroy all life on nearly all the planet surface for years or completelly turning it to dust particles). SMAC should be a perfect example as to what you DON'T want to do to your planet(and thus a completelly different game to Civ iterations) if that planet is all you have(and even if it wasn't all we have). Btw, it is one of the major factors that I'm still using and getting DAZ and Poser software to this day(ofcourse now I'm also using alot of the other apps as well), I got the major hook on it back then.
I totally agree with your points. I feel that civ3 was the last game in the series that actually is a perfection of civ1 game, the game which Sid himself designed. Then next interations started experimenting a lot and civ feel got kind of lost for me. Don’t get me wrong, it is correct that the game should develop and add new things, but at the same time the game starts ti deviate to a whole new thing. I like everything in civ3, graphics are amazing for me, very clear and realistic(kinda), gameplay simple yet compelx, music ok(could do better tbh, i really like civ4 ancient era stuff), and replayability is great obviously. AI is crap, but its crap everywhere. And i only recently discovered some mods(RaR i think its called) which is neat. Overall totally agree, if I had time chose one game out of all I have played, it would be civ3. Ps. I had a great laugh regarding your experiences with Rome2. Glad to know that I wasn’t only one who got morally destroyed by that title. I loved rome and medival2
The AI in Civ 3 is actually good! From what I hear they made RTW2 better later on, and it wasn't fundamentally flawed like Diablo 3, but the disappointment was palpable for me and it was hard to justify spending money when I can just play more civ 3
@ regarding RTW2, they did improve it eventually but it still kind of sucks. For me the only way to play it, is with DEI mod(divide et imperia). It makes things a bit more complicated but i think its main attraction is how it makes battles actually interesting. They become way slower and more tactical. I highly recommend it if one day you decide to give rome a go
My only problem with Civ 3 is a recurring problem I had coming in from Master of Orion 2: Production Placeholders and Swapping. That is, putting something expensive into a production queue that I have no intention of actually building just so I can hot-swap it for something else that I currently can't build down the line, at the most opportune time I can as dictated by circumstance. (border pressure, military exchanges, and especially available tech) I likened that mechanic to Wavedashing from Super Smash Brothers Melee: It's an otherwise benign game mechanic that was warped into doing something radically different from what it was intended to, all while enabling players to leverage it for advantage. And yes, I know a number of people who love that sort of thing, because it creates skill expression in the metagame, despite the internal moon-logic within the normal game. However, abusing placeholders always felt like I was cheating my way around poor decision making, or mitigating/negating the intended opportunity costs for a number of big risk items (mainly Wonders, but a lot of things in general). It's this odd sleight of hand with the game mechanics that bluntly contradicts what players are taught to do in the core gameplay loop, and it's something that only shows up specifically in 4X games from that era (the mid-1990s through the early 2000s). It's something you can't get away with in any other strategy game either. If in Starcraft 1 for example, let's say I'm playing Zerg. I start building a bunch of Hydralisks in blind anticipation of my Protoss opponent deploying a Zealot swarm. But when they show up at my base with Shuttle-Drop Reavers, I should not be allowed to last-second swap all those Hydralisks to Mutalisks (the correct unit I should have been building all this time). I should in fact, be punished for not scouting my opponent like a good player is supposed to. But in Civ 3 (and Master of Orion 2), that is not only possible, but expected and normal play. Or at least, it was way back in the early 2000s when i was still actively playing those games. So for all the complaints about Civ 4's mechanical bloat and the "style over substance" direction the series took from that point onward, it did at least correctly address this issue well enough for my tastes...even if it did kinda feel like a "two steps forward, one step back" sort of ordeal going forward.
Hot take. Being able to production swap freely is a huge quality of life boon. You're right that it removes some tradeoffs and strategic decision making, but Civ 3 is not all "reactive". You definitely need to lock nd predict in other elements of the game, like teching. I will say that as a streamer, sometimes it's annoying, because like, I'm building something but I'm not really building it? Especially with the wartime mode interactions, it makes the game harder to parse for viewers.
@@suedeciviii7142 I had a laugh at that. Not because of anything you said being "wrong" or such; I largely agree with all of it. But because back when these games were still new and relevant, my version was the hot take, while yours was the popular opinion. What an ass-backward world we live in now. First, I acknowledge everything you say there, freely, in the same way I acknowledge how Wavedashing wasn't as strict detriment to SSB:Melee...or to be accurate, it garnered many more adopters than it did detractors. (at the time, anyway. Obviously that design philosophy changed at some point for Civilization as it did Smash Bros.) All the same...I got tired of getting completely owned and ridiculed for "bad play" over tech the game doesn't tell you about (because it wasn't supposed to exist in the first place). Even after I learned the tech, it never sat right with me for reasons I already explained. (too reactive, and makes no internal sense.) So I quit Civ 3 entirely for other games, and did quite well in those. So...Live and let live. But Civ 4 will always be the superior game in the series for me, even if I do miss a lot of the "Goldilocks zone" brilliance in its design.
@@atmosdwagon4656 I think Civ 4 figured out the "sensible" approach which is that you can freely switch, and the shields will stay banked towards the thing in question. I think this is the best option only if there's a reliable way to hurry production on things you need in a hurry
@@suedeciviii7142 It was sensible in that they actually explained it as an intended game mechanic and that it didn't have an ass-backwards sleight of hand exploit to it. Funny thing that; making the rules of the game clear and consistent for everyone involved. As for the rush mechanics...given what followed after launch (especially the Religion mechanics added in the first DLC, IIRC), it was the right call in my opinion. I had a lot of fun trying (and succeeding) with all of the various specialized strategies in Civ 4, albeit, only after a fair amount of arm twisting by close friends to get me to play it.
Civ III was fun, but I played and liked II better, because they removed a lot of my favourite things from it in III. Like the wonder movies, for example, which came back in IV, but worse. IV and V remain my favourites now though.
