/vr/ - Retro Games

3. I spent most of my time on 2, but 3 is more challenging at the highest difficulty level whereas I can sleepwalk through.

Then again, 2 formula was improved by SMAC and 3 formula was improved by 4. 4 is overall the best game, but not /vr/.

>>5088118

Considering 4 isn't /vr/, would you not be able to answer some questions about it? I played it like... once and never gave it a fair chance. What made it such an improvement, in your opinion?

Also, I love 3 a whole lot too. It was my first Civ game and it's OST is amazing. I also really like the early take on making a game like that '3D'. Very unique graphics and UI.

I like the SNES port of Civ1 because it plays nicely with a controller, but then again I am a homosexual with questionable taste.

>>5088127
>What made it such an improvement, in your opinion?
Mainly because it vastly improved on multiple concepts that were there in 3, but they weren't that great.
Diplomatic victory counted actual votes based off population like in MoO, which was much better than the Civ3 system.d
Culture borders were fixed, along with multiple abuses that allowed you to utterly destroy the AI, such as parking your entire army next to an AI's capital city, then declaring war and destroying them with the AI not minding your obvious war plan at all.
Removing the running out of resources made for a less RNG laden game.
Wonders have been toned down in overall power, but still viable enough to push for a wonder-heavy strategy, especially with an Industrious civ. No more bullshit wonders like Statue of Zeus.
Civic system made for a more interesting, deeper game; After playing 4, I disliked how 2 and 3 were basically about "The Republic Rush" with like two viable end-game government choices.
Multiplayer support was amazing.
Promotions system instead of a binary "Veteran / Non-veteran" system was very welcome and allowed for more varied armies even with the deceptively simple "stack of doom" system.
4 remains fun and difficult to play on Immortal/Deity, whereas in 2 I can generally win Deity by utilizing a very simplistic gameplan.
Rapid Expansion was nerfed due to changing of the "Bigger is better" philosophy into "Bigger is eventually better, but you better be smart" - setting up a large empire asked you to make short-term sacrifices for long-term gain instead of "when in doubt, spam Settlers".
Maintenance instead of corruption/waste was very welcome, as the corruption system made no sense.
Civ4 leaderheads are beautiful, have character, are well-animated; Civ3 leaderheads look like they have Down Syndrome.

4 to me will be the best "iterative" improvements on the classic Civ formula, and 5 was a completely new era.

>>5088146
fucken fag

>>5088118
This poster is spot on.

I spent most of my time on "call to power", a civ2/3 style spin-off (knock-off), and civ 3 and 4. 3 was great but i concur 4 was the pinnacle.

>>5088071
SMAC, obviously. All the good elements of 2 and 3 packed into a single game, without downsides of either and sprinkled with own, unique and great ideas. That goes without mentioning the lore, obviously

>>5088164
>Removing the running out of resources made for a less RNG laden game.
You can still run out of the resources in 4, you know. And the entire fucking point of early development cycle for Civ 3 was how more and more units were related with strategic resources, ultimately leading to situation where you couldn't muster any new units if you were beaten on strategic level (no resources). Both the expansions to 3 fucked that up entirely, adding units that not only continously upgraded from Neolithic period to near-future tech, but also lacked any sort of resources AND had better stats, too. Because fuck strategy in strategy game, right?

As for 4 - C2C or bust

>>5088314
>You can still run out of the resources in 4, you know.
No, you literally can't. Resources are never depleted in 4.
>And the entire fucking point of early development cycle for Civ 3 was how more and more units were related with strategic resources, ultimately leading to situation where you couldn't muster any new units if you were beaten on strategic level (no resources). Both the expansions to 3 fucked that up entirely, adding units that not only continously upgraded from Neolithic period to near-future tech, but also lacked any sort of resources AND had better stats, too. Because fuck strategy in strategy game, right?
Yeah, Civ3 expansion packs sucked in that regard, but they also gave you shit like the Statue of Zeus, which was tied ot a fucking luxury resource, which means it was basically pure RNG as to which faction gets "infinitely respawning broken units for free". Not to mention that you could settle multiple spots on the map to get resources and still have a stroke of luck completely remove them from the map and lose to an enemy who had a worse expansion phase simply because their own source of rubber never expired.
>As for 4 - C2C or bust
It's bloated and not good if you just want to have a challenging, few-hour-long romp against AIs instead of a massive, all-encompassing simulation of history.

