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.
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'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.
Suede, I cannot thank you enough for being the voice of Civ III on TH-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!
The first time I tried playing Civ III, I installed it on my parents' outdated Packard Bell. It took 15-20 minutes to start up. My first turn, I patiently waited the ring to show up around the warrior's feet, and I sent him to the northeast. Five more minutes of waiting as the computer's fan screamed and the hard drive crackled, before he finally faced the right direction, and walked there in slow motion. It was glorious.
One thing especially good about Civ 3 is its epic feeling of world wars. I could experience world super powers fight each other with very large armies and great strategies. Those wars actually lived in my memory. Since CIV 4, because either number of cities are limited, or the size of the armies is reduced (due to one hex one unit rule), I could never find the same feeling about epic wars, let alone remembering them for many years.
Yep, some of the wars from civilization 3 are etched in my memory while from civilization 6 I mostly remember the fishy stuff. Something like invading an enemy continent on Emperor without alliances with 108 units as the first wave and using massive artillery stacks to gradually wipe out 4 enemy stacks of doom and thus dismantle the evil Iroquois Fascist tyranny with my Hittite republic. Thats on just a standard map size.
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!
@@jbeast33sconniepyro Ah then, but we have word for that, stylization. And yes, the games did very well, the units are often differentiateble at glance according to a few details. There was quite a lot of work put in Age of Empires to have e.g., every single building being recognizable as a "mill" even for different civilizations and different ages.
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.
Since I discovered this channel, I played Civ III again after too many years. It's and amazing game, and hold up extremely well even today, better than I remembered. I would love to see your take on armies, as I find them very useful. In a recent long game with the Ottomans (huge map, continents, 14 civs, Monarch), I managed to win (a Histograph victory) after being about five or six tech behind. With two armies of infantry, some Sipahi and a lot of artillery, I was able to conquer all the IA capitals to prevent them from winning the space race. Since I have never been a very skillful player, this was my greatest achievement so far. Thanks for your videos!
Congrats on the win! The game is fun at all levels of play, and people who get good too quickly might miss out on fun tactics and play patterns that only exist on lower levels :)
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
@@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 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.
I recently did a full run of all civ games, from emulated civ1, ps2 civ2, etc. Civ 3 is insanely hard. The AI stops you even on like the third difficulty lol. Meanwhile Civ Rev and the newest civ are a relative cakewalk of diety
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.
One thing you might mention is player-created maps. Once I found a massive map of the Mediterranean region, started up with my Roman settler, and ... oh my. I may just have to rhapsodize. ;D
Went back to Civ 3 earlier this year after probably a decade away. I was surprised at how great it still was. There was a lot to get used to (I actually had to read the civilopedia every turn for a while), but it's a really tight game. I think the base game is a bit long, but diplomacy was more useful than in 5 and 6 and combat was just fuzzy enough to be challenging. I'll definitely look into some mods, and I do recommend the game for anyone who's a fan of the franchise. Oh and also: the point about representing things rather than being things was great; I hadn't thought about it before and Civ 3 doesn't have the readability issues if its successors
I agree about the base game being long. If you play a lot, I strongly recommend diplomatic victories as a quick and consistent way to wrap up a winning game.
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!
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'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
I grew out of 4X games, is what Idve said 10 years ago, now it's more like you can remove the 4X. But what I always preferred in Civ3 o ver 4 is that it feels way more like planning and managing a civilization rather than constantly optimizing an archipelago of cities and planning new public latrines for every one of them. What great man of history did that?
I agree 100% to the chess thing, when I first started playing civ V, I had a not so good pc, so I played in strategic mode, which is a simplified view. Later, when I had a good pc, I got tired of the normal graphics very soon and switched back to strategic view anyway. I like to know what I'm looking at at a first glance
I spent so much time on the daimyo and cruzade scenarios, i remeber even learning the game to the point of maxing the dificulty and reading so much on the civilopedia entries
IMHO it just doesn't make sense to compare Civs around 3 without taking SMAC into account. For instance, AFAIK it was the one that introduced borders. It also had a well working solution to "stacks of doom".
