User Reviews (1 - 11 of 369)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Civilization III disappointment

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 17, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Civilization III has been getting a large number of negative reviews on amazon, which is understandable but in many ways unwarranted. I will admit that when I started playing civilization III I was disappointed. My heart sank. I had looked forward to the release of the game for months. When I heard they were developing civilization III I could not believe it. It was like my favorite band had reformed to make another album as good as their first. But after I opened the box and started my first game, as the turns progressed I was thinking, "this is not right' this is not fun' my god, they blew it on civilization III."

The reason I didn't like the game was I didn't understand it. I went in playing civilization II and it wasn't working. It seems like most of the negative reviews are in the spirit of 'this is not as good as civilization II." As I played through more and more games I began to realize the game is more complicated than it would seem to a civilization II veteran. I am sure as many of the reviewers play the game more, they will recant their initial negative reviews.

I like the culture rating. I love that our civilizations now have borders. That was terribly annoying in civ II. You would be in your city peacefully building your university and cranking up your science production as enemy forces surrounded your cities across your nation. Now they cannot sit right outside your city during peacetime and randomly declare war when they are all in position. When they enter your cultural border, you can demand that they leave or declare war, giving you some a turn or two while they march across your border and towards the city they intend to attack.

I like the resources. You don't know if you have iron in your nation until you discover iron working. You don't know if you have the rubber needed to make infantry until you discover replaceable parts. This is very cool and very realistic. My last game I had a great civilization' until I realized I had no aluminum, rubber, or coal and a few hundred years later my civilization was reduced to ash as my riflemen were rolled over by the modern armor of the once minor civilization of the Romans. Where is the oil in the real world? Much of it is in nations where if they did not have it would be the poorest on earth, instead they are the richest with modern military hardware built by the US. This is one of the finest aspects of the new game.

The computer AI is 1000% better in civilization III. I think this is a major factor in many player negative perception of the game. You cannot play on deity or king anymore. Start on the second level and work to the third level. The AI is that good. I am sure I will work my way up to the higher levels but the computer players are far smarter in this game. You cannot expect the enemy troops to attack cities with one unit at a time with no prayer of ever taking you over. They will take your workers, they will pillage your land, and then they will attack your least defended city with every unit in their military and reduce it to rubble, pyramids and all. That makes for great game play. Sure, beating civ II on deity every game was a great ego boost, but I would rather take a good beating from a well designed game any day.

The more I play civilization III the more I enjoy it. Give it a chance, you won't regret it.

Barbarians

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

So I'm sitting at dinner with a bunch of academic economists (by luck I'm one myself). The talk turns to the factors that influence the survival of civilizations and cultures. One of the consensus rules is to avoid barbarian hoards. And what gives rise to this logic, as deduced by the members of the dinner group? Experience playing Civilization. What a great game. I only hope that the next version can match up to the others.

mediocre

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: April 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I feel kinda let down by this game. Yeah, it has some ok graphics (would kinda have to, considering its the 21st century!) but its really the least fun of any of the civilizations, for me at least. I highly reccomend "alpha centauri". Its better in every way, imo.

Turn basing at it's finest

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: June 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

i didn't get civ I or civ II, i just got this as a christmas gift (i played with it for 3 months before i even touched my other presents) it's now been 2 years, and i still play it. one user friendly feature is that it's turn based, a handy feature for those still new to the computer stratagey game platform ( and veterans for that matter). highly addictive. ... my real rating is 4 and half (amazon doesn't allow halves), the lack of the half star is only because there's no underhand negotiations, or co-heasive battle plans (i.e. you can't say to the french: 'let's sneak up on moscow and attack it!') among other small problems, but please, if you have [$] you can afford buy this game!