>>5088321
>Resources are never depleted in 4.
You can run out of anything provided by mines at any given turn, just like you can gain any minable-resurces in tiles with mines. Granted, the chance is EXTREMELY low, but it's still a possibility. Even vanilla 4 had it.
And Statue of Zeus along with its cavalry was nothing when compared with fucking Medieval Infantry. 4/2/1 unit with free access and no resources related, possible to recuit from the very onset of "Medieval" period.

As for C2C, I have insomnia. This means the "bloat" of the game is precisely what makes it great for me. When you have a choice between looking at the ceiling for 7 hours or playing half-decent C4 mod, go fucking figure.

>>5088334
>You can run out of anything provided by mines at any given turn, just like you can gain any minable-resurces in tiles with mines. Granted, the chance is EXTREMELY low, but it's still a possibility. Even vanilla 4 had it.
No, it did not. Never did. Never have. I never encountered it, but just to make sure I didn' miss something, I googled it - nobody ever reported to have that problem and actually had it - someone declared war on the Civ they had a trade route with and then was confused when they had no more iron or copper afterwards, and then a poster said that "resource depletion used to be a thing in 3, but isn't anymore". After a minute or two of digging I am absolutely fortified in that Civ4 absolutely never, ever had resource depletion.
>As for C2C, I have insomnia. This means the "bloat" of the game is precisely what makes it great for me. When you have a choice between looking at the ceiling for 7 hours or playing half-decent C4 mod, go fucking figure.
That's actually great, I'm glad you like it that way and that it helps. Personally, I mostly just like the "scenario" mods or fidgeting with regular Immortal games. Hope your insomnia ever gets better.

>>5088321
But it's fantastic if you want to play Civ game for exactly that: a massive, all-encompassing simulation of history. Caveman2Cosmos scratches so many differerent itches I have at once it's just amazing.
I only wish they either got Firaxis support for 64bit system OR Civ 4 being compatible with 64bit architecture. But we all know Firaxis isn't that stupid to essentially make Civ 4 the best game they have, rather than selling shit-tier, brain-dead bullshit like Civ 5 or 6. They might be an awful company, but they aren't completely retarded to commit a financial suicide by supporting Civ 4. And we all also know the only reason C2C isn't the most played Civ mod ever is the stability issue caused by the 4 GB RAM glass ceiling of 32bit architecture.

>>5088354
Like I said earlier to insomnianon, I don't mind C2C and I get what you love about it, but I just like to pop Civ4 every so often, grind out an interesting midgame against the AI on some higher difficulty, and be done in like 5-6 hours of gameplay. It helps that I always pick Random civ and stick with it, be it Incans or Arabs. So C2C doesn't really do it for me. When I want a game to spend 80 hours on, I get through my backlog of RPGs.

>>5088340
Not him, but have you tired checking game's code rather than basing your stance on, you know, personal experience? I've once run out of coal in Beyond the Sword expansion. Friend of mine ultimately lost a multiplayer match, because he suddenly lost his only source of oil and couldn't produce any new aircrafts and tanks.

>>5088364
> I've once run out of coal in Beyond the Sword expansion.
Most likely because it's a feature you can turn on in the BUG Mod (or C2C!), not in Civ4 BtS itself. There's an iDepletionOdds flag you can fidget with in the unofficial patch files, but there's no such thing for regular, retail 4.

C2C is fine but FFH2 is the best modded civ IV experience.

>>5088405
>FFH2
>Good
>Best mod

How is c-evo?
Initial release was back in 1999, so it certainly qualifies as retro.

>>5088504

have never seen this but it looks cool. will look it up

>>5088504
never played it but the ui gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, so i will be playing it soon.

