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I was expecting more from a sequel for a classic game.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 22 / 22
Date: November 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

My opinion of Civlization III is based on the fact that I have played its predecessors. If you haven't played any of the Civilization games, by all means, purchase this game as quick as possible because you have no idea what you're missing! A time encompassing game primarily about world conquest, you control a civilization from caveman times to the present day and expand world borders attempting to win the game in different ways. The third version of this popular series still follows the same gameplay format that made it a universal favorite and that's why I had problems with it: It didn't change much.

I suppose it's difficult for a software company to live up to a famous title's reputation when it's already one of the classic strategy games of all-time but I didn't feel like I got my money's worth after playing this game for a week. Frankly, I'm already bored with the game.

There are some new and interesting changes to the game. One of the most obvious new features is a system that relies on specific resources (oil, rubber, etc.) rather than allowing you the ability to build anything you choose. Another great new feature is the expanded diplomacy option with just about anything in the game available for trading with other countries. The game is much smarter now and computer opponents make better decisions. This may have led to what I find one of the biggest problems in the game, the incredibly slow running speed. The more computer controlled civilizations you allow in your game, the slower it runs from turn to turn. Even with low amounts of civilizations, when the game has progressed to a later point in time and the world is heavily populated, it can take at least a minute for the computer to decide its moves in one turn. I have a decent system and would recommend that anyone with a slow processor be prepared to practice their patience as you will be playing games that will take a LONG TIME. I have no problem with strategy games that take a while before completing the objectives but Civilization III loses its appeal when I make decisions in a few quick seconds and then wait a minute or two for the computer to complete its turn.

If this is your first time to play the Civilization series, the instruction manual is phenomenal and it is equipped with an in-game encylopedia that describes all units, buildings, wonders, etc. to you. I was disappointed that the game didn't come with enough new aspects to force me to read the instructions much. I jumped right in to Civilization III as though I didn't miss anything from the previous version.

The provided scenarios/maps aren't near as good as the other versions and civilizations do not start in their historically correct positions on a simulated world map. I would check the internet as there are bound to be plenty of interesting maps and modifications created by players. Also, the game does not come with a multiplayer internet format. Knowing the recent history of PC games, the company will probably release a costly expansion pack in later months that will allow you to play this on the internet with other players.

A great game for anyone that is new to the Civilization series but in my opinion, only a fair game for returning players.

Civ III limitations

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 23 / 25
Date: January 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

In their attempts to improve upon Civilization II, the producers of Civilization III have proved the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

While the graphics are beautiful there are numerous features that deserve debate. For example, the number of civilization "Advances" has apparently been increased resulting in longer, sometimes seemingly interminable, pathways through different "Ages." Increased food and mine production requires putting a railroad in every square until the map becomes a weird looking morass. "Wonders" consume incredible amounts of turns and can only be speeded up with a "Great Leader" gained through conquest and then there is the bizarre nature of weighted battles between military units.

I've had a battleship sink itself by attacking a destroyer (?)! Three modern tanks are required to destroy nine primitive warriors, and thus "weakened" each tank can be destroyed by a warrior. C'mon! An opposing AI's civilization is considered more "powerful" simply because it has a large number of primitive units such as warriors and archers as opposed to modern armor, Bradley vehicles, and jet airplanes. Galleys with oars are only slightly slower than a destroyer which moves at the same speed as a battleship.

I seem to recall that the designers wanted to de-emphasize conquest and city building by allowing for victory through diplomatic or cultural superiority for example. But gameplay seems to demand the former and simultaneously discourages it. Because of the increase in corruption as a function of distance from the capitol city, trying to achieve useful productivity in a conquered city becomes frustrating at best and essentially impossible if you've invaded another continent or island. If you don't continually try to establish new cities, you'll find yourself soon surrounded by opposing AI cities located in really odd places. You can attack them. If they're close to your capitol--fine, but if they're not, you'll struggle trying to get them to be productive. In the meantime, your population's discontent grows making the "war" sort of useless since productivity is reduced and building slows, thus limiting chances for victory by means other than war.