@@omgopet Because of collateral damage when a unit is destroyed (and several other aspects of combat), stacking units in SMAC (outside of bases) is fraught with peril. While in Civ4 this is only a danger at higher level of play and later in the game (need artillery for collateral damage). (Whereas at higher level of play in SMAC you also get the counterbalancing effect of single-stacked units being vulnerable to probe teams.)
That chart of how some magazines/whatever ranked the Civ games took me by surprise. I've only ever played Civ1 and Civ2. I had no idea both those games are ranked so low. I prefer Civ1 - 2 adds a lot more complexity but it can really bog down, and the graphics, music, and style of presentation are dull compared to Civ1. It occurred to me that maybe it's time I try Civ3. Gotta keep up with the trends. I don't mind combat RNG - you need uncertainty to make a good strategy game. Uncertainty makes your decisions more interesting. The idea is to *manage* your risk, and plan for what will be at stake if a die doesn't roll the way you want. It's funny that they apparently flip flopped on this. In Civ1 people complained about modern units losing to Phalanxes. In Civ2 they added the hitpoint system so now the combat was highly predictable. And I guess somebody decided that was boring, because it sounds like they want back to more randomness in Civ3, and then people complained and it became deterministic again in Civ4. What the hell.
the patient gamers subreddit should give you a medal! Yes, definitely check out Civ 3. And agreed. I wouldn't say RNG is essential, but decision making under uncertainty makes things very interesting, while also adding variety.
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!
I loved tech trading. It was a great strategic choice because yes, you could give away your techs for trade advantages but that would empower your competitors more than almost anything you could get.
Civ 3 is where I got my start into 4x games, and it entranced me as a kid. I still remember my first victory (as the Aztecs, on the easiest difficulty)
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..
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.
Civ3 and it's add-ons were my favorite Civ game, but I remember the Civilization design team being quite public of the problems with the Civ3 design mechanics. Civ3 was the ultimate civ for players who loved micromanaging tiles. By far, Civ3 was one of the easiest to mod, using the the in game GUI style modding tool. Probably the only civ I enjoyed directly modding was CIV3. Civ4 made us upgrade our graphics card, but it did away with stacks of doom, which caused an emergency pack for one of the DLC that had stacks of Mongolian horseman and catapults being a replay of the Civ1 chariot rush. That said, I did love how Civ3 formed armies of variable abilities with just a general and a selection of units.
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!
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!
Really good video. I relate to your love of Civ 3 as I am pretty much the same way with Civ 4. Makes me want to get better at it so I can make some videos about it in this similar style
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!!!
Thanks so much for making it! I've played Civ 3 since release, so I read plenty of CFC back in the day. 2000's forum emojis were great, and our culture is worse without them.
Thank you Suade for this wonderful video, so in depth, cool to listen to, laugh, and the classy outro joke 😂 looking forwards to hearing ant thoughts about civ 7
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 ✊✊🏿✊🏻
One mechanic I really liked in Civ 3 was that citizens had an ethnicity. Which is to say, if the Zulu conquered a Russian city, that city would mostly consist of Russian citizens: of course they'd be angry if you continued your war with Russia and want to rejoin their empire. But also, if that city was part of the Zulu empire for a thousand years, those citizens would mostly think of themselves as Zulus and maybe even resist any Russian attempt to retake the city. I think subsequent games tried to streamline things. The loyalty mechanic from Civ 6 is, in a sense, doing the same sort of work, but it just feels less interesting and it doesn't really make sense intuitively (I mean, it's not like Alaska is on the verge of an independence movement that will eventually lead them to joining Canada). A game of civ still tells an epic story, and there are certain details that, while maybe not necessary from a gameplay perspective, add to that story's narrative.
The ethnicity system is great! I wish there were more ways to interact with it. Like, policies in the late game that would allow you to encourage or restrict immigration. Brain drain, ethnic conflict, population decline in nations without immigration, irredentism, religious persuction leading to emmigration. There are so many cool ways it could interact with the systems of later civ games, it's a shame they just tossed it out!