I tried civ3 several times but never got a feel or understanding of the goals, tech and economics. Every tech takes really long and I just wander around the map scouting and falling behind. I'm good at rts, but feel really lost in this type of game.

>>5088071
I really liked Test of Time
The Extended and Sci-fi campaigns were a lot of fun.

I've only played FREECIV. I don't even know which one its modeling after. I enjoy it though.

>>5088071
I played my first Civilization game with Amiga 500.
Damn i got hooked. Civ1.
Then later i got x-com ufo for it and was in heaven. Still got those games for PC.

>>5088118
3 really isn't the greatest in the series, I've played all the recent ones and still nothing holds a candle to 3

>>5088882
>>5088927
btw it's free and open source, have fun guys. <3

>>5089135
I thought I was the only one who enjoyed those. How can I obtain the game?

>>5088504
It's literally German Board Game: Civilization, with all the pros and cons of GBGs. AI is great, but that's pretty much it

>>5088960
Civ 3 is probably the most newb-friendly of all Civs. Besides, it's turn-based game, rather than RTS (duh), so the focus and goals are different.

>>5089158
Civ 2, if it was shit and bad.

>>5088071
I spent an obscene amount of time playing civ, civ2 and civ4 but could never really get into civ3. All I remember about 3 was that far away cities had terrible corruption and this just completely ruined the fun for me.

To answer OP's question: civ2

SMAC is the superior civ and an evolution of the gameplay.

>>5088071
2, by far. But now I've been suckered into paracuck's games and can't go back to civ.

>>5088071
Civ 2 and SMAC.

On a related note, have anyone noticed that odd number entries feel more tiresome while their succeeding even number entries feel comfy?

Civ 2: Test of Time was my favourite, still play it every now and then. I've still got the original box + CD

>>5089763
>German Board Game
please elaborate, this isn't /tg/.

>>5088146
are there any major differences between the systems? is the gameplay the same, or would you say simplified (better)? are the world sizes smaller, as they should be, or will all separate encounters take literally hours to conclude like in pc civ "games"? i like the console game civilizations revolution a lot but thats not retro, i see absolutely no reason why a pc game couldn't be done far better with more limitations

>>5091096
Long story very short:
The main focus of the game are the functional mechanics themselves, and the theme is entirely superflous flavour that can be changed on a whim to something else, without affecting the rules in the slightest.
C-Evo was created as an AI programming experiment, so go figure what's the main purpose here. A hint - it's not being a Civilization knock-off.

>>5091123
As far as I know it's a fairly faithful port, most if not all features of the original game are there. Not sure about map size, but I think that is also unchanged. Graphics on the other hand received a much needed update, everything is clear and pleasant to look at. Menus can be navigated rather quickly and even the SNES mouse is supported, if that's your thing.

Turns will take forever in the endgame as you are micromanaging your fleets of bombers and carriers, but I assume this is characteristic of all versions of the game.

There is also a PS1 port of Civ2 which might be interesting for you, but that one is also fairly full-fledged. Played a round of Civ Rev once, wasn't really that impressed.

>>5091864
Is it an enjoyable game, or is it all about memorizing mechanics and tables?

>>5092073
It's fun. But the AI will fucking rip you a new one (or three) if you aren't super-careful.

>>5092073
C-Evo is best summed up as "AI is on tier with semi-competent human player". So as far as AI performance goes, you get raped, because it still has all the mechanical bonuses of being AI, while also not being brain-dead.
Personally I would love to have C-Evo's AI for SMAC. It would be 12/10 game then.

>>5088071
I tried my hardest to get into Civ 1 and 2 but I really can't, maybe the later entries have just spoiled me. Civ 3 is my favorite in the original trio but I just feel like each title improves upon the last one so I have a hard time looking back at the older games.

>>5092505
Civ 2 runs on literal calculator without looking like shit and being overly simplified like Civ 1. That's the main charm of it

>>5088504
>>5088927
Textured windows are comfy. Reminds me of FF Tactics.