In later stages, a newly conquered city will revolt unless you garrison it with an absurd number of units and build "happiness" improvements as quickly as possible. Gameplay becomes too ambiguous and irrational. You should build lots of units, but don't use them. You should build lots of cities, but not too far away. You should develop your cultural or scientific lead, but this gets limited by building armies--which are not really used. This kind of gameplay is not fun, it's annoying when spread out over the purported 540 turns it takes to play a complete game.

By far the most questionable innovation of the designers, however, is the concept of randomly appearing (and disappearing) "Strategic Resources." You may devote many hours playing a game only to discover that an essential resource such as coal, oil, saltpeter, or aluminum isn't on the continent that you occupy! Worse, the sole resource you have may be "exhausted" and thus disappear. If you can't obtain it through trade (no other player has it or will trade it) or conquest (with all of the above hassles) or establishing a difficult to defend remote outpost, basically the game is over. Maybe some find that to be fun. After 10 or 20 hours of play, it seems more like masochism to waste that much time going nowhere.

A beautiful game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 21 / 24
Date: April 19, 2002
Author: Amazon User

First of all, I am flabbergasted when people say that there have been no changes from the earlier incarnations of this game. The graphics are beautiful, like an old sailing chart come to life. The characters move, instead of just standing around like boardgame pieces. The battles are actually fought, the characters fall down dead, ships sink into the water. Sometimes I just sit for a minute watching all my workers dig mines or shovel roads.

The much-touted improved AI does, in fact, make the other factions somewhat more clever. Instead of mindlessly beating me up (like they did in Civ 2 and Alpha Centauri) they actually respond to trade agreements by going from, for example, "annoyed" to "polite." On the other hand, they can still, on occasion, be quite unreasonable, and their ability to accumulate scientific knowledge, strategically expand their empires and build the latest, greatest wonders is simply miraculous, while I'm struggling to keep my cities from burning and my gold from being snitched by barbarian hordes.

All the Civ 3 games I've played have been on the second-to-easiest of six levels of difficulty (I JUST CAN'T bring myself to play the easiest), which brings me to by far the biggest issue I have with Civilization 3: Every time I've played I have at some point started losing ground at a phenomenal rate and been unable to move forward. I've tried aggressively trading with the other factions, mining the hell out of the countryside, and selling off older units until I was in serious danger of being destroyed by even the weakest of my rivals. I've tried building up militarily, I've tried constructing a strong infrastructure of roads and marketplaces, I've tried creating a grand culture. I've found that each strategy comes at the expense of some indispensible need, and the game is quick to punish the gamer for any and every deficiency in their developing nation. It seems impossible to find a balance between military might, culture, food production, wealth accumulation and scientific learning; as a matter of fact, building anything less than the strongest military in any city invites attack, and a military strong enough to be useful when the player first (and always unexpectedly) needs it is likely to leave the rest of your civilization not much more than a smattering of aboriginal villages. And things only get worse once you advance beyond a despotism, when the very nature of your government forces your development even further askew.

Here is what for me has become a typical scenario: After several hours of play, I've finally gotten my empire really expanding and taking shape. The other factions have made their entrances and negotiations are under way! And THEN...Persia rudely demands a map of my territory. I refuse, and Persia declares WAR! and steals a bunch of my land with only token resistance from my forces (what are these guys doing)!? My national treasury is suddenly empty and units are being disbanded. Half my cities are aflame because, dammit, the people need CLOWNS. Every wonder I was constructing gets built by somebody else and my production has been switched--at a significant loss--to something that I don't have the gold to support after it's completed. My advisors each have a separate agenda, but nobody's agenda appears to pertain whatsoever to the game I am currently playing. And, of course, the Babylonians, English, French and Egyptians have all signed a trade embargo against me because I so gravely wronged their dear friends, the Persians. About this time I decide the game's entertainment value has dropped to just below watching that woman on TV who pretends to read dogs' minds, or maybe searching the phone book for people with funny or unusual names.

Pop fssssss.

Overall, the game is a visual feast. I really have to say I'm not sorry I bought it, if only because of the graphics and its TREMENDOUSLY high "wife annoyance" value. The AI truly is impressive, even if it is like playing Monopoly with a really, really dishonest Banker. I just would have liked to have seen the "let me win" levels be a little friendlier. To say the least.