I started on Civ II. When Civ 3 came out, I switched (eventually), and (eventually) I adapted. When Civ IV came out, same thing happened. When Civ V came out, I loaded it, played about one turn, then went back to Civ IV. I also still play Alpha Centauri.
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.
6:17 As much as I love Civ 4, and it’s my favorite, your criticism of the graphics like this image is 100% accurate and spot on. Even last night while dealing with an invasion by the Aztecs, I was looking at how ugly the dye graphic is. I never played 3 before, you have me curious.
Speaking as a Civ 6 and 5 enjoyer, Civ 5 absolutely has a good modding scene, and Civ 6 has plenty of mods you can see with just a peek at Ursa Ryan's channel, especially unique leaders and civs. I love your videos and I'm absolutely interested in trying Civ 3 sometime
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
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 remember when I was a kid I used to mod Civ3 so that everything costed 1/10th its normal price, and just doomstack expand at a rate even the Sid difficulty couldn't keep up with despite me having no understanding of the underpinning game mechanics. I kinda miss that.
@5:32 A prime example of why I didn't truly enjoy Civ 6. You make a good case for Civ 3 in this video. I too have a fondness for it and replayed it a lot a few years back (more hours in that Steam purchase than I have for Civ 6, and that doesn't count the other time I've bought a retro digital copy a few years before that, not to mention my early 2000s devotion to it). @6:45 Another great point about the failings of 5 & 6. You end up with a screen covered in cartoony UI, not attractive or immersive.
I saw "I spend 45mins with Civil" and i thought you were meeting up with Real Civil Engineer, and when i didnt see RCE. I was a little disappointed.... But then i saw it was the New Civilization game, and am making a refresh mug of tea, and am eagerly gonna watch it. 💜 Havent played Civ since 2. I never did well at it, but loved watching other people play the series. Let's go!!
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
When you mention a child could mod Civ 3: can confirm, I did. I feel Civ 4 made modding less accessible but still powerful, and the greater mechanical breadth of Civ 4 (with civics and religion, etc.) made resulted in mods that are flat-out better than full released games of the years since. There are very few fantasy games half as good as Fall From Heaven 2.
Civ 3's unit design is outstanding and it's what got me into the game as a teen. Each unit is a pixel-y little work of art. As with the resources, they went with pretty symbols instead of drab realism. You don't get a messy blob of five riflemen, you get *a* rifleman with more character, like a chess piece. The unit design sits in an inexplicably happy place between comic abstraction and realism, but feels like neither. It feels more gamelike in a very good way. Add the wonderful, convincing, buttery-smooth animations on top of all that and you have a perfectly good reason to go to war - just watch your guys smash stuff.
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 TH-cam channel 'Suede RTW' now.
Civ 4 is still in the same spiritual vein as 3, 2, and 1. 1: Stacks of doom are still in Civ 4 (They are countered with collateral damage though) 2: Rapid expansion is still highly rewarded in Civ 4 (also in Civ 6, but that's another story) 3: Combat can still be quite random in Civ 4 as well (One of the games more frustrating pitfalls) 4: In 4 cities have to be placed at least 2 tiles away (In 5 and 6 they must be placed 3 tiles away) The Civ you're thinking of that really changed the spirit of the game is Civ 5 and made it really stupid 1: You can't stack units together (not even a worker and settler can share a tile) 2: Expanding is punished SEVERELY where if you create one city it splits your happiness resources dramatically and still makes tech and cultural policies more expensive. On top of that it makes creating national wonders more difficult. 3: Combat is much more predictable for individual attacks, but annoyingly difficult to form up your troops or advance in a strategic manner. 4: Cities must be at least 3 tiles away (I don't really hate this mechanic though)
Once I get my new PC I can't wait to give Civ 4 deity a good run. Yeah mechanically Civ 4 is quite closer to Civ 3, just with extra features. Great people I like, religion I didn't. Just in terms of visuals, Civ 4 was a big switch. But they did take efforts in Civ 4 to tackle all the perceived problems with Civ 3 that I mentioned.