5 > 3 > SMAC > 4 > 2 > 1
I enjoy all of them however. Sorry I'm not going to suck 4's cock, it wasn't that amazing. I'm expecting a lot of triggers over this. I got bombarded the last time I posted this ranking.

>civ 2 add nice videos
>civ 3 drop videos
>civ 4 bring back videos
>civ 5 drop videos again
the fug is their problem? what's with odd civs and those huge drops in production value. Getting a text telling me that I won and a fucking picture made my first Civ V victory so bitter. I don't even bothered with VI

>>5093528
Yeah, once I unlocked the majority of achievements in Civ V, that fucking picture became laughably underwhelming.

>>5088071
I'll always like Civ2 the best because it was so easy to mod.

>>5093528
> what's with odd civs and those huge drops in production value
>I don't even bothered with VI
That explains how can you make a claim about even-numbered Civs being better

I tried playing SMAC. God damn I don't understand this game at all and auto is retarded.

>>5093517
I'd personally switch SMAC and 3, but I generally agree with that. Now things would get more complicated if we put 6 and Call to Power in because I'm pretty sure I've been labeled a contrarian ass over it.

5 > CtP2 > SMAX > SMAC > CtP > 6 > 3 > 4 > 2 > 1

Civ 3 is an incredible game, but Civ 4 has more potential. Mods and scenarios really do make the games and here's my shortlist.

CIV 3 (most mods were lost when atomicgamer died)
>Hegemony - scenario based in Greece before Rome, adds in a selection of "tribal" resources and resource dependent buildings specific to different Greek factions
>Tilesets - some great looking city sets to replace the default ones, though you'll have to put them together yourself
>The Ancient Mediterranean - an ancient world mod with an expanded list of resources and reduced city size limits, lots of civs though a bit less balanced that Hegemony
>Scenarios - try a few standalone ones off the internet, they're usually more fleshed out than the "official" ones that shipped with Conquests

CIV 4
>Realism Invictus - Massive expansion for the base game with more civs, more leaders, greater unit diversity, and flavour units for every faction which will give a history buff an erection the size of Trajan's column. Has several real world scenarios. Well balanced.
>Fall from Heaven II - basically a different game, a fantasy world with a lot of time and effort invested into it. Religions are more powerful, magic is possible, and unit experience is more valuable with some units being special "hero" characters. More polished than a lot of other standalone fantasy 4x games

>>5093984
>Fall from Heaven II
it's fucking great
also every faction truly plays and feels different

>>5088071

Modded 4 is best of the modern Civs.
Modded 3 is best of the classic Civs.
SMAC/SMAX is an awesome game.

>suddenly start itching for some Colonization
>try to play Civ IV: Colonization
>it's a literal a brown piece of shit
>try to use popular mod
>it fucking crashes
At the end I just played the original Colonization, so comfy...

pic and music related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSMYJvNIakE

>>5094016
god damn it
I've spend ages playing Colonization when being like 12, I still have the 100+pages manual somewhere.
I was never very good at playing it the intended way though. I usually settled a few tiny islands, placed a unit on each tile so no one can land and pirated the fuck out of everyone

>>5093957
>I don't understand this game
If you played Civ 1-4, you literally have no excuse to not grasp the game. Especially if you played Civ 2
>Auto is retarded
WHY THE FUCK YOU ARE USING AUTO!?

>>5094016
I just wish the Religion and Revolution mod didn't crash each and every time I declare independence.
Meanwhile, original game has a lot of tiny issues that ultimately makes it unfun to play on the long run.
And then there is FreeCol which technically solves a lot of issues of the original, but has its own.
It's like they always have to fuck up something along the line when making this game.

>>5094016
The original is still the better game. But of course we'd say that here.

>>5094008
I fucking love it. I wasn't expecting to see such variety when I started, but every faction plays like their lore. I have my power game strategy with Cthulhu vampire satanists (Calabim) but Bannor are always my favourite faction. Their weak economy always puts them in the middling or weaker leagues, but it makes it feel that much better when you gradually forge your human empire and unleash a crusade with their charismatic heroes on some filthy heretics.

desu the only faction I don't like are the Lanun because they're too OP. A sea-focused faction is interesting, but their ports completely break the game and they always beat everyone else in research because of it. Seeing a Lanun player with Basium is fucking weird.