Wish they had worked longer

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 21 / 24
Date: June 05, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I am a big fan of the first two installments in the Civ series and was eagerly awaiting the third game. However, when I began to play the game I started to feel that it was thrown together without the needed polish to make it a good game. So many of the new features like cultural rating, trading for resources, and strategic resources, felt rather like they were from a beta version of the game. Cultural ratings failed to have any effect on game play after about the invention of gunpowder. The Computer will often refuse to trade for resources if it feels that you are in a better position than it is, regardless of how sweet the offer you are making is. Strategic Resources will sometimes never appear anywhere near your territory, at one point while playing with large landmasses and controlling about half of the world I was unable to build anything more than spearmen for almost an entire age of technology because all of the Iron deposits were located in one tiny corner of the map. Thanks to the fast pace of my research I had Oil before I had Iron. The research is another problem. In an effort to streamline the game the designers gutted the tech tree; whereas, in the past, every advancement provided some social benefit or allowed for something else to be built, now the tech tree is filled with advances that provide no benefit other than allowing you to research something else. The worst part is that these advancements were once very useful in Civ 2 but now the discovery of things like chemistry does nothing for a culture. I could clearly see how much fun the game would have been had they continued developing it but, as is, the only fun part takes place before the development of steel when the new features are at their best, after that it is all downhill.

Sid Meier, bow your head in SHAME!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 41 / 61
Date: January 13, 2002
Author: Amazon User

While all the Sid Meier apologizers are rating this atrocity of a game with five stars, good people are still being tricked into thinking this is a good game. This game is terrible on so many levels it will be hard to list them all. Personally, I have truly enjoy Civ II and its true sequel, Alpha Centauri. With the exception of better graphics and sound, there is nothing enjoyable about this slop.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Watch the system requirements carefully. This game is painfully slow on even the fastest computers. It will take up 500 to 700 megabytes of hard disk space and will not work well on anything less than 600 Mhz processor. Even with fast computers, the game will crash a couple of times during game play, especially after the game year 1900.
GAME PLAY:
Slow and a step back from Alpha Centauri. The production queue is supposed to be very easy to use and instead it is impossible. The city governor will not deactivate when prompted on and the computer decides for you what unit to deal out next. The lack of game options the player has is indicative of the dictatorial manner of Sid Meiers. He refuses to let the player decide and his whole attitude is reflected in the fact that although Sid Meiers doesn't mind his likeness being used for advisors he refuses to extend that to let the player be the actual leader of their civilization instead of what Sid Meiers wants.
THE "STRATEGIC RESOURCE" SCHEME.
You can't build units until you have the resources. This makes the game unplayable since the maps generated have very little of these resources. I am reminded of the old Sid/Microprose game "Colonization" which had that problem. Sorry, Sid the idea of this promoting trade doesn't work. The idea that 4 or 5 strategic resource not be plentiful on the earth is not reasonable at all.
THE CORRUPTION BAFFLE:
As soon as you build your third or fourth city you will see it: 5 out of 6 shields wasted to corruption. This ratio remains static no matter if you switch to a republican government and build courthouses and other improvements. That is absolutely unacceptable because you need shields to build your empire. That’s the whole point, right?
THE AI:
No matter what you do or what skill level you play, the computer’s nation will be bigger, stronger, and have more units and wonders than you. Sloppy programing makes the AI squeeze cities into every corner of the world so that by the time you have the knowledge to explore the seas, there is no point because the computer has all the territory. If that wasn't bad enough, the enemy can build a city right next to your capitol, drain your resources, and this is not an act of war. At least Alpha Centauri dealt somewhat with this issue.
WAR AND COMBAT:
If you like winning by global conquest, forget about it in Civ III. Even if you can build units after all the corruption and manage to mobilize your troops (quite hard to do in Civ III), the “Cultural Influence” aspect of the game takes place. Say you conquer a town, and surround it with troops, on the next turn the town will change hands back to the enemy, including all your troops. So occupation is unrealistically impossible.
DIPLOMACY:
A joke in Civ III. It appears they tried to make it more interesting with increased options like trade agreements and rights-of-passage as opposed to bonafied alliances. At least it was a good idea, only thing is it has to work. Here, there is a simple flowchart the program follows in negotiations, plus there no need for diplomacy if the only way you can win is by taking strategic resources from the AI. The diplomacy is worthless since the AI is so aggressive and demands ridiculous things and declare war on you in a whim.
THE PATCH:
Recently Firaxis Games has release its first “patch” to the public. It has a huge list of complete and inexcusable mistakes in their beta version. I still have not figured it out and they won’t instruct the lay person how to use a “patch”. This is just another example of the lack of any kind of competency you can expect from those people.
CONCLUSION:
I know most of the Sid Meier apologizers are smart folk who know a rotten deal when they get one. I would only hope that you to have the courage to tell the world that this game is terrible. And to you who have not yet bought into this Sid Meier craze or remember only better days of Alpha Centauri and Civ II, I would encourage you to spend your hard earned money on something more worthwhile. Of course Alpha Centauri or the original Civ II is very good. Also try the adventure comedy “Monkey Island” or the real time strategy “Empire Earth”. ...

