NephthysWanderer the Charming wrote:
Civ3 and 4 were not much different in my opinion. Both induced "F'uck that! I have a f'ucking rifle and he has a spear. How the f'uck did he kill me??" screams.
Yeah. Just ask the British how that feels... ;)
Seriously, the differences between Civ3 and Civ4 are *huge*. Vast changes to the combat system (Reducing the benefits of the "stack of doom"). Wonderful improvements in the maintenance costs (in Civ3, you literally could not expand beyond a specific number of cities without it costing you more then you gained). Tweaks to the culture flip rules to make it not be ridiculous anymore (trust me in civ3, it was ridiculous). Changes to war weariness so that that's no longer ridiculous either (nothing more annoying then being attacked out of the blue by an enemy, defending yourself for a few rounds, and then having your cities all go into disorder because you had the audacity to try to take the fight to the enemy).
Civ3 made some silly assumptions about how populations respond to actions by their leaders. Guess what? If my population is warlike and expansionist, they shouldn't get pissed off like a bunch of whiny liberals at a "I hate George Bush" event when their government expands via warfare. Civ4 addresses this by breaking up the different forms of government into 5 different categories. You get to pick and choose each aspect of your society, which is also a significant improvement.
Adding religions, and completely changing the way money is managed are also huge differences between the two games. Honestly, civ3 was the worst of the civ games so far IMO. It introduced a number of new concepts, but didn't manage them very well and so resulted in a frustrating game experience. Civ4 is much much much better. :)