new strategy type pc game, help me pick..
Oct 9, 2005 at 10:46 PM Thread Starter Post #1 of 17
M

mjg

Headphoneus Supremus
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Choices are:

Age of Empires 3,
or Civilization 4...

I've played civilizaiton back in the day, liked it alot...

I also liked warcraft type games along time ago, with crazy battles and unit stuff...

Yet, i cannot decide, graphics definatley are sick with age of empires 3, but i'm not sure if my 9800 pro is good enough?

Help me decide, i'm way out of tough with pc gaming.
 
Oct 9, 2005 at 11:16 PM Post #2 of 17
Well I believe Age of Empires III is real time strategy and Civ IV is turn based. I would choose Civ IV, but I liked the other Civilization games more then the Age of Empire games.
 
Oct 10, 2005 at 1:14 AM Post #3 of 17
wow thats a loaded question, aoe3 vs civ4. I honestly think you should get both if you're a strategy fan. aoe will be more action oriented, with more shooty-shooty and stuff blowing up, whereas civ4 is more of a laid-back game, that relies alot more on thought-out decisions and overarching strategy. Your 9800pro (if backed by an equivalent system) will run both of these just fine. If you want more in-depth reviews I can give you them or you can just use the mighty google, but I suggest playing both.
 
Oct 10, 2005 at 2:02 AM Post #4 of 17
Your 9800 pro should be fine with Age of Empires 3. The only thing is you won't get the full bloom and SM 3.0 effects. I suggest you download and check out the single player demo. It will still look good though! I have the same card on my system.

I'm not sure if Civ. IV has a demo coming out anytime soon but both games are scheduled to come out this month.

As to what will suit your taste better, well like the others have said, that all depends on what you're looking for. (Like fast action/real time strategy? Go with Age of Empires 3. Like Turn based tactical gameplay? Go with Civ. IV)

Definately check out the various previews of both games here to help you decide:

Civilization IV

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/...niv/index.html

Age of Empires 3:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/...iii/index.html

cool.gif
 
Oct 10, 2005 at 2:22 AM Post #5 of 17
I'll add a slightly different option: Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War

mind you, it emphasizes battle over resource management. it is fast-paced, violent, and things go BOOM!. definitely for the days when you need something that still falls under RTS, but takes far less mental effort
biggrin.gif
(the expansion, "DOW: Winter Assualt" was recently released as well)

IGN's review

have fun, whatever you pick
 
Oct 10, 2005 at 2:42 AM Post #6 of 17
hmm,

well i do want something i can sit down with for maybe an hour every few days and zone out too, to unload from a long day of work or whatever...

I don't know if i can afford the time to do both... How could you play 2 games like this at th esame time anyhow, i thought these are the sorts of games you need to get involved with?

Not really interested in the warhammer game, i'm pretty much wanting to avoid the fantasy type games, gore is cool or whatever, but i think historical context is kinda interesting.
 
Oct 10, 2005 at 10:15 AM Post #7 of 17
We have a group here that plays strategy games a few nights a week. Our current favorite is Act of War: Direct Action. The US faction uses accurate representations of the current US Army like Abrams tanks, Apache helicopters and F-15 fighter planes. It has very good grapics but will run in your 9800. Try out Act of War. Its currently on sale in Amazon for only $20.


Before that we were playing Dawn of War and Rise of Nations. Rise of Nations in my opinion easily in the top 5 of all time RTS greats.

I really love Age of Empires 1 & 2 and I eagerly downloaded the Age of Empires 3 Demo when it was released but I didnt like the gameplay of the most recent AOE.

Im also anticipating Civ4's release and expect it to be a great game since it's a Sid Meier game. I hope it would turn out to be the great game that everyone expects it to be.
 
Feb 9, 2006 at 10:02 AM Post #12 of 17
If you want realistic, try out Cossacks or Cossacks 2. Units have morale, formations, supply lines, stamina, experience, and every shot takes up some of your coal/iron and every unit takes up some of your food, etc. Huge battles, good graphics, up to 64 000 units in Cossacks 2, and 8 000 in Cossacks.

A big turnoff for most RTS games for me was that buildings had the same "hp" as units, or units could survive for so long after taking X many hits. Cossacks solves these problems by allowing cannon/artillery and buildings to be captured, and if so desired, torched. Think of a unit as having 60 hp and a building having about 60 000 hp. Or you can shoot them down with cannons, but no farmer with a pitchfork is going to bring down the town center. It's real strategy, as different formations are truly effective against attacks, flanking actually works, and just a huge mess of units is much less effective than a tightly organized, managed formation. No such "Starcraft swarming" here. Oh, and location matters as well (forests are less effective to shoot into, hills give you a definite advantage, etc.)

Here's a screenshot:

_screen55.jpg


Another thing I liked was their attention to detail. For example, a cannon usually shoots cannonballs if the target is far off. But when you have a line of troops charging your position, well, let's just say grapeshot works wonders.
 
Feb 9, 2006 at 3:05 PM Post #13 of 17
Quote:

Originally Posted by Nick Dangerous
Hey mjg, which did you pick? I just tried (and sold) Civ IV and am thinking about giving AOE III a spin.


CIV 4

I dabbled with it a bit.. It gave me a nostalgic feeling of playing the game like back in 1992ish when this game was new. it didn't really draw me beyond that... The politics are very layered, and I would end up in these stale mates and just get tired... It sort of makes the game boring if their isn't as much action and the goals are so diverse that you sort of forgot what your tryign to do before history ends...

I think for my next war type game it would be Medieval Total War II (when it's out) or that new star wars game looks great...

The game I've really been playing lately is resident evil 4, wow I can't get over how long that game is. Def not an RTS but worth a look at ; ).
 
Feb 9, 2006 at 4:06 PM Post #14 of 17
I know it wasn't one of your two listed choices, but if you liked Warcraft, you could try Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. It has the largest competitive scene of the RTS games, and a custom game (Defense of the Ancients) is starting to take off in competitive play. Personally, I like to follow the competitive scene as much as I like to play, so War3 is an easy choice for me.
 
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