The Best Civilization Game To Date

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 20
Date: November 08, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I've had this game for over six months now (since it first came out) and I've even written a review of it already. But my last review was mostly concerned with the criticisms that have been levelled against the game. (The Civ "phenomenon" is ten years old, ancient in computer gaming terms, and so has spawned legions of fans who think they should be the ones to decide the rules. Civ 3 lets you do this, of course, but that's not enough for some folks.)

Having played it now for as long as I have--and the game is life-disturbingly addictive--and after having dusted off Civ I and Civ II to replay them for comparison, there is no doubt that this is the =best= Civilization game ever.

* The interface is clean, streamlined, and about as non-disruptive as possible. If you've played =any= Civ before, you know how critical that is. (If anything, it's a little =too= streamlined, as you can miss messages about cities.) It's not just prettier graphics, it's more informative: You can tell when a city is starving, when its growth is stunted, when they're happy, when they're mad, all from the main map. And you can turn off lots of unnecessary animations to speed the game up.

* The automation features =actually work=! You can make the critical improvements on your cities in the early game, then switch your workers over to be completely automated later on. They'll improve (mostly) intelligently, clean up pollution, and so on! The city governors' building choices are somewhat dubious, but highly customizable--and they'll keep your population happy if you want them to, meaning that you don't have to micromanage your cities in times of war. (You can tell "war weariness" by drops in productivity or starvation in a city.)

* Rule changes, part one: Some rules have been hotly debated, but there are some that are undoubtedly better. You actually have a national border now! Enemy civs have to respect it or declare war. No more positioning their forces where they can easily attack before wiping you out. No city-based troops. Before it was impossible to defend your border because troops outside your city would cause unhappiness. Now war weariness is based on the length of the war and whether you're the aggressor and so on. (This does make war more manageable, and possibly more frequent.)

* Rule changes, part two: Most abuses gone. All computer games have weak spots in the rules that can be abused by players to make the game easier. Civ 3 has the fewest of any Civ game to date. This means you actually have to think about what strategy is best based on the current map (and your civ, if playing with civ-specific abilities).

* Rule changes, part three: Variety. How you play the game and how you win it is largely a matter of style. There are military, cultural and political victories. You can pick a partiuclar civilization that favors your playing style, or you can go random, and change your playing style according to the civilization. Civ-specific military units (like the Egyptian's War Chariot and the German's Panzer) can have a distinct and entertaining effect on play.

* Clever AI: Yes, the AI cheats at the higher levels, so it's not that clever. But it's among the best I've seen.

Because so many of the old abuses were eliminated, older players find themselves having trouble adapting their playing styles to the new game. For example, I used to occasionally play the isolationist game in the older Civs. You could hide from the world, go all out on science, and win simply because the rest of the world was embroiled in conflict. If you're an isolationist in Civ 3, you'll lose, because besides conflicts, the other Civs are going to be trading technology aggressively.

There's an odd thing about the game because of that: At higher levels, it becomes much easier to win the game faster. On the lower levels, the AI won't research tech very aggressively and you'll have to work hard to just generate enough tech on your own (somewhat like playing an isolationist game). As the difficulty turns up, competing civs are more and more likely to have some tech you want, thereby saving you the trouble of researching it. (Some people play without research at all, simply trading for techs.)