@@suedeciviii7142tech tree and lack of stack controls hold smac back. It fundamentally slows the game down in the turn by turn sense. Lots of soul. Interesting things going on with unit designing but ultimately becomes info overload and too many choices. Lasers cost the same as conventional weps, same for trance. Why lasers dont replace is confusing. Its not like trance where it has opportunity cost associated.
I avoided 6 until this year out of aversion to childish aesthetics, and I've enjoyed 5 visually for years but kept missing the freedom to play wide. For all I care, 4 is so bad that it doesn't even exist to me. To this day, nothing in the Civilization experience has ever come close to the joy I experienced decades ago stacking loads of Roman Legions around Carthage, only to be welcomed by wave after wave of war elephants defending their capital in what seemed like the battle of the one thousand turns. Nothing has ever been more satisfying than painstakingly planning every detail that led to the fall of Carthage in Civ3. Everything said in this video is the absolute, indisputable truth. _Carthago delenda fucking est_ bro.
On the subject of disappointing 2010s video game releases - Rome Total War 2 did get fixed with updates, it's pretty good now. The name was misleading though; it's not a sequel to Rome Total War 1, more of a new adaptation of classical-era tabletop wargames (which it does well, except for naval stuff, which is still pretty much awful) than an update or reinvention of RTW1's game mechanics. Rome Total War 1 was essentially Warhammer Fantasy Battle without magic though, so if you liked RTW1 and ever wondered what it would be like with magic spells and giant monsters - it might be worth checking those out if they go on sale. (The Warhammer Total Wars are actually less of a straight adaptation of Warhammer than Rome Total War 1 was, which is hilarious - your units still have health bars and such in the WHTW games, but the stats are tuned so that the way units smash into each other still plays out like RTW1 for the most part; units don't get stuck together in giant blobs like in RTW2. Also - _best_ chariots I've ever used in a strategy video game. Especially in WHTW2, because the doomwheel was one of the core release units and they couldn't _not_ make it spectacular)
I have never gotten the appeal of hexes over squares the ability to move in the 4 cardinals far far far far out trumps the diagonal issue and if super accurate movement is your issue why bother with a grid and just allow units to move freely, like the TW games.
Great summary, that intro with D3 an RTW2 really hit home for me 😂. I’ve probably spent half my 10K hours on the Double your Pleasure and RaR mods. Any thoughts on them, have you ever made a video of them?
Personally, I prefer quick games and smaller maps, so they're not my cup of tea. But they're also exactly what I mean when I say criticism of Civ 3 focusing on the content is missing the point. The content is whatever I want it to be (using mods). The presentation is everything
Hi I'm the creator of the Spearman vs. Tank animation, circa 2005. How the heck do you know about it?? I can't believe I'm seeing it in a 2024 video! So cool!!!
I’m still working on two scenarios using editor without mods and only conquest art. Prophesy of Pendor (Mount and Blade) - 90% complete Ultima 7 - 50% complete I have found that with good gameplay design the editor can actually help create some very fun games to play. If anyone wants to beta test these scenarios please let me know!
thumbs up civ5/civ6 is not really well thought when it comes to online game duration... and yea, during COVID i guess everyone had a lot of newly found spare time so a 6h match wasn't considered crazy, but now... the idea that players will sit for more than 2 hours in a single videogame match is bad and unhealthy as for visual clarity, as with any game, people are only impressed by graphics in their first couple hours of gameplay. after that, it's all about game mechanics, simplicity, intuitiveness... especially if it's a turn based game when i look at civ7, i get happy on one side since it seems like theyre focusing on reducing game duration.. but on the other side, they're doubling down on graphics
4:27 " ...the Subject of knowledge can never be known; it can never become Object or representation. Nevertheless, as we have not only an outer self-knowledge (in sensuous perception), but an inner one also; and as, on the other hand, every knowledge, by its very nature, presupposes a knower and a known, what is known within us as such, is not the knower, but the willer, the Subject of Volition: the Will. Now, the identity of the willing with the knowing Subject, in virtue of which the word "I" includes and designates both, is the _nodus_ of the Universe, and is therefore inexplicable. For we can only comprehend relations between Objects; but two Objects never can be one, excepting as parts of a whole. Here, where the Subject is in question, the ordinary rules by which we know Objects are no longer applicable, and the actual identity of the knower with what is known as willing-that is, of Subject and Object-is _immediately_ given. Now, whoever has clearly realized the utter impossibility of explaining this identity, will surely concur with me in calling it the miracle κατ' ἐξοχήν. "
Haven't played ina while, but what mechanics rewards you for splitting units in civ 3? Civ 3 is the first civ game I played and I lovve it, but I really only alternate between 4 and 5 nowadays. I agree with the intuitiveness and simplicity, but the stacks and governments and other stuff and reallywhat keep me from coming back. I guess I should look in to mods though I never even tried this game with mods.
Whole video on this subject once I get my new computer, which should be good enough to record footage of later Civ games. But admittedly, most of the reasons to split units up apply more to multiplayer. For example, the AI can see the whole map at all times, there's no reason to contest their vision
I agree, and am surprised how much push back there is on the game that given how popular the game is. But you can see the charts of published rankings I did, writers were clearly scared to give it the top spot.
When should you ever split up units in civ 3? I feel like some limited stacking would be ideal. No doom stacks but also no pain in the ass micromanaging your units into position.
Hard disagree. I bought Civ 3 on release after playing Sid Meirs Alpha Centauri for years. It was a bitter disappointment. Civ 3 had nicer looking graphics and you could have more than 7 players on the map. EVERYTHING else in Civ3 was a pale imitation of what SMAC had to offer. Unit variety, the tech tree, diplomacy, tile improvements, pollution, social engineering, the barbarian faction... everything was significantly worse in Civ 3. It was like a slap in the face. The icing in the cake was when I finally used a nuke in Civ 3. It was a puff of smoke, a few dead units and half a city gone. Compared to what planet busters do in SMAC, it was a joke. I gave the game a good try, did a few run throughs, but then moved on to SMAC again. I've never looked back.