A Worty Successor in a Great Series

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 08, 2001
Author: Amazon User

As a long time player of Civ2, I have been waiting with bated breath for the release of Sid Meier's latest opus. After spending almost every free moment of the last week playing the game, I've concluded that the game is good, if not quite great. Some comments:

Generally, gameplay has been improved by the vastly improved diplomacy, the better abstraction of trade, a better, and more complex view of resources, better differentiation between the civilizations, and some improvement in the way the tech tree works.

The graphics and sound, though maybe not quite up to the level of your favorite first-person shooter, are much improved.

The game (at least after only a week) seems much more difficult to master - I've had to set the difficulty factor two levels below where I played on CivII in order to win CivIII.

The game runs relatively slowly. This seems to be especially dependent on the size of map you choose. I like playing on the largest size map possible, but the game was almost unplayable with this setting on my 550Mhz PII.

The city management screen, though improved over CivII with the addition of a build queue and better control over the city manager, still leaves something to be desired - I generally found the interface in Call to Power II to be better. I still can't convince the city managers to build what I want, and so have to carefully watch each city to make sure that it's building what it should.

When cities finish building things, you may not be informed (if it was building a unit) and the city will start building something new. Similarly, you have to keep alert during the start of your turn to see where pollution has occurred, otherwise you may not notice it.

No network play - not something that I personally care that much about, but seems odd that a new game is missing it.

All in all, I'm not quite sure that I'll be as addicted to this as I've been to CivII - I suspect that it may end up like Alpha Centauri - I play it every once and a while, and then go back to CivII!

can be addicting

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: August 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

but it sure is hard. on the easiest setting, you'll more then likely spend the majority of the time at war with 7+ other societies who have an alliance against you. and if you want to keep up scientifically, you won't have any gold until you run out of achievements to learn.

A Worty Successor in a Great Series

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 08, 2001
Author: Amazon User

As a long time player of Civ2, I have been waiting with bated breath for the release of Sid Meier's latest opus. After spending almost every free moment of the last week playing the game, I've concluded that the game is good, if not quite great. Some comments:

Generally, gameplay has been improved by the vastly improved diplomacy, the better abstraction of trade, a better, and more complex view of resources, better differentiation between the civilizations, and some improvement in the way the tech tree works.

The graphics and sound, though maybe not quite up to the level of your favorite first-person shooter, are much improved.

The game (at least after only a week) seems much more difficult to master - I've had to set the difficulty factor two levels below where I played on CivII in order to win CivIII.

The game runs relatively slowly. This seems to be especially dependent on the size of map you choose. I like playing on the largest size map possible, but the game was almost unplayable with this setting on my 550Mhz PII.

The city management screen, though improved over CivII with the addition of a build queue and better control over the city manager, still leaves something to be desired - I generally found the interface in Call to Power II to be better. I still can't convince the city managers to build what I want, and so have to carefully watch each city to make sure that it's building what it should.

When cities finish building things, you may not be informed (if it was building a unit) and the city will start building something new. Similarly, you have to keep alert during the start of your turn to see where pollution has occurred, otherwise you may not notice it.

No network play - not something that I personally care that much about, but seems odd that a new game is missing it.

All in all, I'm not quite sure that I'll be as addicted to this as I've been to CivII - I suspect that it may end up like Alpha Centauri - I play it every once and a while, and then go back to CivII!

Is Civ 3 a worthy successor?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 09, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Well, I never rush out and buy a game the moment it is put on the shelves, but my attachment to the Civilization series was enough to motivate me to go buy this one. I'm still on my first game (so it would be misleading of me to try to comment on everything), though I've been playing for hours, and I wanted to write in and join the debate.

First, let me just say that the game (on my 650 mghz machine) runs as smoothly as a dream. Yes, occasionally, one has to wait for it to process something, but there have been (so far) absolutely no glitches or bugs.

As the interface goes, so goes the game. The interface here is decidedly elegant and is a vast improvement over C2, which could become most unwieldy late in the game when one had stacks of units in a given location. Here everything is pared down and spartan and facilitates game play wonderfully (I'm amazed at those reviewers who see "dizzying complexity" as a positive attribute of an interface--as if being baffled by the array of menu options is what a menu is supposed to do!).