Interaction is critical. It's also enjoyable. If someone declares war on you, and you've played your political cards right, you can wipe them out simply by getting all their neighbors on your side. The depths and subtleties here are fantastic, even with the still crude diplomacy screens.

There are problems, of course. The diplomacy screens allow a maximum of eight nations, meaning you have to jump through hoops to see the other eight if you're playing with sixteen civs. War can still be extremely tedious shuffling so many troops around, although there seems to be a real effort to make it easier at Firaxis, both with the patches and Play The World expansion. It can be difficult to figure out when you're about to commit a diplomatic snafu until it's too late and the world hates you.

Despite this, this is easily, hands down, no question, the absolute best Civ game ever. And that's saying something.

A Civilized Remake

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: December 05, 2001
Author: Amazon User

When it comes to entertainment, I'm a blood-and-guts kind of guy-and video games are no exception. But the first game in my alphabetized library is not *Half-Life* or *Max Payne*. Since I enjoy epic games as much as shooters, I bought and played *Civilization III*, the latest in Sid Meier's brilliant world-strategy series. Not exactly a sequel, I find *Civilization III* a polished and streamlined remake of its predecessor.

What do I mean by remake? Well first let's take a look at the series. The original *Civilization* put the player at the head of a human pre-civilization. His or her job was to lead the people into recorded history, across 6,000 years to the present. The player could choose governments, build a war machine, control emigration, and develop science. Back in my day, *Civilization II* ruled the roost of intellectual strategy games (mainly because my computer could run it). But it also expanded greatly upon the original game, by increasing the types of units and concepts, by improving the existing units and concepts, and by adding various editor programs and expansions. After *Civ II* Activision developed a separate series-*Call to Power*. *CtP* added an entire future age; complete with a story and timeline. In other words, *Civ II* and *CtP* came that much closer to being epic and diverse.

*Civilization III* does not step forward; it runs in place and shows off its muscles. And I have to admit; this game looks and plays pretty good. *Civ III* initially loads a bit slowly on my 1.05 Ghz and my 256MB. In-game reloading is quick and animation is generally smooth. The graphics easily surpass the previous titles, and includes unit animation as in the *Call to Power* offshoot. Looking at the map window is like looking at a real satellite image, and the terrain tiles blend together. I can't complain about the interface; the multiple menus of *Civ II* have folded into a single screen here. Handy buttons allow all unit commands to be quickly and easily issued by point-and-click (only the appropriate buttons will appear for each individual unit). I can complain that even on my gaming platform *Civ III* crashed several times, particularly when I was using catapults to bombard a rival city.

The programmers at Firaxis don't bombard the player with features either. The watchword around the office must have been "slim and sexy." Homogenizing the menus and adding a unit orders panel seems to have led to a complete revamp of the previous SOP. Trade no longer depends on special units; instead it is handled through the diplomacy screen. Diplomacy is accessed directly from buttons on the main map screen. Speaking of diplomacy, embassies and spies are also handled by buttons instead of units. Military units also no longer consume resources from individual cities; instead they simply cost gold from the national treasury. By the way, the player must now take extra caution when choosing city locations-terraforming doesn't exist in *Civ III*. Finally, the numbers of civilizations, government types, and victory time limits have been reduced.

All the reductions and subtractions do not allow this game to step forward, at least when compared to the considerably longer and more developed *Call to Power*. But Firaxis doesn't let Civ *III* step back either. Many important additions make *Civilization III* relatively dynamic, and the most important to me is the concept of Culture. Previous games lacked political boundaries, which meant the player's civilization was always a collection of city-states. Any rival civilization could walk right in and start planting its own cities. In *Civ III* your cities still claim personal resource squares, but they also generate a Culture influence. Each city's culture grows if the right improvements are built. The areas of influence not only overlap to claim an entire mass of land and sea, but neighboring cities may defect if their own culture is too weak to resist. Along with the concept of Culture is the concept of Strategic Resources, which are needed to build certain units and improvements. Civilizations will automatically collect any resources falling within the culture boundary, provided said resource is connected by road or rail.

