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Civ 3 is so great it brings new meaning to life

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 15
Date: August 07, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Dont listen to the naysayers. Much of what they complain about is simply not true. The AI is superb and rarely (if at all) cheats. It is simply the best Ive ever seen, and Ive played every game in the Civ series, Alpha Centauri, Europa Universalis, Master of Orion I/II, just to name a few. It has been shown time and time again that wherever the AI is accused of cheating, it in fact is not. The 6 difficulty levels will ensure you always have a challenging game. There is awesome fan support for this game, and with Play The World coming out, Id say its all worth it.

Its important to keep in mind that this game was not developed by Brian Reynolds, the developer of Alpha Centauri, Civ II and Colonization, it is a Sid-game through and through. It has a Civ I feel to it, but thats not to say its unsophiticated, just different. The fans of Civ II / Alpha Centari might not like it as much.

The primary example, for better or worse, is the combat system. The combat system is reminiscent of Civ I. There are no longer Hit points and Fire power. So yes, the tank will lose to the phalanx one in a few hundred times. There are "HP" of a sort though. Experience ranging from conscript up to elite determines hit points. Conscripts have 2, regulars 3, veterans 4, elite 5. Now in another review someone complained about the AI cheating at combat. This is simply not true and has been proven false so many times. What IS frustrating is teh occasional phalanx beat tank phenomena.

Adding "Culture" adds another dimension to the game. Building cultural improvements will not only possibly allow a cultural conquest of a neighboring city, but can sure up against invasion. Resistance to an invading army is determined by the amount of culture in taht city. So taking and holding the enemy capital can be very difficult. This however has a downside. If you lose the enemy city this way you lose all your units in that city. That can be frustrating. However resistance decreases with the amount of troops stationed in the city, so you simply must quell the resistance and then start building your own cultural improvements to lay the seeds of your own culture.

Those are just a minute handful of the improvements of civ 3. The biggest thing Civ 3 has going for it is the fact that the designers are always in contact with the fan community. Many times are there informal, impromptu chats at one of the many fan sites. The game is continually being improved upon. Hopefully if sales do well it will return with a few more expansion packs and rival Civ 2's greatness.

Sid Meier tries hard to imitate Bill Gates...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 18 / 32
Date: December 26, 2001
Author: Amazon User

By putting out software (just in time for the holidays as others have noted) that should have never been released in such a buggy state. Crashed on all three of my machines (one a brand new Dell) within the first minute of starting a game. I am giving up for the moment and calling it a night.

Also I just noticed that they have redone the civ I was trying to play (Persians) completely from what it is in the rulebook. Who knows what other "enhancements" I will learn about tomorrow. Rushing unfinished games to market should be a federal crime. It always pisses me off that 8-year-olds playing video games on the TV get such stable code while we... Oh forget it.

Civ3

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: March 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Civ3 has raised the bar on the Civ line-up of games. For those that have played Civ2 or the original, I believe that Civ3 has made the game interface and game (city/troop) management easy to handle without changing the core concepts of Civ. While I have met some people who are still "holding on" to the "old way" of doing things in Civ2, all of those that I have met who have been willing to move on and give Civ3 a try for a while have found the game to be more enjoyable for the time required to put into a game.

Still for Civ2 players: Civ3 moves faster than Civ2. This is not because it is an easier game to play or that the strategies are simpler, it is because of the improved interface and management system. Also, in Civ2, no matter what difficulty I was playing on, I found that taking out all my enemies by power was the only practical way to win. I only participated in the Space Race once - and only to see what it was like. In Civ3, I believe it has become more complicated to wage a world domination war (which is a good thing, especially for those of us that enjoy militaristic conquest).

For those of you new to Civ games, Civ3 is similar to many of the RTS (real-time strategy) games on the market like Age of Empires, but the game moves in turns instead. In my experiences, Civ3 is a game for the more military minded strategist, and RTS games tend to be more for the fast paced strategist.

Civ3 features the top of the genre quality and quantity. It has great replay value for a strategy game and provides the ability to add-in and design Mods. For those of you who enjoy a strategy game that may last on average anywhere from 2 hours (on a tiny map) to 30 hours (on a huge map), you'll only discover that the longer the game, the more intense the action.

For those who buy this game, don't even consider purchasing the "Play the World" add-on. Instead, go straight for the "Conquest" add-on (which includes the first add-on as well).

Best game ever, but still much room for improvement...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: February 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

It's not often that I take interest in a computer game. I hate learning how to play a game, and have little time to spend on one. Yet Civilization has always been my prime exemption to this rule.

I first encountered Civilization I back in 1992, and fondly recall being confused about how to play it ("You need one of those 'mouse' things to play it"). It struck me as unusual because you didn't run around killing things or avoiding being killed by things. You made stuff (you could choose what you made!), you chose how you wanted to win the game (if at all), and you never knew what the enemy would do next. The possibilities for this game were endless (or so they seemed), and so Civ never stopped being fun to replay.