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.
Personally, I'm a big fan of Civ 5 with Vox Populi mod, it manages to re-create that feeling of always having something cool to work towards and really gives lots of interesting decisions. I have zero interest in Civ 6 (and 7), and 4 was a total flop. But 3 is and was quite excellent; I still have a set of five Civ 3 T-Shirts that my grandad picked up for 50 cents each in a clearance. :D
@@QuantumtestGaming (shrug) Whatever floats your boat. I was never a fan of unit stacking tbh. Basegame Civ 5 was meh also, I agree, but mods helped make it great.
I don't play multiplayer so I don't care about speed. One of my earliest Civ III games was an absolute epic with max map size, max civs, and on my hardware at the time in 2004 each turn took ages by the end. It was such an epic game I actually remember the map still.
I read Sid Meier's autobiography, and fun fact: each game in the series is on principle made by a different lead, who retains 1/3 of the previous game, changes 1/3 of it, removes 1/3 and adds 1/3 new things. My favourite anecdote from it is that when the second one was made Sid Meier realised that the new lead is in the process of making a grave mistake that's certainly doom it - they were making the game very moddable, which meant that people would create their own civs that are imbalanced and aren't fun to play, and will unfairly blame the game developers for it. Unfortunately the devs were completely deaf to his pleads to remove it and insisted that it's a great idea, much to Sid's horror. As the Civ 2 was released however it quickly turned out that moddability was a huge success, players loved it and played a ton with it, and as a result every civ game that followed had loads of moddability added to it also.
@@suedeciviii7142 To be fair a lot of it is just autobiographical stuff that probably won't impact civ a lot, but... Actually, if you're interested in civ it's probably worth reading, it does change the way you look at civ and you feel more informed about it in the end. I don't regret reading it and it does give you unique perspective
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.
But is it perfectly balanced, o lord of exploits?
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'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.
Suede, I cannot thank you enough for being the voice of Civ III on TH-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!
The first time I tried playing Civ III, I installed it on my parents' outdated Packard Bell. It took 15-20 minutes to start up. My first turn, I patiently waited the ring to show up around the warrior's feet, and I sent him to the northeast. Five more minutes of waiting as the computer's fan screamed and the hard drive crackled, before he finally faced the right direction, and walked there in slow motion. It was glorious.
One thing especially good about Civ 3 is its epic feeling of world wars. I could experience world super powers fight each other with very large armies and great strategies. Those wars actually lived in my memory. Since CIV 4, because either number of cities are limited, or the size of the armies is reduced (due to one hex one unit rule), I could never find the same feeling about epic wars, let alone remembering them for many years.
It's right here; Civ 1, Civ 2, and Civ 3.
Yep, some of the wars from civilization 3 are etched in my memory while from civilization 6 I mostly remember the fishy stuff. Something like invading an enemy continent on Emperor without alliances with 108 units as the first wave and using massive artillery stacks to gradually wipe out 4 enemy stacks of doom and thus dismantle the evil Iroquois Fascist tyranny with my Hittite republic. Thats on just a standard map size.
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!
@@jbeast33sconniepyro Ah then, but we have word for that, stylization. And yes, the games did very well, the units are often differentiateble at glance according to a few details. There was quite a lot of work put in Age of Empires to have e.g., every single building being recognizable as a "mill" even for different civilizations and different ages.
You have unwittingly kicked off the Civ 3 renaissance.
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.
Since I discovered this channel, I played Civ III again after too many years. It's and amazing game, and hold up extremely well even today, better than I remembered. I would love to see your take on armies, as I find them very useful. In a recent long game with the Ottomans (huge map, continents, 14 civs, Monarch), I managed to win (a Histograph victory) after being about five or six tech behind. With two armies of infantry, some Sipahi and a lot of artillery, I was able to conquer all the IA capitals to prevent them from winning the space race. Since I have never been a very skillful player, this was my greatest achievement so far. Thanks for your videos!