It may seem to the reader by now that *Civilization III* is more realistic than its ancestors. Many of the changes and eliminations have been balanced out by concepts such as Culture and Strategic Resources. The manual explains most of the revisions and additions.

And yet the world of *Civilization II* remains. From the graphics to the game play, *Civilization II* is polished and revised to make this current incarnation. I was a bit disappointed at first, when I realized that so many concepts and units were cut back. But once I realized *Civ III's* place as a classic remake, I relaxed and just played the game. For a shoot-`em-up guy like me, that's pretty civil.

Some nice automation, but game made overly complex

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: November 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

There seem to be two ways to review this -- as a player of Civilization 2 and as a new player to the Civilization line. Having gotten hooked on the original Civilization, then later on Civ 2, this review is from that perspective.

One major improvement over its predecessor is the notion of queueing, specifically scientific research and building things. This was a feature that first appeared in Alpha Centauri (aka "Civilization on another planet"), and helps take some of the rote functionality out of each turn. For city improvements, this is somewhat impeded by continuous confirmations of each new item. I'd love a way to turn that off, at least until the queue of items is gone. There's a "governor" mode, but it wasn't really obvious how to get it to do what I wanted. For example, I'd love to set up a profile whereby a city could produce a set of key infrastructure items -- a granary, barracks, temple, marketplace, library -- before requiring interaction.

Diplomacy is improved, although the computer plays a little too well, probably to a different set of rules. A nice map editor is included that allows you to alter some of the basic chemistry to make the game more enjoyable.

In previous versions, a Settler could colonize or perform improvements. Civ 3 removes the improvement functionality, which seriously changes the dynamics of the game in a bad way. Although it's mitigated by the automation, having to balance the number of settlers to workers distracts from the fun. Eventually one ends up with a bunch of pieces running around doing who knows what.

A final detriment is the copy protection, requiring the original CD. Although laptop unfriendly, this would be tolerable if it didn't rely on embedded errors. Specifically, occasionally the game won't play and I have to pop the CD out and back in or power-cycle my machine. It's unfortunate there's no "lite" mode whereby one can play without subjecting the original CD to the perils of airport security.

Great strategy game for most (but not all)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 16
Date: December 15, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Civilization 3 is the long-awaited followup to Civ 2, the fantastically successful empire-building simulation. As a result, there were bound to be lots of people disappointed, because you can't please everyone. For most people, however, Civ 3 is an excellent game and one that will definitely give you a lot of entertainment for your money.

If you've never played Civ 2, you're in a good position to jump into Civilization 3. Players of Civ 2 will have more to adjust to, such as a revamped combat system (which some say is woefully unbalanced with spear carriers occasionally defeating tanks) and expanded diplomacy/trade options. Civ 3 seems to more about land masses and continents instead of a "nation" comprised of a bunch of random cities. Also, a new culture model lets you personalize your civilization while also using culture to form your national border. These might seem like subtle changes, but I think most people will agree that they eventually lead to a drastically different and more satisfying game experience.

So should you buy Civ 3? There are a few downsides that might not make it a perfect choice for everyone. For example, if you're looking for top-notch 3D graphics, you'll be disappointed, but nevertheless this is still easily Sid Meier's best-looking game ever. The animations are particularly good, but a vocal minority seem to miss the video clips that populated Civ 2. There are also some bugs in the initial version of the game, but what game doesn't have bugs upon initial release these days? Perhaps the biggest omission of all: no multiplayer support. THAT is a big surprise and it is the reason I can't give this game a five-star review. Going into 2002, it's just unacceptable for developers to leave out multiplayer support. Still, the positives easily outweigh the negatives. The game has an epic feel that most games never come close to achieving. The user interface isn't completely mouse-driven, but it's still excellent and incorporates good features (such as city queues to help you plan ahead) from Alpha Centauri, its predecessor. The new civilizations are much improved, and each one has unique units for further variation. Bottom line: this is very fun strategy game with a LOT of replay value, but if you buy it early, remember to expect a few bugs. A patch will be released for download sooner or later to tidy up the loose ends. It's just part of the territory with PC games these days.