I mean, you're right about the things you mentioned. If you're looking for spectacle, interesting buildings and factions, story, or cool deep mechanics, and more meaningful government choices, SMAC > Civ 3 But the sad thing about Alpha Centauri is that the AI sucks and there's 50 ways to break the game. Yeah sure the factions aren't as cool in Civ 3, but using their strengths well is a matter of life and death. It's a game that encourages full engagement Civ 3 is also faster. Bigger maps of SMAC end up being a lot of slow micromanagement So yes, Civ 3's not as deep. But chess isn't that deep, it's still endlessly fun and replayable. If you're open to the idea, maybe give Civ 3 another try.
There are so many problems with older games in the franchise that I don't enjoy playing them. Just not having units move two squares by default is a major drag. I can't do it.
Get Away with you!
The English Inventing Gravity - AND testing it and keeping in calibrated for the rest of the Planet (Even the French!) with an annual blood sacifice to a antediluvian cheese god in the mysterical land that is... Gloucestershire.
Makes Civ 3 look like some little game you run on one of those mechnical difference engines. They will never catch on. Dwile Flonking is a superior game anyhow.
It's nice to know we agree on both tea and our favourite civ game
father remembered us
It is indeed wonderful. However, it should be pronounced cha.
I've been waiting for Firaxis to create an elegant heir to Civ3 and they keep creating cluttered visually heavy renditions of civ 4
Civ and Civ4 are closer than Civ4 is to the later games.
I've been trying to get into other Civ games, and the kind of visual clarity you get in CivIII is unmatched. I like how the ages transition, the general aesthetic of the land and the ambience when music is turned off. Very romantic, in a way.
Civ 4 is fantastic yeah. A proper heir to Civ 3 would be too close to Civ 3 to justify its own existence as a commercial product. If you want "Civ 3 2" we have to make it ourselves.
@@cuzon550 That's what I've been saying! :D
The designs in Civ III were so brilliantly simple and straightforward that you could zoom WAY out on the map and still see what everything is (this unit is an Archer and that one's a Longbowman, this land is a Forest and that one's a Jungle, this land has Gold and that one has Iron)
But Civ 4 and up put so much subtle nuance into all of the designs that you have to zoom in real close to see the distinctions :( When you can only see such a tiny glimpse of the map at a time, it doesn't feel like a strategic game where you're controlling an entire empire - it feels like a tactical game where you're only controlling one unit at a time.
@@Simpson17866 Civ4 looks too cartoonish, childish, overloaded with details, just visual mess overall tbh. I was so disappointed the day i bought and launched it so i returned to lovely old civ3 and never tried later games of civs series.
The visual clarity of Civ 3 is definitely something I've grown to appreciate so much because it tends to be lacking in modern games as a whole - not just the Civ franchise. You're absolutely right about it being refreshing! Civ 6 is a fantastic game, but the visual clarity is a mess. By the late game, it's hard to tell what's going on at a glance amidst the jumbled mess of districts, improvements, and wonders. Civ 5 is worse than 3 in this regard too, but I also appreciate how much clearer that game is than 6 when I go back and play it.
Another point that wasn't addressed in this video: the added flavor from the little details on leader scenes is such a nice feature that I wish was expanded upon in later games. Watching the leaders change outfits depending on the era and address you with rich, customized quips is such a charming feature that I wish stuck in the later games. Leader scenes peaked in Civ 5 with the fully detailed throne rooms and outstanding voice acting, and Civ 6 completely dropped the ball in my opinion. 6 lacks both the charming quips of 3 and the stunning environments of 5. Sure, there's a little variety in what the leaders actually say, but they still lack the personality that the other games had. Many times, they just stand silently with an expression while a default line is listed on the screen.
I literally got this game on a whim back in the early 2000s from a flee-market i attended with me mum. I got for $5 back then. I dont have the original CD anymore from that time but it definitely captured me so well that Its still my favorite 4x game
If you find/replace civ3 with SMAC everywhere in your script, I would agree 100%.
The title is "Humanity's" greatest achievement. Genejacks and cyborgs are not humans. We must dissent
my mom bought my older brother and me the complete edition of this game in the mid-2000s and I used to play it a ton. it'll forever be my favorite strategy game. kinda wanting to get back into it
Go for it, you won't regret it.
Yeah do it, the game is only like $5 on steam, less if it is on sale.
You're on the perfect channel for it too, I had the exact same thing happen from watching vids on here! Haha
It's funny how a lot of us have the same memories. I remember staying up all night playing it as a kid, and I'm about to spend $4.99 on the complete edition.
The grafics of modern 4x games are absolutely abominable. I am glad you mentioned the extra-icons that the civ 5 provides to be able to read that superfluous map. I sometimes played civ 5 just on the strategic map, which has beautiful icons for everything. The actual game map could very well be removed from the game without any loss to the gamplay.
Strategic mode is a significant improvement but it's admitting defeat and overcorrecting. Civ 3 shows you can actually have a unit on the map, you don't to turn it into a circle with a bow and arrow logo. The resource icons in Civ 5 and 6 are beautiful, better than the Civ 3 icons maybe. Why not actually integrate them into the map?
@@suedeciviii7142 I absolutely agree with you! Glad im not the only one who notices such things! Good example is also Colonization. Every unit and every terrain type explains itself perfectly!
Suede using the bongcloud as his chess screenshot is hilarious
Meme strats being that visually striking and having their own names is exactly what I'm talking about. Chess is iconic
@@suedeciviii7142 Chess 2 will come out one day, people will hate on it for centuries, but a millennium later people will swear that it is where the series peaked & was never matched by Chess 3, 4 & 5. Just wait & you'll see!
well done, finally I got someone who speaks about CIV 3, I played it so many times just the whole series, keep the good work, thanks for uploading
I love modern strategy games for going to new depths and advancing accessibility, but there's something about the elegant simplicity of 2000's games like Civ 3, Red Alert 2, AoE2, and Empire Earth that really helps distinguish them from today.