Congrats on the win! The game is fun at all levels of play, and people who get good too quickly might miss out on fun tactics and play patterns that only exist on lower levels :)
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
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!
for me, Alpha Centauri will always be the best in the series. It has most of the advantages of early civ games and some unique features
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.
I recently did a full run of all civ games, from emulated civ1, ps2 civ2, etc.
Civ 3 is insanely hard. The AI stops you even on like the third difficulty lol.
Meanwhile Civ Rev and the newest civ are a relative cakewalk of diety
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!
One thing you might mention is player-created maps. Once I found a massive map of the Mediterranean region, started up with my Roman settler, and ... oh my. I may just have to rhapsodize. ;D
All games have cool maps, but Civ 3 is the easiest to mod!
Went back to Civ 3 earlier this year after probably a decade away.
I was surprised at how great it still was. There was a lot to get used to (I actually had to read the civilopedia every turn for a while), but it's a really tight game. I think the base game is a bit long, but diplomacy was more useful than in 5 and 6 and combat was just fuzzy enough to be challenging.
I'll definitely look into some mods, and I do recommend the game for anyone who's a fan of the franchise.
Oh and also: the point about representing things rather than being things was great; I hadn't thought about it before and Civ 3 doesn't have the readability issues if its successors
I agree about the base game being long. If you play a lot, I strongly recommend diplomatic victories as a quick and consistent way to wrap up a winning game.
I feel the same way. If i were to play only one game for the rest of my life, it would be Civ 3
10k hours is crazy but thats why hes the goat
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!
Man, I miss Civ 3 and didn't think anyone else liked this game.
This video literally made me download it.
The steam version has some bugs. If that's the version you get, check out this video
th-cam.com/video/Y6qzO_bh-2U/w-d-xo.html
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
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
10:41 Pshaw, airdropping settlers is nothing compared to curraghs that can irrigate. And 0 corruption! ❤
I grew out of 4X games, is what Idve said 10 years ago, now it's more like you can remove the 4X.
But what I always preferred in Civ3 o ver 4 is that it feels way more like planning and managing a civilization rather than constantly optimizing an archipelago of cities and planning new public latrines for every one of them. What great man of history did that?
Finally, someone else who recognizes that civ3 is peak civ.
I agree 100% to the chess thing, when I first started playing civ V, I had a not so good pc, so I played in strategic mode, which is a simplified view. Later, when I had a good pc, I got tired of the normal graphics very soon and switched back to strategic view anyway. I like to know what I'm looking at at a first glance
That's some serious dedication & love...almost 10,000 hours!
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
There are only two games that are always with me civ3 and hmm3, and you Suede did a great job on teaching how to play this game, thank you for that.
This is how I feel about factorio, although its rather new relative to civ 3
The Civ 3 map is way better than Civ 6. Civ 6 is hard to look at or actually see anything.
I spent so much time on the daimyo and cruzade scenarios, i remeber even learning the game to the point of maxing the dificulty and reading so much on the civilopedia entries
This was my first 4x game and absolutely hooked me on the series. I still think civ 3 and civ 4 were the best entries. Thank you for this video.
Suede you are unhinged and addicted to Civ 3. And I'm all in for it!
civ 3 is visually so clean
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
Not gonna lie, I love me some SMAC! Between it and Civ 3, it's a toss-up on whether I want "resistance is feudal" or "we must dissent" on a given day.
IMHO it just doesn't make sense to compare Civs around 3 without taking SMAC into account. For instance, AFAIK it was the one that introduced borders. It also had a well working solution to "stacks of doom".
@@BlueTemplar15 " It also had a well working solution to "stacks of doom". " I'm honestly curious what you are referring to, could you elaborate?
@@omgopet Because of collateral damage when a unit is destroyed (and several other aspects of combat), stacking units in SMAC (outside of bases) is fraught with peril.
While in Civ4 this is only a danger at higher level of play and later in the game (need artillery for collateral damage).
(Whereas at higher level of play in SMAC you also get the counterbalancing effect of single-stacked units being vulnerable to probe teams.)