It might not be perfect, but it's real Civ!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: April 13, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Some will criticise Civ III for not being a radical departure from Civ II. But I don't know how fair this is. Civ is a winning formula, and I am happy to see it built on once more.

The problems I will mention have frustrated my enjoyment to some degree, but it is still an addictive game. I am tempted to give the game three stars for the lack of multiplayer. Most games players these days expect online gaming as standard, and I was very disappointed to see Civ shipped without it. However, the makers have made the game very customisable (editing of rules and maps is allowed) so I expect to see some good fan made scenarios in the future.

An (incomplete) overview of the big differences from the predecessors:

Culture and nationality: Each Civilization has specific abilities (example: the Egyptians are industrious, meaning they build faster, and religious, meaning they build religious buildings especially fast, and have no anarchy between governments. Other Civs have different special abilities). Unlike Civ II, you now have national borders (so no more pesky AI players dumping cities in your midst). Strong culture expands your borders, sometimes at the expense of weaker cultures. Your people also have culture; they know which nation they belong to. You can improve your culture by building certain city improvements and wonders of the world. If one of your cities is captured, the inhabitants already in the city retain their national identity. If your culture is strong and that of the conquerors is weak, your people may actually overturn enemy rule and revert to your control! A strong military presence can prevent reversion, but the spectre of governing cities full of unhappy foreigners is a deterrent to war (something that Civ really needed). Strong culture can also cause cities from other Civs to defect peacefully to your control. Lastly, an impressive culture will improve the demeanour of other leaders and will make them easier to deal with.

Resources: You now need to have access to various resources (by ownership or trade) in order to build certain things. For example, without iron you can't build knights, and without coal you can't build railroads. Luxury resources (such as gems) make your people happy, and can also be traded. The presence of resources makes the game much more interesting.

Combat: Combat is probably the area that generates most controversy in Civ, and I'm afraid Civ3 is no exception.

Air units can't move as such, you just base them in a city, and they have an operational range of x squares. They do their missions and if they are not shot down, they return to base automatically. To someone who has lost a lot of planes by accidentally leaving them floating around in the air, this is a big improvement. But you have to manually assign them to their missions for every single turn. It would be nice to put them on air defense until further notice.

It's good for combat to be slightly unpredictable, because it makes war risky (another much needed disincentive to war) but it's a little too unpredictable in this game. I've lost modern infantry units to Bronze Age spearmen and seen submarines sunk by transport ships.

War discontent seems to be solely dependent on culture and government. Foreign nationals in your city will always be upset at war with their motherland. People in a republic or democracy will not tolerate war at all well, which is fine, but they pay no regard to how the war started or how competently you marshal your forces. In Civ3, settlers and workers (guys who build roads etc) are drawn from your city population, so you have a strong incentive to look after them. But military forces are merely manufactured goods, and nobody mourns their loss. This can make fighting very difficult, because both you and your enemies can have unlimited tolerance of attrition. A common AI tactic is to send hordes of obsolete units to certain death, just to wear down your defenders, and then send the proper units in.

Another major problem is that you cannot use roads and rail in enemy territory. Rail is fair enough, because your enemies aren't going to drive trains for you, and to give you unlimited free traversal of their territory would be silly. But why should the road quit working? My armoured counter-offensive against the Babylonians came to an abrupt end when I found that my tanks could only move two squares at a time in enemy territory (while their defending forces had the unlimited movement afforded by rail). The no roads restriction makes any tactical offensive action very difficult. Defenders don't have to bother about defending or sabotaging transport links, and attackers are reduced to a crude, massed frontal offensive, creeping forward and winning by attrition.

Zones of control (where you were prevented from passing close to enemy units) have gone. You can now pass by enemy units, but some units get to take a free shot at you. Another infuriating feature is that this only applies to passing units, and not approaching units. So you can pass between two fortresses adjoining a city attack the city with impunity (you would have to move one square further along before the zone of control would come into play). One good thing about this scheme is that an ancient unit can't block a tank from passing by (don't worry, they don't get free attacks either).

The user interface is generally good (more subtle, less popup windows), but there are a couple of big problems: there is no facility for you to group your units so that they move with one command (so you have to move units one by one).

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