It is amazing how many people Civ 5 and 6 were able to drive towards this incredible franchise. I'm critical of certain elements of newer games but they are SUCH a blessing for fans of Civ 3.
AoE2 and Empire Earth were hardly "elegantly simple".
Just look at all the hidden attack bonuses in AoE2 that are not written anywhere. All you got was "Good against X" in description, and that was sometimes wrong.
The same applies to Empire Earth, game about a huge number of bonuses you build your civilization with, a large number of "ages" you ploug true is not simple.
Tetris, Arkanoid, etc. might be elegantly simple. Especially nowadays you have indies some indie games that, due to limited resources and need to come with a formula, go for the elegant simplicity you are praising.
@@colombodoesstuff7653 I think simplicity is relative. Civ 3 is certainly a complex game, but the city screen comparison with Civ 6 gets the point across. A lot of the tabs in the Civ 6 city screen are for systems that just don't exist in civ 3.
But yes, with RTS' specifically, I don't think there's the same creeping increases in complexity. SC2 was in many ways toned down from Brood War
(in case it needs to be said, complexity is not inherently good or bad)
@@colombodoesstuff7653 Nah, you're right on that front. I'm talking more on the graphical level, there's something very endearing about the sprites and lowpoly models!
Hey Suede Im now at 430BC (the end part of your 2nd vid) on the non-exploit Sid difficulty Iroquois map you did a few months ago. Only difference is I'm playing as the Celts. I've just conquered all Mongol territory, settling new cities there and doing great so far. I'm even keeping up in tech with my surrounding neighbours, where I went into the Middle Ages in 750BC. I'm confident I wont need the Great Library to hold up in tech compared to AI. I'll keep you up as I'm going along!
Nice! Get your artillery stack going!
Suede, I cannot thank you enough for being the voice of Civ III on UA-cam. I've been waiting for someone like you to come around and articulate what the rest of us have been thinking. I started playing Civ III when I was a kid and haven't stopped since. It truly has some of the best UI and reply I've ever experiences in a RTS. I really thought it was nostalgia, but year after year, I keep coming back. Civ III is really special and I'm glad you're continuing the legacy with your unbelievable dedication to the game, from masterful strategies to tier lists, Suede thank you!
Playing it since 2003. I think it has many layers of strategic depth to it.
Thanks for your strategy articles years ago drakan! If you ever took an interest in a succession game, a COTM game, or something over at the HoF, I believe people would welcome you.
@@Spoonwood Thank you Spoonwood, that's very kind of you. I'm glad you enjoyed reading them!
Recently I've retaken activity back at CFC; looking forward to Civ VIIs launch.
Kind regards
I'd love to see a video of you playing a standard Civ 3 game whilst sticking with the official strategy guide from Prima to determine if it's a good guide or not
Hey Suede, I'm enjoying these new videos. Couldn't agree more about the presentation; I'm so tired of modern strategy/management games either attempting realistic graphics or going cartoony. If it's a strategy game, I want a strategic view of things!
Chess has more strategic depth than Civ3? Actually chess has lots of tactical complexity but strategy is based on one goal: checkmate the enemy king. Yes there are positional considerations, but in the end if you don't have the proper visualization, calculation, memorization (gotta know them opening variations and basic endings) and pattern recognition ability you ain't gonna be no expert, let alone Master and beyond. Tactics have been said to be 99% of chess; more realistically as GM Nicolas Huschenbeth puts it: "Tactics are the foundation of everything else." And one might add they are practically unique to chess, having little or no similarity to war or anything else.
OTOH with especially Civ3 and 4 IMO a player has various plausible ways to win, while terrain, combat, worker actions, production, diplomacy and other aspects of the game give him or her a feeling of actually navigating a culture through history. There are other games that do that, or try to, but few have been so enduring. While Civ3 may not exactly be humanity's greatest achievement it certainly ranks up there as an honorable mention.
I started playing Civ 3 because I found it to be the least addicting entry and it's really focused on the core gameplay. It's still addicting, but there are so many bells and whistles in the newer games that I can't pull myself away and that ruins my day.
It's still reasonably addictive but nowhere near Civ 6. That's not necessarily good, but it certainly has a different feel to it
I think what matters isn't "how hard is it to put down". What matters is how excited I am to pick it up
@@suedeciviii7142 I owned Civ 3 when it came out, but I preferred 2 at the time and then I got into 4. So I never really gave Civ 3 a fair shake til a couple months ago and it's such a fun and challenging entry, and has just a hint of nostalgia for me.
That's what I always say: Civ3 is like a big and complex chess game!
Finally, someone else who recognizes that civ3 is peak civ.
Civ 3 is the pinnacle of human technology.
Suede I love and hate your channel. I love that you are still making content for a 23-year-old game with such passion and devotion. I hate how much you make me want to play Civ III and ignore every responsibility I have.
Now talking about the point of the video, I agree with you, mostly. I have played a lot of IV, V and VI but I keep returning to III because the game loop is just fun. VI is just too easy when you know what you are doing and kind of goofy with some of the options. I feel like the devs were afraid that we would lose interest if there were no OP strategies. That's why I like V the most after III. Sure, there's only one strategy that's viable most of the time, 4 cities tradition-rationalism, but the game is hard so you need to minmax at the best of your abilities. The problem is that after playing it a couple times it gets old withouth mods. Can't really talk about IV because I only played it with mods.
The things I disagree are about trading techs and the doomstack-based combat in III. Trading techs is tedious and the logic behind it can be sort of deceptive when you don't know everything about the game. For example, how much a tech costs is not obviously clear.The doomstack system is OK but combat in V and VI is just so much better and more strategic. I feel like the hexagons and the one unit per tile are the best changes the series have experienced so is kind of hard to go back. Still, III is the best from the series. But as everyone else here I'm biased because it was my entry to the series.