With Civ II (1997) and now Civ III (I hear IV is on the way), the possibilities have increased a thousand fold. Civilization is supposed to be a relatively accurate simulation of actual tribal development across history, from wandering nomadic tribes to modern day global empires. What began as a ground-breaking, but severely limited representation of only the most basic militaristic and scientific componants of history has since expanded to represent diplomacy and resource acquisition (with relative accuracy) and now, in III, it even includes some aspect of cultural influence (though this requires more fleshing out in later versions).

However, as fantasticly fun as Civ has always been, it still seems miles away from an accurate simulation. I get the sense that Sid Meier (the game's designer) approached this project with a sincere desire to relive history, exploring the past, as well as alternate presents with the click of a mouse. But, though the game has grown exceptionally more complex with each new version, the vision, itself, still feels rather limited.

For example, it amazes me that, thirteen years and two major overhauls later, we still see science, production, economics, and expansion dictated entirely by the central government. Name the last scientific breakthrough that was ordered by the United States Government. We fund SOME research, and conduct some of our own military research, but it was (first) individuals and (later) corporations that conducted this research, and that research was dictated largely by self-interest; something the government has no control over (even when funding). Economics and production are similarly controlled by private corporations. Even our military production is outsourced in a modern free-enterprise society. Finally, settling and expansion, while sometimes planned by a central government, often happen on their own (particularly in a democratic society).

Essentially, I think CIV needs to start incorporating some complex AIs to control the forces within a society that a government cannot. Much of the direct control CIV gives its players is fitting only for a Despotism, Monarchy, or Fascist Regime. Sure, a government can still persuade these forces, but that's a far more intricate and (I believe) more fun process. Setting interstate policies, offering economic incentives, conducting multi-national trade agreements, and raising and lowering interest rates are all weapons in a central government's arsenol. I'd like to see CIV begin to realize this and work toward representing it in future editions.

Civ is still the best game in the universe (one of the only few I consider worth playing, and certainly the only one I'm still not tired of after thirteen years), but it has so much unrealized potential. Here's to the next incarnation, then...

Review from an Age of Empires (1 and 2) veteran

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: November 07, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Having played Age of Empires and thoroughly enjoying it, I thought I'd give Civ 3 a try after hearing so many rave reviews. My overall rating is that this game is really brilliant but for someone raised on AoE, there are a few drawbacks.
This game is at least 10 times more complex, and the scope seems overwhelming at first.
Second, the turn based play takes some getting used to, as in AoE, we could move our units in real-time.
Third, the tutorial is very poor, and even the extremely fat instruction manual doesn't describe things properly. I am still trying to figure out where certain features are located.
That being said, this game is so much cooler than Age of empires, as military victory is not the only way to win. There are many other kinds of victories, and many other paths to pursue. My all time favourite was using culture to achieve victory, although the fact that this games spans so many ages, means that nuking someone is possible (and strangely enjoyable too).

Finally, the one thing that annoyed me about this game is that at least as far as the Indian civiliation goes, the buildings don't look Indian at all, and the background for Indians is definitely oriental. Other than that one falw, this game was great in terms of graphics, performance, and overall feel. I have a 700 P3 with 256MB and WinME, and there zero issues with my computer.

A few specifics

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: November 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

A brief history is in order. I enjoyed Civ, I really enjoyed Civ2 (and test of time), hated A Call to Power and Alpha Centauri (oh the blasphemy I know).

So how does Civ3 fit in? I like it. I like it a lot. Enough to dethrone Civ2 as my favorite all time "strategy game"? I haven't had it long enough to make that time of determination. Games of this nature don't leap out and "grab" out, it takes time.

Most of the other reviews have dwelled upon the graphics (much improved), the interface (different, no better no worse in my mind), and some of the other "features". Rather than rehash what they've already said I'm going to touch upon specifics about the game and how they affected my style of play vs. Civ2. Note, these refer to the game being played at King level.

1) Settlers - These guys now cost two "population" points to build, and no longer "improve terrain". Terrain improvements are handled by "workers" that cost one population point to build.

2) Irrigation - Until you discover electricity you cannot use sea's to irrigate. You have to have access to a fresh water lake or river.

3) Building Wonders - When one city starts building a wonder, another city cannot start work on that wonder as well. When a wonder you are working on is built by another nation, your city automatically switches to another improvement. (so no storing shields). You cannot "hurry" a wonder unless you sacrifice a leader. Leaders are units that rise from elite units during victorious combat. Can be used to create armies (group three or four units) or used to hurry city improvements. Very hard to get.

4) No Captured Tech's - When you capture an enemy city, you no longer get one tech they have that you don't. Also Darwin's Voyage (Theory of Evolution) no longer grants you your choice of two techs, it gives you two techs at random from the list of choices available to you.

5) Governments - No more Senates! Yeah, but cities go into disorder often in Republics and Democracies when you are at war. The longer the war (and the more you are losing it) the unhappier the cities become. You can literally starve a city to death trying to keep them happy. No more Fundamentalism.

6) Trade routes - No more trade routes between cities, rather you trade resources and luxuries between nations. This means you cannot increase the amount of "commerce" of a city. Also no more food trade routes.

7) Air units - Are "stationed" at a city (or aircraft carrier) and no longer move like other units. They can "bomb" squares with in their range.