That chart of how some magazines/whatever ranked the Civ games took me by surprise. I've only ever played Civ1 and Civ2. I had no idea both those games are ranked so low.
I prefer Civ1 - 2 adds a lot more complexity but it can really bog down, and the graphics, music, and style of presentation are dull compared to Civ1.
It occurred to me that maybe it's time I try Civ3. Gotta keep up with the trends.
I don't mind combat RNG - you need uncertainty to make a good strategy game. Uncertainty makes your decisions more interesting. The idea is to *manage* your risk, and plan for what will be at stake if a die doesn't roll the way you want.
It's funny that they apparently flip flopped on this. In Civ1 people complained about modern units losing to Phalanxes. In Civ2 they added the hitpoint system so now the combat was highly predictable. And I guess somebody decided that was boring, because it sounds like they want back to more randomness in Civ3, and then people complained and it became deterministic again in Civ4. What the hell.
the patient gamers subreddit should give you a medal! Yes, definitely check out Civ 3.
And agreed. I wouldn't say RNG is essential, but decision making under uncertainty makes things very interesting, while also adding variety.
I fully concur sir, the civ3 is the greatest. Aaaaand its sooo good to hear someone else say so after so many years
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!
I always return to Civ3 after all the civilizations.. because it fixes the issues of Civ2, but not making anything more needlessly complicated.
Maybe 80% of the issues were fixed, we'll say, hahah
I loved tech trading.
It was a great strategic choice because yes, you could give away your techs for trade advantages but that would empower your competitors more than almost anything you could get.
Civ 3 is where I got my start into 4x games, and it entranced me as a kid.
I still remember my first victory (as the Aztecs, on the easiest difficulty)
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
I am delighted to hear that you have the right opinion!
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.
Fun video, I love breakdowns and comparisons. Happy to subscribe
Thanks, I've got more on the way!
longtime AOE2 player. Still love getting into a game of CIV3 now and again because it has the same je ne sais quoi
Civ3 and it's add-ons were my favorite Civ game, but I remember the Civilization design team being quite public of the problems with the Civ3 design mechanics. Civ3 was the ultimate civ for players who loved micromanaging tiles. By far, Civ3 was one of the easiest to mod, using the the in game GUI style modding tool. Probably the only civ I enjoyed directly modding was CIV3.
Civ4 made us upgrade our graphics card, but it did away with stacks of doom, which caused an emergency pack for one of the DLC that had stacks of Mongolian horseman and catapults being a replay of the Civ1 chariot rush.
That said, I did love how Civ3 formed armies of variable abilities with just a general and a selection of units.
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
Honestly i usually disable wonders in civ 2. Sure they can help the AI but if the player gets enough of certain ones its gg
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!
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
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)
Really good video. I relate to your love of Civ 3 as I am pretty much the same way with Civ 4. Makes me want to get better at it so I can make some videos about it in this similar style
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!!!
Thanks so much for making it! I've played Civ 3 since release, so I read plenty of CFC back in the day. 2000's forum emojis were great, and our culture is worse without them.
@@suedeciviii7142 " 2000's forum emojis were great, and our culture is worse without them."
This is a controversial opinion but it is correct.
Thank you Suade for this wonderful video, so in depth, cool to listen to, laugh, and the classy outro joke 😂 looking forwards to hearing ant thoughts about civ 7
You are so welcome!
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 will play Civ 3 and 4 till the day I die
One mechanic I really liked in Civ 3 was that citizens had an ethnicity. Which is to say, if the Zulu conquered a Russian city, that city would mostly consist of Russian citizens: of course they'd be angry if you continued your war with Russia and want to rejoin their empire. But also, if that city was part of the Zulu empire for a thousand years, those citizens would mostly think of themselves as Zulus and maybe even resist any Russian attempt to retake the city.
I think subsequent games tried to streamline things. The loyalty mechanic from Civ 6 is, in a sense, doing the same sort of work, but it just feels less interesting and it doesn't really make sense intuitively (I mean, it's not like Alaska is on the verge of an independence movement that will eventually lead them to joining Canada). A game of civ still tells an epic story, and there are certain details that, while maybe not necessary from a gameplay perspective, add to that story's narrative.