I will agree that in single player, 1 unit per tile is an issue. But in multiplayer, it's balanced so that people don't stack their units, even though they're technically allowed to, which is S tier IMO
I've been playing this game from 19 years old till today and i am 42 !!
I just cant stop so i couldnt agree with you more.
Civ 3 and medieval total war 2 are my addiction..
The middle era total wars games (and mods for them) kicked ass
Civ 1 was excellent... as a language learning tool. As a game, oh boy, was it aggravating.
I love when people send me save files in foreign languages, and the word for "warrior" is like 25 characters long
This video is very Civ 3 pilled.
I can't imagine the reality where Suede bought Rome Total War Instead of Rome 2. In that reality I might be watching the UA-cam channel 'Suede RTW' now.
I grew up playing RTW, that's why RTW2 was so disappointing
There are many stragedy games but this one is mine.
Akthually, I can tell all these things in Civ 5. The icons just make everything less ambiguous and clearer, removing a significant mental overhead.
For instance, if you have plain, farm and river, what is the tile yield? Well it depends on tech, but plain is 1 food and one shield, farm adds 1 food, and river will add another food with Civil Service for the total of 3 food one shield. So you can do this small math every single time your are checking your yields, planning city, or deciding which tiles to improve, or you can turn on these fucking icons and the game will do the math for you.
I do it in Alpha Centauri as well.
IMHO, you find visual clarity in Civ 3 compared to other civs because you have 10k hours in it. Civ 3 is the only mainline civ game I never played (1, 2 for long time, 4, 5, and 6) and IMO graphically it looks very messy to me. I can't tell if the green are normal forests, jungles, or have some special improvements, since they look slightly different, but still sameish green blobs (e.g., at 7:21). Equally, there are a lot of icons and I cannot even begin to guess what they might be doing.
You make a very good case. In this video you can clearly see how the appearance of foreign leaders is a great instant reminder of how advanced their civs are. Civ 2 did this in a different way in the diplomacy screen (the weaponry they present to you changes) but this is a real selling point for me. I also like that you can choose Feudalism as a government, even if it is pretty terrible. Some nations -- incl. the Polish-Lithuanian "commonwealth" -- did actually have that for centuries.
This is a really small thing but I also like how SDI Defense was changed from Civ 2 to 3. Instead of a building enabled by the Laser tech that magically protects a city and its radius from nuclear attack and doubles unit defense against conventional missiles, it is a Small Wonder that only works 75% of the time and requires you to maintain 5 SAM batteries. It's nice to see Ronald Reagan's wet dreams downgraded in importance.
At age 30 a friend gave me an old computer and s civ2 disk.
A year later civ 3 came out. Been hooked ever since!
Best Avo
Honestly still one of my favourite games of all time. I still go back to it.
I play Civ 3 daily. Whenever I find 30 minutes to spare I load up a random tiny map with archipelago setup and I try to break personal record of exterminating 4 civs in 15 minutes in Warlord mode.
YES bring back simplicity and elegance to our games. Civ6 has too many notifications, mechanics, things to pursue very turn, i just get so tired playing it.
Recently played Guild Wars 1 and 2. The simplicity of 1 is an absolute vibe. 2 just overwhelms the player with flashiness and stuff to do and doesn't let the player breathe.
Wish our games would let us breathe and explore!
Civ3: Forever by Firaxis revamp with a ton of new mechanics, eliminating exploits, subtle updates and balancing recalcs (+ color schemes and slight graphic changes to make it feel new) by Popular Demand ✊✊🏿✊🏻
I played A LOT of civ3 during the pandemic (civ3 + a good podcast is a great combination), but eventually tried to make the move to civ4. I quickly went back to civ3 though, mainly because the geography of the map felt much more varied and consequential in civ3. I can still vividly remember the geographical features of civ3 maps I played years ago (and what podcast I was listening to at the time interestingly), whereas all my civ 4 games seemed to take place on a map constisting of two big ovals. And the cheapness of terraforming, and the even and generous distribution of luxuries and food resources, resulted in games that were comfortable but quite unmemorable.
Civ 4 and 6 continents maps are also. But those games do have some cool templates. I like shuffle in Civ 6
I've played this game for hundreds of hours. Best civ game by far. I grew up on this game. Got it back in the day for 10 bucks from Walmart.
I fully concur sir, the civ3 is the greatest. Aaaaand its sooo good to hear someone else say so after so many years
This will be a wild comment, but when I couldn't yet read English (was like 7-8 years old) I used to think that the Dyes icon was 'Punch' as in that Drink they always showed in American TV shows.
I used to think spices were a little bridge
Wrong. Civ 2 and Alpha Cantauri are the pinnacle. All others are but dust and ash.
You should try Civ 1 some day. Here is why:
Pros:
Nice graphics (clearer than civ2 imo)
Simple, easy UI
Can be played with keyboard only (makes playing much faster)
No excessive bonuses like in later civs
No insane governments like in civ2
City location more important.
You don't have to play as republic to win
No flips
You can make canal cities as long as you want
Earth map (optional)
Pyramids give you no anarchy (Much cooler than some granaries (and makes more sense!))
Stacks of doom possible but have their own risks (they are not the optimal strategy)
No Scientific Great Leaders
You can't mine grasslands (You have to think more about settling in plains vs grasslands)
Mods (map editor really)
Puppy kicking minigame
"Cons":
Shield maintenance (makes game more balanced and realistic)
Food maintenance for workers/settlers (Limits blind expansionism and worker armies)
Zone of control (Easier defense without tedious micro)
No luxury and strategic resources (Luxuries + marketplace make game too easy, and as to strategics at least you don't have to rush conquer half of the map to get coal before riflemen/infantry)
Caravans (They are not that Op and you are rewarded for trading with civilizations that are difficult to access)
Buying cities (Allows economy - focused gameplay)
Sound (Well, it's there... sometimes)
Bad pathfinding, no stack moves (You have fewer units so you don't need stack moves anyway)
Bad AI (While there are no unique units or abilities and AIs are bad at the game, civs have different levels of expansionism, aggression and development which makes them unique in their own way)
No multiplayer* (Having fun with friends is overrated anyway)
Simple tech trading (You don't waste hours on talking to different civs, also limits your snowball when you get the tech lead)
Easier than civ3 when you get the hang of it. (You can make fun challenges though)
Palace (Who doesn't love it?)