>>5093957
>and auto is retarded.
>auto
Here is your problem.

Alpha Centauri

>>5094063
I played the game plenty of times without ever turning off auto. I haven't come back to it since, but playing Distant Worlds with most automated functions turned off was amazingly fun. I might come back to SMAC and play it properly.

>>5093517
I mostly just don't understand how can 3 be over 4 when 4 was designed to be a straight improvement of 3 and most people agree it is; I find the gameplay more fun and systems deeper overall

but you do you anon, it's just opinions anyway

how to move units in civ 2?

>>5094163
Diagonally

>>5094072
Why even "play" 4X game if you automate it?

>>5094160
Not him, but the visual design of 4 rubbed me the wrong way. The forced 3D was, well, forced.

>>5094163
numpad or hold left-click with mouse while unit selected
also you can press "G" and then left-click on a square but this sometimes works awry because 2 has bad pathfinding
particularly since if you use that method to force an unit to a point on the map whose coordinates pass the line where the horizontally-oriented world wraps itself, the unit will be stuck in a loop trying to make sense of that

>>5094216
>Not him, but the visual design of 4 rubbed me the wrong way. The forced 3D was, well, forced.
eh, I thought it looked nice and representative of each unit, and particularly the leaderheads were much, MUCH better
Civ3 leaderheads all looked really weird
go to Civ3 startup screen and pick a leader and watch his animation as he really slowly starts smiling at you, and you'll see my problem

Civ4 and AC are the pinacalle of those kinds of games. they have reached such heights there is really little point to play anything else

>>5094916
Consider this:
SMAC didn't give two squats about graphics or presentation of leaders during diplomatic actions. ANd yet it has THE most iconic presentation of leaders ever commited to 4X game and the gameplay is so god-damn good you can ignore graphics entirely, without even having to look through fingers, simply because you will be too preoccupied.

>>5094960
It is a well known fact the only reason Firaxis is withholding the 64bit patch for Civ 4 is the paranoia their newer games will stop selling due to absurd modding capacity of Civ 4 and the extremely productive modding scene. They've luckied out originally by releasing the game a year too early to just have it work with 64bit and now are doing their best for everyone to forget they were planning to release that 64bit patch by '08

>>5094961
>ANd yet it has THE most iconic presentation of leaders ever commited to 4X game
Anon, I sorta beg to differ, because Civilization roundaboutly made Gandhi the literal omnipotent God-Emperor of India who nukes everyone on a whim and SMAC, as amazing as it is, is mostly iconic... for oldschool 4X players themselves.

Without the rich context behind the designs - knowing the lore behind them - it's kinda hard to see anything special about the SMAC guys. I wouldn't be surprised if Yang wasn't just seen as "some kinda Deng Xiaoping caricature".

Besides, the guy specifically said 3>4 on the basis of graphics, and I'm simply curious about it and open to a debate, since I think 4's leap to 3D didn't hurt graphical fidelity (especially given all the useful shit that came with the new system, including resource balloons and a plentitude of tooltips), and the leaderheads simply look much better than in 3. Caesar in 3 looks like a jock named Benny, in particular.

>>5094160
4 ran like ass on my old PC, loading times were infuriating. hugely personal issue, of course, but a problem nonetheless.

>>5095082
Oh yeah, I get you, man. I think that 4 got optimized at some point to work better, but I just realized that I never play Huge maps for a reason. You got a point, and I'm a big 4 fan.

>>5095082
The difference between 3 and 4 in larger map loading times is fucking despicable.

