Games similar to Civ

[tunerica]

Given how good Civ is I don't really expect there to be a game out there that will be comparable to civ, however, I was wondering whether people knew of any games that have a similar style of play. I had a look at Microsofts Rise of Nations which seemed to make claims that it was similar. Turns out though that it was just a more advanced version of Age of Empires, major disappointment. So is there something out there that runs a close second to Civ.

[Matrix]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63863 ;)

[Shabbaman]

Well, there's civ: call to power ;)
Nothing beats colonization though.

[Aggie]

Very simple: Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Alien Crossfire.

They are like a sequel of CIVII. Same creators as CIVII (and RON), better though :). IMHO the diplo is better than in CIVIII.

EDIT: Totally forgot about Shogun: Total War and Medieval: Total War [eek]. Turn-based, but with real time battles. And those battles are massive :D

[Grille]

"Empire Earth" (not turn-based) seems to be a mixture of Civ/SMAC and AoE (maybe it's even similar to RON which I don't know). I like it better than the AoE stuff, but it cannot compete with Civ or SMAC. However, I only took a quick glance at it (say 1.5 games). You start in the ancient and can advance through the times until you get into some 'futuristic age'. Loads of (age-dependent) different units, in the end, you can have cyborgs and whatnot. Btw, during Empire Earth's development, I catched an interview on tv with some production staff geek, and what showed up in the background? On his office walls was the SMAC tech tree poster [groucho] - I guess he wasn't hanging on the phone all day...[lol]

CTP/CTP2 have some nice features, but the developers couldn't get the game to work properly. It's not balanced, the ai is too dumb and some of the features (e.g. "franchising") do not even work. I gave up patching (and SP games) at some point, though.
But you could tweak the game a bit and solely human MP games were fun (basically, we removed a lot of wonders and changed unit related rules).

I think both SMAC and Colonization do not stand in the shadow of CivIII. They have worse graphics, but that's it.

SMAC is even more intriguing than civ: leader personalities, better diplo, society settings, mind worms, war crimes, nice espionage features, terraforming, individual unit design (with 1001 and more options), enhanced unit abilities & unit management options (e.g. assign preferred defender, transfer unit control)... even so, it seems to be quite balanced.
And the included (very simple) multi media stuff is really hynotising - you just make a shift to Alpha Centauri in your mind (and don't bother with the crapy graphics). I often caught myself watching the whole 'bioscan' during diplo. You would build the wonders just because of the media stuff at some point. Even the manual is a good read...
SMAC is just unreachable. It has got its own atmosphere.
[yeah][cool]:)[happy][love][drunk]


Ah, did I mention SMAC is a great game?:D

[Aggie]

@Grille: you forgot to mention the movies :( And you also forgot to mention the futuristic part is creepy and all :(

I have never been this addicted to a game anymore. My worst day was starting on a sunday morning and FINISHING at 6 am because i had to go to work [:o]

[Grille]

I meant the movies (and the well presented explanations of the wonders by different leader's voices) by the "simple multi media stuff".:)

And yeah... it was very creepy, overall. Enter a Xenofungus tile (at least so it is called in the German language version) and...
or the worms landing near a base of yours...
[scared2]

and those nice artefacts... and... the sea level variations... and..


I'm sure I forgot to mention TONS of things.:(


;)
Btw, sleep is for the weak,
hehe. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?postid=699336#post699336)
[rotfl]

[Aggie]

I swear that I didn't see that one Grille [:o]

[Grille]

Heck, I don't accuse you of anything!:)

I guess that 6am thing is a common phenomenon.
The other "victims" of excessive JOMT-ing are just too shy to admit...;)

[tunerica]

Yeah I have Alpha Centauri, love the game, I might have to go back and give it another go.

[digger760]

For some reason alpha century never took my interest...maybe at the time I was burnt out from CivII.

I liked colonization..but never finished a game.

I tried CTP, but never finished that either, got bogged down in civil construction, never seem to have time for war.

I got Medieval Total war, its kind of like an advance version of lords of the realm, the game is massive...not sure i will finsih it either...not through lack of thying though, the game is just so big.

I have Rise of Nations, but its just another real time stratgey game.

[Pastorius]

http://www.freecol.org/