*Multiplayer is possible but afaik no one plays it
nah your number of hours just says you're a command pilot. I celebrate your work You're awesome
10k hours is crazy but thats why hes the goat
*And* the modern era music is the best in the series :v
Fascinating to hear such a passionate defence for probably the Civ game (other than 1) that I've probably thought least about since I stopped playing it. Well, other than that modern era music, anyway...
fantastic video. the end was hilarious. agree w/ the whole thing
Suede you are unhinged and addicted to Civ 3. And I'm all in for it!
The ideal civ game you should be able to make cardboard cutouts of and play it as a board game without changing too many rules.
My steam store is so similar, I travel back and forth between civ 3 and aoe2 maybe a little stardew here and there because I loved harvest moon so much. I try some new games but always end up back on civ three. I have!! to keep those pesky Celt’s off of the iron ore at all costs.
I feel the same way. If i were to play only one game for the rest of my life, it would be Civ 3
This is how I feel about factorio, although its rather new relative to civ 3
I am delighted to hear that you have the right opinion!
Probably. I mean I do like the 3d addition after it, but it also means: Multi-units that I don't like as much and that one has to wait for our AI age to properly begin to mod it even. Civ3 was so moddable(and amateurs with alot of heart and incentive where of the biggest contributors to those mods) and probably has still the largest modding community of all civ games and even more moddable today. Plus cause there isn't so much focus on grafics(which are still so beautiful all things considering however) the focus is kept on the actual part of the game. I mean if you don't think that planet busting is a nice thing to do to yourself(imminent death) and your planet(destroy all life on nearly all the planet surface for years or completelly turning it to dust particles).
SMAC should be a perfect example as to what you DON'T want to do to your planet(and thus a completelly different game to Civ iterations) if that planet is all you have(and even if it wasn't all we have). Btw, it is one of the major factors that I'm still using and getting DAZ and Poser software to this day(ofcourse now I'm also using alot of the other apps as well), I got the major hook on it back then.
blessed video, got me to install CIV 3 again. I have like 500 hours and clearly those are rookie numbers.
If you want something fresh, play the Conquest scenarios (if you haven't already)
I will play Civ 3 and 4 till the day I die
I totally agree with your points. I feel that civ3 was the last game in the series that actually is a perfection of civ1 game, the game which Sid himself designed.
Then next interations started experimenting a lot and civ feel got kind of lost for me. Don’t get me wrong, it is correct that the game should develop and add new things, but at the same time the game starts ti deviate to a whole new thing.
I like everything in civ3, graphics are amazing for me, very clear and realistic(kinda), gameplay simple yet compelx, music ok(could do better tbh, i really like civ4 ancient era stuff), and replayability is great obviously. AI is crap, but its crap everywhere. And i only recently discovered some mods(RaR i think its called) which is neat.
Overall totally agree, if I had time chose one game out of all I have played, it would be civ3.
Ps. I had a great laugh regarding your experiences with Rome2. Glad to know that I wasn’t only one who got morally destroyed by that title. I loved rome and medival2
The AI in Civ 3 is actually good!
From what I hear they made RTW2 better later on, and it wasn't fundamentally flawed like Diablo 3, but the disappointment was palpable for me and it was hard to justify spending money when I can just play more civ 3
@ regarding RTW2, they did improve it eventually but it still kind of sucks. For me the only way to play it, is with DEI mod(divide et imperia). It makes things a bit more complicated but i think its main attraction is how it makes battles actually interesting. They become way slower and more tactical. I highly recommend it if one day you decide to give rome a go
Good stuff to watch !😀
10:41 Pshaw, airdropping settlers is nothing compared to curraghs that can irrigate. And 0 corruption! ❤
i can like that video without looking at anything besides the titel, im that confident.
My only problem with Civ 3 is a recurring problem I had coming in from Master of Orion 2: Production Placeholders and Swapping.
That is, putting something expensive into a production queue that I have no intention of actually building just so I can hot-swap it for something else that I currently can't build down the line, at the most opportune time I can as dictated by circumstance. (border pressure, military exchanges, and especially available tech)
I likened that mechanic to Wavedashing from Super Smash Brothers Melee: It's an otherwise benign game mechanic that was warped into doing something radically different from what it was intended to, all while enabling players to leverage it for advantage. And yes, I know a number of people who love that sort of thing, because it creates skill expression in the metagame, despite the internal moon-logic within the normal game.
However, abusing placeholders always felt like I was cheating my way around poor decision making, or mitigating/negating the intended opportunity costs for a number of big risk items (mainly Wonders, but a lot of things in general). It's this odd sleight of hand with the game mechanics that bluntly contradicts what players are taught to do in the core gameplay loop, and it's something that only shows up specifically in 4X games from that era (the mid-1990s through the early 2000s).
It's something you can't get away with in any other strategy game either.
If in Starcraft 1 for example, let's say I'm playing Zerg. I start building a bunch of Hydralisks in blind anticipation of my Protoss opponent deploying a Zealot swarm. But when they show up at my base with Shuttle-Drop Reavers, I should not be allowed to last-second swap all those Hydralisks to Mutalisks (the correct unit I should have been building all this time). I should in fact, be punished for not scouting my opponent like a good player is supposed to.
But in Civ 3 (and Master of Orion 2), that is not only possible, but expected and normal play. Or at least, it was way back in the early 2000s when i was still actively playing those games.
So for all the complaints about Civ 4's mechanical bloat and the "style over substance" direction the series took from that point onward, it did at least correctly address this issue well enough for my tastes...even if it did kinda feel like a "two steps forward, one step back" sort of ordeal going forward.