The ethnicity system is great! I wish there were more ways to interact with it. Like, policies in the late game that would allow you to encourage or restrict immigration. Brain drain, ethnic conflict, population decline in nations without immigration, irredentism, religious persuction leading to emmigration. There are so many cool ways it could interact with the systems of later civ games, it's a shame they just tossed it out!
I started on Civ II. When Civ 3 came out, I switched (eventually), and (eventually) I adapted. When Civ IV came out, same thing happened. When Civ V came out, I loaded it, played about one turn, then went back to Civ IV. I also still play Alpha Centauri.
But I don't wanna do my laundry, I wanna play civ!
Played this game when i was a kid, rebought it because of your channel and i 100% agree. Love this game
Civ 3 is the pinnacle of human technology.
Wasn't expecting that British Empire burn😂
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
Even if the game sucked, ancient Lincoln in a fur hat makes me happy
6:17 As much as I love Civ 4, and it’s my favorite, your criticism of the graphics like this image is 100% accurate and spot on.
Even last night while dealing with an invasion by the Aztecs, I was looking at how ugly the dye graphic is.
I never played 3 before, you have me curious.
Speaking as a Civ 6 and 5 enjoyer, Civ 5 absolutely has a good modding scene, and Civ 6 has plenty of mods you can see with just a peek at Ursa Ryan's channel, especially unique leaders and civs. I love your videos and I'm absolutely interested in trying Civ 3 sometime
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
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 remember when I was a kid I used to mod Civ3 so that everything costed 1/10th its normal price, and just doomstack expand at a rate even the Sid difficulty couldn't keep up with despite me having no understanding of the underpinning game mechanics.
I kinda miss that.
@5:32 A prime example of why I didn't truly enjoy Civ 6. You make a good case for Civ 3 in this video. I too have a fondness for it and replayed it a lot a few years back (more hours in that Steam purchase than I have for Civ 6, and that doesn't count the other time I've bought a retro digital copy a few years before that, not to mention my early 2000s devotion to it). @6:45 Another great point about the failings of 5 & 6. You end up with a screen covered in cartoony UI, not attractive or immersive.
Replaying Civ 5 recently I was struck by how clear and clean the UI is. It's not feature creep, all of this bloat was added in one game! Insane.
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 saw "I spend 45mins with Civil" and i thought you were meeting up with Real Civil Engineer, and when i didnt see RCE. I was a little disappointed....
But then i saw it was the New Civilization game, and am making a refresh mug of tea, and am eagerly gonna watch it. 💜 Havent played Civ since 2. I never did well at it, but loved watching other people play the series. Let's go!!
I hit "like" as soon as you mentioned Civ 3's flaws. That tells me you've a balanced perspective.
Maybe if it was a slightly less imperfect game, I could keep my head in the sand. But no, I love it despite its issues.
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
These are objective facts.
Flintlock's Civ3X mod/hack gave new life to Civ3. Combined with Civinator's CCM mod this is an absolute heaven to play.
I'm excited for the new mods that will use its features!
nah your number of hours just says you're a command pilot. I celebrate your work You're awesome
When you mention a child could mod Civ 3: can confirm, I did.
I feel Civ 4 made modding less accessible but still powerful, and the greater mechanical breadth of Civ 4 (with civics and religion, etc.) made resulted in mods that are flat-out better than full released games of the years since. There are very few fantasy games half as good as Fall From Heaven 2.
laundry is not a mechanic of Civ 3 and I refuse to interact with it
Fresh water gives you a growth bonus
I’m gonna make a Chinese civil war map for civ3, trying to get the scenario right with some custom units 😊😊
fantastic video. the end was hilarious. agree w/ the whole thing
Honestly still one of my favourite games of all time. I still go back to it.
