Well now I don't understand. My box says Sid Meiers Civilization II on it, it doesn't say anything about any extended version or anything. Are you saying Civ II is just Civ I with more turns?? So if I limit the number of turns to less than what Civ II normally ends at, I've played Civ I? And they just lengthened the number of turns because.... they just added some new techs to research and buildings to build or something???

It doesn't make a lot of sense but if that's the only difference, then I guess there's no need to play I at all, cause I've got plenty of experience with II. LOL

To all of the original Civ fans (1, 2) - do you like them the most because they offer the best features/experience for today, or because of how fun they were back then? Asking as someone new to the series.

Well now I'll have to reinstall Civ II so I can explain more clearly, but here's what I remember from memory (keep in mind that I NEVER played the campaigns):

When you were setting up a new game in Civ II, you have multiple options. When you start a new game, you have several choices to choose from (not exact wording): Standard, Extended, Sci-fi, and Fantasy. If you need me to, I'll install tomorrow and take a screenshot to show you exactly what I'm talking about :)

I don't remember those choices in Civ II, I remember them in a game called Call to Power, IIRC, or something like that, where you had those choices and when you picked one of them, the Sci-fi one I think, you had like two worlds one on top of the other one (maybe that was the fanasty one???). And if you played the Standard option in that you played essentially the vanilla Civ II.

I think you're confusing two different games here, but my memory is so bad it might be me confusing the two.


ADDED: Okay, I went and looked at my old boxes on the shelf. The other game was a game called Civilization II, a Test of Time. That one had the other choices in it, but when you played standard, what you were playing was standard Civilization II.

This is actually a GREAT question. I know I like Civ 1/2 because while the features may have been a bit "pared down" compared to later Civ games (no "advanced" AI, lack of several types of Victory Conditions like cultural etc) at the time the game felt very complete. I don't remember playing the game and thinking "Damn I wish this game had X more options" - it felt very much like being able to break out a cardboard, hexed based wargame and play it on my own for hours on end. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that the advancements of recent Civ games have felt a bit incremental and in some cases the interfaces have taken a few steps back (it was soooo easy to tweak cities and slide those lil' 2D tiles around "back then"!)
Later Civs sort of felt like the addons to "The Sims" - did I REALLY need 47 new types of lamp at the expense of doing EVERY little thing being a 5 step process?

I think I'd take Civ 2 interface and graphics (honestly I often feel like 3d took more away than it added) with better AI, cultural borders and great persons / individual characters added with the depth of Alpha Centauri and trade that in for the last 2 or 3 Civ games combined.

Haha, I feel the same way about the Witcher 1 and 2. 2 is clunky console crap in terms of controls after starting it immediately following the end of the first. I need to find some mods to fix it or something... :P

So what could you recommend for someone looking for the ideal Civ experience? Is following them down the line a good idea or 1 that might make it harder to move forward? It's always possible to go in reverse, ya know. Then be unhappy with the simplicity/convenience. xP

And then there's Galactic Civilizations, which I've only dabbled in but which appeared to be basically Civ in Space. Then again, I don't reckon this is much of a Stardock crowd!

I haven't played Civs 1 or 2, I'm not old enough (and they're not on GOG). Out of the other main games, I'd order them 4, 3, 5 in decreasing order. My opinion is probably swayed by nostalgia for 3 (which was my first proper computer game), and the fact that I've only played 5 without expansions, though. The nice thing about 4 is that (almost?) nothing is hard coded, which allows for...very impressive mods which you just can't get with civ 3. The modding scene for civ 5 hasn't really taken off, as they delayed on releasing the modding tools for about 2 years to release more dlc...mutter. Civ 4 also has more interesting strategic choices than 3: which unit you want to build will depend somewhat on what your army is going up against, rather than having "one attack unit, one defence unit, one fast unit" as tends to be the case with Civ 3.

I've about played them all but 5 (due to the DRM), including the original DOS Civ1. They're all great games, and some are preferred by people over others. However, at least amongst "Civilization fans", 4 is the most strongly preferred, followed by 3, usually, depending on various player preferences.

Civ2 was an evolution of 1, the main change being units having separate power/toughness.
Civ3 was, by and large, an upgrade (rather than evolution) of 2. Largely refinements and embellishments without real changes to the core gameplay. Culture and resources were added here.
Civ4 was a big evolution from what came in the past. A lot of the core systems were adjusted here and there. Units power/toughness were merged back together in favor of a flexible bonuses/penalties in certain situations.
Civ5 is a completely new, nearly unrelated game that is best described as "city state builder" rather than "empire builder". Probably the most significant change was limiting each space on the map to a single unit at most.

Civilization Revolution (consoles) is an adequate console port for the distilled taste/wetting-of-tongue of Civ on a console. It is somewhere like a hybrid between 3 and 4.

Call to Power isn't "Civilization" proper, but another game sharing the same name as a result of judicial decisions. However, CtP2 does have some innovative systems, such as public works [later largely adapted to Civ5].

What would I recommend to others most strongly? Civ4.

I see FreeCiv mentioned in the thread. It is effectively Civ2.

Alpha Centauri (Civ in space) had a lot of great things adopted later (such as social engineering and robust terrain improvement), and possibly some of the best diplomacy of any of them. However the terrain and (especially) units, including the Unit Builder fell flat for me and I just couldn't get into it much.

The Colonization side projects? Not much for me. Too much required micromanagement for my tastes.

Three things to say here.

1) No idea how you freaks keep track of version changes. I still don't know exactly which civs I've played, I merge all memories, and just re-discovered that half of my most recent memories aren't from Call to Power 2 but from Civ 4 (what ? i have civ 4 somewhere !?).

2) I remember a nice tune being played on menu screen, with the earth spinning on the left side of the screen. It was this wasn't it ?

3) What ? WHAT !!??

My list would go like this:

1. Masters of Magic
2. Civilization
3. Colonization
4. Civilization V
5. Civilization II
6. Civilization III

I never owned Civilization IV which is the reason why it is not listed.

I started playing Civilization III, but could never finish a game (probably lack of time to learn to play).

I still prefer Civilization 1 over all the others.

Colonization was goot because it added an extra management work inside the cities and you had to have a balance of resources (like you need Timber to be able to create Wood).

Of course, the best civ like game is (and will always be) Masters of Magic

Is no one interested in Warlock: Master of the Arcane?

I haven't played it much, but wasn't impressed by it when I did, felt too simplified. As far as "Fantasy Civ-likes" go, I prefer the Civ IV mod Fall From Heaven 2, the evergreen Master of Magic, and among newer titles, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes (though I suppose the last one owes as much to Heroes of Might and Magic as it does to Civ).

This is actually really funny as I played Witcher 2 first and literally started Witcher last night (probably as you were typing this ;) ) and I LOVE the combat much more in 1. In a few short hours I could tell I was going to enjoy it more - style switching, good feedback and simple but elegant options that I can tell will really make for some flowing combats loaded with strategy once my powers open up.

And as for ideal I think mqstout had a really good breakdown of the games, though I remember being higher on 3 than 4. And I still think the ideal Civ experience might be Alpha Centauri - very deep but simple and easy to play plus the tile based graphics of Civ 2 might make someone's eyes bleed today (I actually sorta kinda like the look, but like I mentioned before I used to enjoy hex based wargames so that's probably biasing me) while Alpha Centauri is probably still pretty to look at (I imagine, I haven't played it in quite some time).