Hot take. Being able to production swap freely is a huge quality of life boon. You're right that it removes some tradeoffs and strategic decision making, but Civ 3 is not all "reactive". You definitely need to lock nd predict in other elements of the game, like teching.
I will say that as a streamer, sometimes it's annoying, because like, I'm building something but I'm not really building it? Especially with the wartime mode interactions, it makes the game harder to parse for viewers.
@@suedeciviii7142 I had a laugh at that. Not because of anything you said being "wrong" or such; I largely agree with all of it. But because back when these games were still new and relevant, my version was the hot take, while yours was the popular opinion.
What an ass-backward world we live in now.
First, I acknowledge everything you say there, freely, in the same way I acknowledge how Wavedashing wasn't as strict detriment to SSB:Melee...or to be accurate, it garnered many more adopters than it did detractors. (at the time, anyway. Obviously that design philosophy changed at some point for Civilization as it did Smash Bros.)
All the same...I got tired of getting completely owned and ridiculed for "bad play" over tech the game doesn't tell you about (because it wasn't supposed to exist in the first place).
Even after I learned the tech, it never sat right with me for reasons I already explained. (too reactive, and makes no internal sense.)
So I quit Civ 3 entirely for other games, and did quite well in those.
So...Live and let live. But Civ 4 will always be the superior game in the series for me, even if I do miss a lot of the "Goldilocks zone" brilliance in its design.
@@atmosdwagon4656 I think Civ 4 figured out the "sensible" approach which is that you can freely switch, and the shields will stay banked towards the thing in question. I think this is the best option only if there's a reliable way to hurry production on things you need in a hurry
@@suedeciviii7142 It was sensible in that they actually explained it as an intended game mechanic and that it didn't have an ass-backwards sleight of hand exploit to it.
Funny thing that; making the rules of the game clear and consistent for everyone involved.
As for the rush mechanics...given what followed after launch (especially the Religion mechanics added in the first DLC, IIRC), it was the right call in my opinion.
I had a lot of fun trying (and succeeding) with all of the various specialized strategies in Civ 4, albeit, only after a fair amount of arm twisting by close friends to get me to play it.
Gosh you actually wrote this quite well, i laughed at the conclusion a lot
The game that makes People do better homework essays than school
Thanks! I had something sincere to say, but I knew I had to try to make it funny because a lot of this is preaching to the converted
Civ III was fun, but I played and liked II better, because they removed a lot of my favourite things from it in III.
Like the wonder movies, for example, which came back in IV, but worse.
IV and V remain my favourites now though.
come on bro it's not a stupid video, it's the best one, spare me bro.
Wait till he hears Civ 4 came out.
I believe Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is the greatest game, but I play way more Civ3 :)
The content is better in SMAC but I believe the presentation is better in Civ 3
@@suedeciviii7142tech tree and lack of stack controls hold smac back. It fundamentally slows the game down in the turn by turn sense. Lots of soul. Interesting things going on with unit designing but ultimately becomes info overload and too many choices. Lasers cost the same as conventional weps, same for trance. Why lasers dont replace is confusing. Its not like trance where it has opportunity cost associated.
Wasn't expecting that British Empire burn😂
Still my favorite Civ hands down. It’s the only one I play
Civ 3 is the best thing to happen to humanity and you are the best thing to happen to Civ 3 Suade ❤
I avoided 6 until this year out of aversion to childish aesthetics, and I've enjoyed 5 visually for years but kept missing the freedom to play wide. For all I care, 4 is so bad that it doesn't even exist to me. To this day, nothing in the Civilization experience has ever come close to the joy I experienced decades ago stacking loads of Roman Legions around Carthage, only to be welcomed by wave after wave of war elephants defending their capital in what seemed like the battle of the one thousand turns. Nothing has ever been more satisfying than painstakingly planning every detail that led to the fall of Carthage in Civ3. Everything said in this video is the absolute, indisputable truth. _Carthago delenda fucking est_ bro.
Thanks for the reminder to do laundry.
The greatest achievement of the human mind is Paradise Lost by John Milton. Civ III is runner up.
Better to reign in Civ 3, than to serve in Civ 6
On the subject of disappointing 2010s video game releases - Rome Total War 2 did get fixed with updates, it's pretty good now. The name was misleading though; it's not a sequel to Rome Total War 1, more of a new adaptation of classical-era tabletop wargames (which it does well, except for naval stuff, which is still pretty much awful) than an update or reinvention of RTW1's game mechanics. Rome Total War 1 was essentially Warhammer Fantasy Battle without magic though, so if you liked RTW1 and ever wondered what it would be like with magic spells and giant monsters - it might be worth checking those out if they go on sale. (The Warhammer Total Wars are actually less of a straight adaptation of Warhammer than Rome Total War 1 was, which is hilarious - your units still have health bars and such in the WHTW games, but the stats are tuned so that the way units smash into each other still plays out like RTW1 for the most part; units don't get stuck together in giant blobs like in RTW2. Also - _best_ chariots I've ever used in a strategy video game. Especially in WHTW2, because the doomwheel was one of the core release units and they couldn't _not_ make it spectacular)
I have never gotten the appeal of hexes over squares the ability to move in the 4 cardinals far far far far out trumps the diagonal issue and if super accurate movement is your issue why bother with a grid and just allow units to move freely, like the TW games.
Warhammer style Civ game where you have to measure your movements with a ruler 💀
These are objective facts.
to me, moddability also works great. I can create units for civ 3 but the others make it quite hard.
Just wish I could find the Double Your Pleasure mod anywhere. I would love to play that again.
Enjoyed the video, the part about the overflow is pure copium tho
Civ 1 is excellent you should try it, civ 3 being my first civ game and the one I've played the most besides 6 has a lot of value to me
Great summary, that intro with D3 an RTW2 really hit home for me 😂.
I’ve probably spent half my 10K hours on the Double your Pleasure and RaR mods. Any thoughts on them, have you ever made a video of them?