Civ 3's unit design is outstanding and it's what got me into the game as a teen. Each unit is a pixel-y little work of art. As with the resources, they went with pretty symbols instead of drab realism. You don't get a messy blob of five riflemen, you get *a* rifleman with more character, like a chess piece. The unit design sits in an inexplicably happy place between comic abstraction and realism, but feels like neither. It feels more gamelike in a very good way. Add the wonderful, convincing, buttery-smooth animations on top of all that and you have a perfectly good reason to go to war - just watch your guys smash stuff.
The chess piece comparison is spot on, I might use that in the future. Imagine if the knight piece had a dozen horses in a black or white blob
There are many stragedy games but this one is mine.
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 TH-cam channel 'Suede RTW' now.
I grew up playing RTW, that's why RTW2 was so disappointing
Civ 4 is still in the same spiritual vein as 3, 2, and 1.
1: Stacks of doom are still in Civ 4 (They are countered with collateral damage though)
2: Rapid expansion is still highly rewarded in Civ 4 (also in Civ 6, but that's another story)
3: Combat can still be quite random in Civ 4 as well (One of the games more frustrating pitfalls)
4: In 4 cities have to be placed at least 2 tiles away (In 5 and 6 they must be placed 3 tiles away)
The Civ you're thinking of that really changed the spirit of the game is Civ 5 and made it really stupid
1: You can't stack units together (not even a worker and settler can share a tile)
2: Expanding is punished SEVERELY where if you create one city it splits your happiness resources dramatically and still makes tech and cultural policies more expensive. On top of that it makes creating national wonders more difficult.
3: Combat is much more predictable for individual attacks, but annoyingly difficult to form up your troops or advance in a strategic manner.
4: Cities must be at least 3 tiles away (I don't really hate this mechanic though)
Once I get my new PC I can't wait to give Civ 4 deity a good run.
Yeah mechanically Civ 4 is quite closer to Civ 3, just with extra features. Great people I like, religion I didn't. Just in terms of visuals, Civ 4 was a big switch. But they did take efforts in Civ 4 to tackle all the perceived problems with Civ 3 that I mentioned.
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.
Personally, I'm a big fan of Civ 5 with Vox Populi mod, it manages to re-create that feeling of always having something cool to work towards and really gives lots of interesting decisions.
I have zero interest in Civ 6 (and 7), and 4 was a total flop.
But 3 is and was quite excellent; I still have a set of five Civ 3 T-Shirts that my grandad picked up for 50 cents each in a clearance. :D
civ 5 is garbage compared to 4
@@QuantumtestGaming (shrug) Whatever floats your boat. I was never a fan of unit stacking tbh. Basegame Civ 5 was meh also, I agree, but mods helped make it great.
I don't play multiplayer so I don't care about speed. One of my earliest Civ III games was an absolute epic with max map size, max civs, and on my hardware at the time in 2004 each turn took ages by the end. It was such an epic game I actually remember the map still.
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.
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
#restorethebritishempire
I read Sid Meier's autobiography, and fun fact: each game in the series is on principle made by a different lead, who retains 1/3 of the previous game, changes 1/3 of it, removes 1/3 and adds 1/3 new things.
My favourite anecdote from it is that when the second one was made Sid Meier realised that the new lead is in the process of making a grave mistake that's certainly doom it - they were making the game very moddable, which meant that people would create their own civs that are imbalanced and aren't fun to play, and will unfairly blame the game developers for it. Unfortunately the devs were completely deaf to his pleads to remove it and insisted that it's a great idea, much to Sid's horror. As the Civ 2 was released however it quickly turned out that moddability was a huge success, players loved it and played a ton with it, and as a result every civ game that followed had loads of moddability added to it also.
I should see if I can get it from the library, seems like a great source for some of my videos.
@@suedeciviii7142 To be fair a lot of it is just autobiographical stuff that probably won't impact civ a lot, but... Actually, if you're interested in civ it's probably worth reading, it does change the way you look at civ and you feel more informed about it in the end. I don't regret reading it and it does give you unique perspective
How many happy faces does the Civ 3 wonder generate?
Plenty. But it decreases production by 25%