Check out the gameplay preview of Warcraft III.... seems like it will be a great game!!! http://www.fileplanet.com/index.asp?file=60584&download=1
oooo.......How dare you!!! hehe... the Warcraft series was my all-time favorite for a long time.... My hands are all a-tremble in anticipation for WCIII
We must organize a lynching for oni. I'll go get the rope, jake, you go find a tree with some nice branches.
I am going with Oni on this one. Civ rocks. Warcraft sucks. I must admit though that WC III looks rather pretty. I may like it more if I get caught up in the initial wave along with everybody else. I didn't get WC I and II until after they had been out for a long time, and I was rather unimpressed. In a word: boring. I never got SC because I figured it was more of the same. I know I am really bordering on sacrilege here, but I am putting Myth I and II in the same category. On the other hand, I found Civ I and II to be very addictive, I still play Civ II from time to time. I was less impressed with Alpha Centauri even though it was pretty well received. It was okay, but somehow it just wasn't the same. The tech trees were a little arcane, and I wasn't really impressed with the customizable units, I thought it made things a litte too complicated. The best games are beautiful in their simplicity, Diablo II being a perfect example.
Damn Thee! You dare to blaspheme Myth!? To tell the truth, I thought Myth was great but the second one should have just been an expansion to the first. It didn't hold my interest and I didn't even finish it. As far as Starcraft vs Warcraft, Starcraft just feels richer and held my interest a lot longer than the Warcrafts. Civ II rules. I still drag that out once in a while as well. I thought I liked Alpha Centauri at first, but decided it didn't measure up to Civ2 after playing a few games. Along those lines, Caesar had a lot of potential. What I liked about it was that you had not only city building but you also had to move armies around the province and battle enemies on a tactical battlefield. Someone needs to revisit that idea. There was a PC game last year, Shogun or something, which looked to be similar. You strategized and moved armies, built strongholds etc. When armies met, you switched to tactical combat with hundreds or thousands of little tiny dudes running around fighting. It got pretty good reviews.
I was teasing them re: warcraft3 I'm with you though. I was very disappointed by the first 2 warcrafts (they essentially boiled down to "the person who can follow this set of instructions the fastest wins"), starcraft took entirely too long to be ported so I have refused to purchase or play it. I didn't have a machine capable of playing Myth at the time so I didn't get hooked on that game. but the Civ Franchise... I have spent countless hours suffering in the throes of Civ addiction. I get them as soon as they come out (except for the CtP abomination). So far, only Alpha Centauri has been a disappointment. It just doesn't have the replay value of Civ or Civ 2.
It's probably the definitive "build an empire type thing." All other games of that type are imitations, IMNSHO. All the info you'd ever want about the Civ franchise can be found here... http://civ.strategy-gaming.com/