Personally, I prefer quick games and smaller maps, so they're not my cup of tea. But they're also exactly what I mean when I say criticism of Civ 3 focusing on the content is missing the point. The content is whatever I want it to be (using mods). The presentation is everything
Hi I'm the creator of the Spearman vs. Tank animation, circa 2005. How the heck do you know about it?? I can't believe I'm seeing it in a 2024 video! So cool!!!
need some sauce to go with all that road-spaghetti though
I’m still working on two scenarios using editor without mods and only conquest art.
Prophesy of Pendor (Mount and Blade) - 90% complete
Ultima 7 - 50% complete
I have found that with good gameplay design the editor can actually help create some very fun games to play.
If anyone wants to beta test these scenarios please let me know!
Come shill your stuff on the discord! There's a link in the description to this video
thumbs up
civ5/civ6 is not really well thought when it comes to online game duration... and yea, during COVID i guess everyone had a lot of newly found spare time so a 6h match wasn't considered crazy, but now... the idea that players will sit for more than 2 hours in a single videogame match is bad and unhealthy
as for visual clarity, as with any game, people are only impressed by graphics in their first couple hours of gameplay. after that, it's all about game mechanics, simplicity, intuitiveness... especially if it's a turn based game
when i look at civ7, i get happy on one side since it seems like theyre focusing on reducing game duration.. but on the other side, they're doubling down on graphics
civ4 is my civ but i will concede on 2d being inherently infinitely easier to read
I have an even more controversial opinion, Civilization: Beyond Earth is Firaxis' best post Civ III game with Rising Tide.
You're not ready for Alpha Centauri. It's the best 4X strategy game of all time
I wasn't ready for it, you're right
ua-cam.com/video/CIovsD01-u0/v-deo.html
@@suedeciviii7142 Oh Glad you made a video on it
Preach king
lol chess but your right, but I'd go
2 - fun
3 - chess
4 - simulation
5 - Tactical Combat simulation
6 - generic board game
I've always played 3 and I tried playing 6 but I don't know why it doesn't hook me in like 3 does
4:27
" ...the Subject of knowledge can never be known; it can never become Object or representation.
Nevertheless, as we have not only an outer self-knowledge (in sensuous perception), but an inner one also; and as, on the other hand, every knowledge, by its very nature, presupposes a knower and a known, what is known within us as such, is not the knower, but the willer, the Subject of Volition: the Will.
Now, the identity of the willing with the knowing Subject, in virtue of which the word "I" includes and designates both, is the _nodus_ of the Universe, and is therefore inexplicable. For we can only comprehend relations between Objects; but two Objects never can be one, excepting as parts of a whole.
Here, where the Subject is in question, the ordinary rules by which we know Objects are no longer applicable, and the actual identity of the knower with what is known as willing-that is, of Subject and Object-is _immediately_ given.
Now, whoever has clearly realized the utter impossibility of explaining this identity, will surely concur with me in calling it the miracle κατ' ἐξοχήν. "
How many happy faces does the Civ 3 wonder generate?
Plenty. But it decreases production by 25%
Haven't played ina while, but what mechanics rewards you for splitting units in civ 3?
Civ 3 is the first civ game I played and I lovve it, but I really only alternate between 4 and 5 nowadays. I agree with the intuitiveness and simplicity, but the stacks and governments and other stuff and reallywhat keep me from coming back.
I guess I should look in to mods though I never even tried this game with mods.
Whole video on this subject once I get my new computer, which should be good enough to record footage of later Civ games.
But admittedly, most of the reasons to split units up apply more to multiplayer. For example, the AI can see the whole map at all times, there's no reason to contest their vision
Even if the game sucked, ancient Lincoln in a fur hat makes me happy
Unpopular view, i think Civ VI is a great contender for best civ game.
I agree, and am surprised how much push back there is on the game that given how popular the game is. But you can see the charts of published rankings I did, writers were clearly scared to give it the top spot.
Civilization 2 > Civilization 3
🤣
When should you ever split up units in civ 3?
I feel like some limited stacking would be ideal. No doom stacks but also no pain in the ass micromanaging your units into position.
I love playing Civ3
wish if it was playable on Steam deck
Wise words.
Hard disagree. I bought Civ 3 on release after playing Sid Meirs Alpha Centauri for years.
It was a bitter disappointment.
Civ 3 had nicer looking graphics and you could have more than 7 players on the map. EVERYTHING else in Civ3 was a pale imitation of what SMAC had to offer. Unit variety, the tech tree, diplomacy, tile improvements, pollution, social engineering, the barbarian faction... everything was significantly worse in Civ 3. It was like a slap in the face.
The icing in the cake was when I finally used a nuke in Civ 3. It was a puff of smoke, a few dead units and half a city gone. Compared to what planet busters do in SMAC, it was a joke.
I gave the game a good try, did a few run throughs, but then moved on to SMAC again. I've never looked back.
I mean, you're right about the things you mentioned. If you're looking for spectacle, interesting buildings and factions, story, or cool deep mechanics, and more meaningful government choices, SMAC > Civ 3
But the sad thing about Alpha Centauri is that the AI sucks and there's 50 ways to break the game. Yeah sure the factions aren't as cool in Civ 3, but using their strengths well is a matter of life and death. It's a game that encourages full engagement
Civ 3 is also faster. Bigger maps of SMAC end up being a lot of slow micromanagement
So yes, Civ 3's not as deep. But chess isn't that deep, it's still endlessly fun and replayable. If you're open to the idea, maybe give Civ 3 another try.
There are so many problems with older games in the franchise that I don't enjoy playing them. Just not having units move two squares by default is a major drag. I can't do it.
Fair yeah. Things are closer together in older Civ games.
rn I kinda wonder what's Your opinion on Humankind is? imo very interesting with a lot of problems
I have never played it, aside from a combat demo that I found terrible. Its ideas seem fine though
civ 4 with civ 3 graphics would be perfect. The problem with 3 is a lot of meaningless micro with managing overflow of shields and civil disorder.