Topic: Civilization vs Age of empires

[jcikal]

If anyone has played both Civilization (II or III) and Age of Empires (II preferably), could you comment on which one you like most and why?

[Oviraptor]

I don't really think there are comparable, one is turned based and the other is an RTS. But if I had to choose, I'd pick Civ. There just seems like there is more to the game. Also, I grew tired of AOE II quicker than Civ.

[jcikal]

Do you play Civ anymore?

[Oviraptor]

I haven't recently, but after I got it, that was the only thing I played for months. And then again, for each expansion pack. I played AOE II for less then a month before I grew tired of it. And then I went back to Civ III. Most recent games I have been playing are SimCity 4 and the Sims2, but not much else.

[Lord Janos]

Okay, this is my area.  I've been playing the Age of Empires series (all of them), since the very beginning.  I am, in all respects a veteran of the series and am pretty damn good at the games online.

To be good in them you need a combination of quick-thinking, adaptability, and patience.  What do you do if your enemy raids your hunting villagers?  Do you send raiders to counter them?  Do you move your villagers somewhere else?  Whatever, you get it.  Now the thing with RTSes like this, is that there are set build orders which work best for different situations.  The key to winning is by learning these and being good with as many races as possible.

That's the big problem with RTSes... they have no more depth than figuring out the best build orders and who uses their economy to best effect.  So yeah, if you want quick 30 minute skirmishes which get repetitive, then go with Age of Empires.  If you want epic, more culture-oriented games based around going through history, then i would go for Civilization.

I'm going to get Civilization IV... simply because Age of Empires III is exactly the same as the others - just with more little features (which will get old once you start playing online competitively) and prettier graphics.  Civilization can give you hundreds of hours more gameplay time than an Age of Empires game... so it is better value for money.  I used to love RTSes and TBSes, so i know my stuff in this respect.  I like the Age of Empires series more than the current Civilization games - but the thing to bare in mind are that they are both in different genres... so in the end you can't really compare the two series.

[Sub]

AOE II > Civilization III
Civilization II > AEO II

I've been playing Civilization II since it came out and I still play it today.

[Psilontech]

How can you even COMPAIR the two??

TBS > RTS 94.3% of the time

Therefore, with mucho bonus points because Civilization rocks so hard,( Civilization > AoE )^1,000

[Vivec]

I have played Civilization 3 a few times at my friends house, and it just looks dumb to me. I don't really like the game at all. Age of Empires gets very old after a while, mainly because i have no expansions, (damn this diplomacy!!!) so its like a 1(AOE) to a 0(CIV) on a scale of 0-10

[Lord Janos]

I have played Civilization 3 a few times at my friends house, and it just looks dumb to me. I don't really like the game at all. Age of Empires gets very old after a while, mainly because i have no expansions, (damn this diplomacy!!!) so its like a 1(AOE) to a 0(CIV) on a scale of 0-10

Care to enlighten us as to WHY it looks dumb?

I mean, a game which has middle-aged  men and women addicted to it and playing all night must make it dumb mustn't it?

[Vivec]

see the problem with asking me that is that i dont know. I just took an immediate dislike to it. You can (and probably will) discount my opinion

[Krakow Sam]

Seems to me it would be a better idea to compare two RTS's. AOE or Total War. I think we all know what the answer to this one is.

I think Civ wins out over AOE, it has way more depth. AOE just turns into a monotonous resource-a-thon.

[jcikal]

Well after checking the additional info on both games, I can tell you that the upcoming Civ 4 will win hands down as far as replay value is concerned, over the also upcoming AOE3.  In addition, I also found out that Civ4 will be the most moddable game out there, you can virtually change anything and everything short of the source code for this game.  That speaks volumes, since we all know that the more moddable the game is, the more long-term replay value it has.  Civ3 itself was pretty moddable, but Civ4 is basically the new king of moddability.  Can't wait to see what the modding community does with the game once it comes out later this year. 

I was perusing the forums for the Civ games and can you believe that there are a lot of 50+ men playing this thing?  And a lot of them have been doing so since the first Civ game came out around 14 year ago.  The oldest so far is an 82 year old fellow who's been playing it since Civ2.  I had the first one when it first came out, but I was more into the racing/combat scene at that time, and the game didn't appeal to me.  Maybe that's what happens with Vivec, the gameplay doesn't appeal to him.  The Sims is the top best seller

This is a game that requires patience & planning, it's like eating an expensive meal, you have to go slow in order to enjoy the taste to its fullest.  Back when I first bought the original Civ, I didn't have the patience for the game, so I played for maybe 2-3 days and gave up on it.  After reading the posts at the Civ forums, and seeing that most people fall into the 20-40 age group but there are also a large base of 50+ yr olds playing this thing not for weeks or months but long years, I have decided to give it another whirl, but was also interested in the AOE3 since the game looked fantastic as far as graphics, but we all know that gameplay is the variable that makes/breaks a game in the first place, and Civ seems to be king in that area.  From what I've gathered so far, no 2 games play alike even if you make the same moves, it won't play the same.

[HolsteinCow]

I didn't like Civilization because it didn't allow me to build a civilization the way I wanted to ideally. You had to be a cold, calculating bastard to even have a chance at winning this game and frankly the concept of changing from a Monarchy to a Fascism for the +3% howitzer production bonus isn't really appealing to me. And besides Civ 3 used WAY too much RAM.

On the other hand, in Age of Mythology I knew pretty much the best way to handle Zeus for the first five minutes but after that the micromanagement got a bit out of hand. Especially in battles, I found the only way to fight without giving myself a migrane was to throw all my units at one enemy and after that enemy died I would let the battle play out by itself. But since I couldn't adapt to anything('I can play without the hotkeys' is the worst attitude you can have in this game), and because of the abysmal smurfing problem on ESO my rating was reduced to somewhere around 1400-1500 and now I can't play with that account anymore. As a matter of fact, I don't have the game installed anymore and I can't find the CD(my brother is an unorganized and violent prick). Oh well I'll get AOEIII. Maybe.

[Vivec]

Maybe that's what happens with Vivec, the gameplay doesn't appeal to him.

Exactly. I just don't like how it works and such