Sid Meier's Civilization III vs Wasteland 1: The Original Classic
Sid Meier's Civilization III
Sid Meier's Civilization III is a compilation of the third iteration of the award-winning grand strategy game franchise, Civilization, as well as all its associated DLCs, namely the updated and enhanced multiplayer expansion in Civ 3: Play the World and new civilizations, scenarios, and features in Civ 3: Conquests. The game definitely improved on its predecessor by a mile, providing players with basically more ways to play. Due to this, the game has a depth that surpass the other games the franchise has produced.However, its multiplayer has been suspended but if you like, you can still play the game on LAN. Not to mention, many other aspects of the game, like the graphics and some of the features, are becoming rather dated as well. So, unless you plan on playing only single player or on LAN, you might want to grab a slightly newer version of the game if a deeper gameplay is what you crave.
Wasteland 1: The Original Classic
Wasteland 1: The Original Classic is the father of modern post-apocalyptic RPGs and rightfully so. Set in the year 2087 after an all-out nucler war, the game lays out the precedence for games like the very first Fallout game. In fact, from the game itself, you can see some of the similarities. That said, Wasteland 1 is a lot more old-school than Fallout 1 and hence, there are plenty more undesirable aspects, bugs and glitches that may make anyone albeit a hardcore fan to throw up their hands in despair.Nevertheless, Wasteland 1 is still a classic in many ways. It is possibly among the first games with a consequence-driven reactive world, for instance, and it has a party-based system allowing you to recruit people to help you on your quest to find out what's threatening the very survival of the remnants of humanity aside from the usual roving mutants and raiders.
Despite the novelty, we honestly wouldn't recommend Wasteland 1 to anyone who has not played the game before when it was first released... back when games were still primarily text-based. Instead, if you'd like to experience a much better and advanced version of Wasteland 1, you should get Wasteland 2.