>>5093967
Yeah man I was about to include CtP and 6, but decided not to as last time I placed CtP above 4 (purely from an enjoyment standpoint - I know I'm crazy) I got like 10 (Yous) all telling me I was fucking retarded

>>5088071
Civ 2

>>5088118
no

>>5095064
>it's kinda hard to see anything special about the SMAC guys
t. never played SMAC

>>5088321
>>5088340
C2C is best if you skip pre-sedimentry stage of the game (and you can). So all the boring and tedious bloat of Upper Paleolithic period the game has can be ignored and you start with Mesolithic, opening research with Agriculture, rather than Speech. Makes the game 10 times better

>>5094160
Worse performance (and higher end PC doesn't solve that)
Worse graphics (which is an achievement considering how sloppy 3 was)
Worse AI, unless fan-patched (again, an achievement by itself, since 3 had broken diplo-AI, as in - not implemented into the game and thus doing random diplo)
Worse music, despite having more tracks
Dropping era system for cosmetic bullshit, rather than improving it.

>>5095654
Civ 3 can look very good, as can Civ 4 though it needs more work and is harder to do.

Sad how much is always left to mods though.

>>5095654
>Worse AI, unless fan-patched (again, an achievement by itself, since 3 had broken diplo-AI, as in - not implemented into the game and thus doing random diplo)
Civ4 AI since BtS is supplemented by Blake's fixes and is generally considered pretty damn good among Civ games, although ofc Civ never had good AI; 4 Deity is less exploitative than 3, and; Diplo mostly works decently, with intricate diplo tables for every leader that make you more or less know what to expect at each status (warmongers will declare at Pleased), also AI is somewhat competent at expansion and amassing brutal stacks of units; it helps the overall experience that some exploits like the RoP rape have been removed from 4.
>Worse music, despite having more tracks
Idk, to me Civ3 music was a kindergarten party
>Worse graphics
I disagree mostly due to leaderheads of 3 being hideous and the game looking weirdly "grainy" at times, but okay
I respect your opinion though

>>5095609
>t. I can't read
I can handle myself on SMAC's Transcend, so I obviously spent *some* time playing it, even if SMAC is not particularly hard even there.

I stopped playing Civ 3 when my 3/3 tank was destroyed by a 2/3 samurai

>>5096143

I know the feel bro

Was this samurai in a capital city? That usually puts the odds in the favor of the other Civ.

>>5096091
Different anon, but if you played SMAC at least once, you would never say anything in tune of "it's kinda hard to see anything special about the SMAC guys". I mean we've got threads to those on /vr/, /tg/ and out of the blue even on /v/. Specifically about leaders. So what the hell you are even trying to imply here? That you played the game and never noticed those characters or somehow managed to ignore them, despite, you know, them making the game AND carrying it?

>>5096085
Civ 4 had meanwhile forced 3D map. Couldn't care less about how leaders look, considering my starting point was Civ 2 (which lacked any sort of leader portray and it was just a fluff name). But I do care how map looks and the one from 4 was shit.

>>5093984
TAM was absolutely my favorite mod of Civ3, though the base Sengoku conquest scenario was great too. I always felt like Civ and other 4X games simply have too few civs in them which makes diplomacy more meaningless as it's easy to simply overpower others without the risk of a giant alliance block forming against you.

>>5096248
I apologise if I didn't make the context perfectly clear, but a bunch of threads on /v/, /vr/ and /tg/ by nerds for nerds do not actually mean that these characters are popular or iconic outside of the 4X fandom.

My example about God-Emperor Gandhi is there to show that Civilization games have a lasting legacy that is understood even by video game casuals. Gandhi was a civil rights spokesman and a spiritual leader, not necessarily fit for a Civilization figurehead. It's even more bizarre when Unique Units and Buildings started to be a thing and God-Emperor Gandhi would revolt into a bloody authoritarian Monarchy and declare war on you with his War Elephants. Gandhi's design is iconic - changes throughout the games, but still retains the usual traits, including the whole nuclear missiles angle.

If you lack any of the context behind the SMAC leaders, if you haven't read into their lore, their portraits themselves don't evoke much. They have a sharp artistic style and are great characters themselves, but to understand tha you need to read into their context. Considering that I often see people in 2018 making retarded 1032 page threads about how Lal was a SJW, I don't think many people who profess to "get it" even do.