8) AI Wars - The various computer opponents do hold to their treaties with you...at least as much as you hold to them. They will also fight and destroy each other, if you can convince them too.

9) Borders and culture - Borders are clearly defined in Civ3, and are determined by your city culture (certain city improvements lead to an increase in culture). If a resource is not within your borders you cannot use it, even if it would be with in the boundaries of your city. In addition you must have a road/railroad passing through a resource to be able to get the benefit of it.

10) Resources - Some units and improvements require certain resources before you can produce them. Not all of these resources are visible at the start of the game. They become visible after you make the discovery that allows you to "see" them. If you don't have a key resource, such as "Iron", "Horses", "Saltpeter", or "Oil" within your borders and you cannot trade with another nation for them, you are screwed. Or you go to war.

Those are the top ten things that have impacted my play over Civ2.

Now some things that didn't change.

You can still expect to see a spearman (the Civ3 version of the Phalanx) take out a tank and you will see your own mechanized infantry get destroyed by an archer.
When you are "Number 1" no one is friendly to you.
The AI always knows where your troops are.
AI's will go from being at war with each other to being the best of friends the second you attack one of them (as long as you aren't allied with one of them anyway).

A word about War.
It has been said that one of the goals for Civ3 was to make it less combat orientated. If that was a real goal, the developers failed at it. In Civ2 my civilization went through three passes. Expansion, Tech, and Conquer. In Civ3 I'm in combat almost from the start to finish, either for resources, tribute, or "lebensraum". It really seems like you have no choice.

Evil

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: August 31, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I've come to a conclusion. All the civilization games are evil. Seriously. If you have hours and hours of your life to waste and don't mind being glued to your keyboard, then by all means purchase civ3. Otherwise, stay away. Perhaps not quite as addictive as civ2, the third version of the civ games is still a worthy successor.

A little Surprising

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: November 25, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I must confess to being a little surprised by this game. Firaxis has typically produced quite good games in the past, and Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire remains one of the best games of all time in my books.

However, Civ III surprised me in that it offered little, if anything, new in this genre, except slightly better graphics. This is not necessarily a bad thing. However, the rest of the game is so poorly thrown together as to render it almost unplayable.

Using Windows XP, the operating system bluescreens playing this game about once every twenty turns. The game crashes without taking down the OS at a similar rate, and the memory consumption (in the neighbourhood of 150+MB by 1700) is astronomical. Fortunately/sadly enough, I can typically run the game in the debugger and just step over the assembly instructions that cause the crashes. Much of this is issues with XP (crashes are almost always in sound driver code), as well as DirectX 8.0, but it's still pretty bad.

Speed is also pretty awful. Even sitting there with my hand on the SHIFT key to speed up unit movement animation, the game regularly pauses with (Please Wait ...) and loads take forever. On a 1GHz system, that's sub-optimal.

The inability to group units means turns take a remarkable amount of time as the game goes along, especially as i spend 90% of my time cleaning up pollution by 1875. The inability to curb corruption to any reasonable degree is frustrating, as is the AI that has other empires touchy as heck, but expecting you to be fully tolerant of their units in your space.

This is the first game in this family in quite some time to not have little movie clips for the wonders of the world, which, quite honestly, I enjoy immensely, even after seeing them a hundred times.

On the plus side, graphics are slighly better in this game, and the trade system continues to improve. The increase in choice in the number of empires you can play against is quite nice.

If you are a Civ fan and ABSOLUTELY must play the latest and greatest versions of this, then you might want to give this game a go. Otherwise, go buy Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire, and have some fun.

Extremely irritating

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: December 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Why are Ironclads sinking my battleships and Knights taking out my tanks??? Have the game designers never opened a history book or something? This game is slow and extremely, painfully tedious, especially toward the end when you have to control upwards of 30 or 40 units, one at a time. It has a few interesting add ons, like mobilizing your civilization for war and strategic resources, but I just can't deal with my marines being slaughtered by muskets! Civ III is a huge step back from Alpha Centuri, where they specifically addressed and solved this BS. I highly recommend getting Alpha Centuri over this game.

So far, so good!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 12
Date: November 28, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I was up until 12:30 this morning playing this game. As I said, so far, so good!

That "gamer" guy doesn't know what he's talking about. He's obviously too in love with Call to Power (which I didn't like) to make an objective analysis.

You can zoom in and out with no problems. Check your progress by hitting F8 (as I remember). You can toggle off grids from the Preferences menu.

I do, however, agree with the calls of "bad Manager" on this game. I have Alpha Centauri (another Sid Meyer game) and the Manager there gives you a queue of 8 or 10 items. Why couldn't Sid use the Alpha Centauri manager? It works!

I'm also not a big fan of the endgame. If you don't win, you lose! I came in second (my Greeks behind the English), among seven civilizations (my favorite way to play Civ I and II) and the graphic showed me all bandaged and losing.

Those are my only two gripes. Learning that Wonders do different things than they used to is a fun challenge! The game is incredibly addicting and the "worker" units are a welcome change. Two hints: Build libraries and universities quickly and discover Republic (then Democracy) fast. That's the only way you'll get to Alpha Centauri before the game times out at A.D. 2050.

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