SMAC is popular on /tg/ because it's a video board game with amazing science fiction writing. The iconicity has nothing to do with the visual character designs in this case.

Even the anon said that SMAC 'didn't give two shits about presentation of their leaders and yet it's amazing', which, again, was completely unrelated to what I was saying ("SMAC had great leader presentation without even trying, so Civ3 leaderheads looking creepy and out of place is irrelevant"??) Seriously, LOOK at the slack-jawed fuck in picrel. That's supposed to be Caesar.

And also, SMAC *did* give a shit about their leaders' presentation because they build probably the most unique network of interactions with other Civs and yourself depending on your social policies

>>5096291
So you are saying the potato heads from 4 are better than potato heads from 3, because... what exactly? Both are god-awful ugly and cartoonish for different reasons.

>>5096291
Like, you know what makes SMAC characters iconic for me? Miriam's famous warmongering attitude and the way she interacts you in her own, Miriam-specific way, invoking God and your heathen sixteen-tech lead. That builds a ton of amazing context behind the portrait, but again, the portrait itself is meaningless because those are NPCs written for someone's "What If" piece of speculative fiction.

All the context built up in

So, to recap:
>SMAC definitely *does* put in a ton of effort into their leader presentation
Pic related. It's the small things, but every single one of these leaders has a slightly different flavor text to striking deals or interacting with your particular faction. That's great. It builds awesome storylines.
>Civ3's ugly bobbleheads piss me off.
They either smile at you radiantly when you're buttbuddies, keep a neutral face when cautious, and snarl at you when annoyed. There are some nice details like the leaderheads seemingly getting better dental over the ages, but these are my least favourite designs ever. To answer >>5096303, Civ4 leaderheads are usually more pleasant to look at, with more striking features that actually inform you better who the guy you're talking to is, and very animated in what they do - Napoleon does his famous pose, Caesar actually does look like Caesar and makes some Roman Emperor mannerisms (when he approves of or rejects a deal, he will make the "spare/kill" gesture). Civ4 leaders are simply more lively in general, and have more interesting, striking features.
>SMAC being pretty doesn't excuse Civ3 being ugly
I'm really not sure why SMAC even entered this conversation in the first place because it's utterly irrelevant to how I feel about Civ3 having ugly characters.

>>5096310
Great, I ate a sentence.
>All the context built up in
SMAC is carried through the quotes, Secret Project videos, and NPC interactions. SMAC does this shit fantastically, and I would never say SMAC "didn't give a shit about its presentation".

>>5096143
Samurai? Not spearman?

>>5089561
>3 really isn't the greatest in the series, I've played all the recent ones and still nothing holds a candle to 3
?

>>5097814
>Battleship loses to spearman fortified in mountain city of size 3 with city walls

REEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>5098103
Literally impossible.
But the "tank vs spearman" is indeed a Civ 3 meme

>>5098103
have you seen any battleships that can climb a mountain?

>>5098126
this does happen in Civ 1.

>>5098463
I always assumed the battleship comes with a means of ranged combat.

>>5098103
How?
No, seriously, how? The only way for battleship to engage a spearman is to use artillery attack. Which is ranged. The spearman literally can't retaliate.

>>5099920
Civ 1

>>5099959
So I guess the spearman is the ultimate unit of the entire series after all

>>5088071
SMAC is the best for me. The one I played the most was 4 and 2 right after.
I enjoyed Colonization a lot.
I liked 5

>>5099990
>Liking hexes

Been playing ryes on civ 4 tonight actually. I paid out about £3 for civ 3 month back and played it solid.

Few years back when V came out I couldn't get into it . Fighting was different, kept crashing my pc. Overall didn't like it.

Is it worth getting the whole expansionpacks deal and giving it or 6 a go? Or did I get out at the right time

I think my favorite is 2. The first one is nice but I like the newer art

>>5088071
Looking at that map I've realised how fucking much my standards improved when it comes to 4X maps since I was playing Civ 2 on regular basis

SNES 1

favorite installments are 4 and 1

>>5099983
related

>>5092073
And it has a very nice soundtrack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0X9AxfKs7w