The real problem, however, is whether the slight alterations in mechanics and the revision of the graphics really mean that this a new game. The tech tree is similar; the units have undergone some (much needed) revision but are pretty familiar to C2 players; the city mechanics are similar. "Why mess with a good thing?" appears to have been the motto of the designers Astonishingly, however, there has been no effort to bring the game into the next century. A 21st century sci-fi aspect would have been interesting even if it only took the game into the near-future. I will even question whether the animation adds anything to the game--it is just eye candy, of course. And the refusal of C2 to knuckle before the oxymoron of "real-time strategy" is part of why I love it. Static token-like pieces are fine with me. And where, I wonder, is the delightful units editor we saw in SMAC? Elegance, at times, means a woeful lack of complexity in C3--I'm not even sure that the trade system is an improvement over C2's stupid caravan system (I'm going to have to play more to come to a conclusion on that).

And yet there are many, many small positive changes that C2 players will notice and will find enhance the game. Artillery can now bombard like in SMAC; players conquering small cities (as in 1 citizen) no longer destroy them, but have the option to raze them; units do not attack until death, but instead withdraw. Apparently, there will no more battleships being sunk by that partisan on a mountaintop! I could provide many more such examples. These changes are trivial, but they do matter. They improve the game without altering it in substantial ways. This appears to have been the modus operandi of the designers.

My final verdict? Well, if you love C2 and if you've recently put it back on your hard drive for a nostalgic game at the Deity level, then I'd buy C3. It's basically the same game, if slightly improved. C3 doesn't seem to me to be the next generation of turn-based strategy; that does not, however, prevent it from being an improvement over one of the best such games of all time (which should say plenty). It is a refinement of C2, and not an expansion of what the genre is capable of. In fact, I would agree with those who see in SMAC the best attempt so far to extend the boundaries of the genre--C3 evidently retreats from the complexity of SMAC and instead settles for a high degree of playability and a gentle learning curve.

It's a worthy game. The tone of disappointment one senses in some of these reviews is the result of an audience who is very demanding, who has grown accustomed to an excellent product, and who dreams of the ultimate strategy game. C3 isn't quite there--the vision just isn't bold enough or new enough. Nevertheless, it's still fun to play and even worth its (hefty) price tag.

*** I've been playing for weeks now, and wanted to add an update. (...) I just launched my spaceship in 1802 in Regent level, so I guess it's possible . . . And there is a button to hurry production with gold. Lots of people seem to be reviewing this game with minimal play, and they seem also to be expecting everything they did in C2 to work. Even the new concept of "corruption," (...)is starting to seem to me like a very well thought out game device--it forces you to build civs that are compact and efficient and then to project power. Many of the things that people complain about (scarce resources, for instance) make strategy more interesting; a player just has to learn to work within the new concepts. It's a new game, and it should be taken on its own merits. It's not perfect--the patch will definitely help--but I am enjoying it a great deal. And patches are just part of computer gaming--the Firaxis designers are actively monitoring complaints on the Apolyton boards to eliminate errors . . .

I stand by what I said above, and I add that this is the best turn-based game since SMAC. Buy the game, download the patch (which should be out shortly--you can play it without the patch, but some elements are flawed--most irritating for me is a save game bug on the huge maps, but even that has given me renewed appreciation for play on the smaller maps), and judge for yourself. It's worth it.

A solid game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: November 15, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Being a huge rts fan and Starcraft being my all time favotite, I wasn't sure if this game would live up to all the hype. It would take one heck of a turn based strategy game to keep my interest. I played Alpha Centauri and it's upgrade and while amused I got bored of it after a while. When I got Civ 3 I started by playing the tutorial. It was real fun. I then launched into the game itself. I'm very impressed with the details of the game there is a lot to manage without being too overkill. The game overall is very engrossing and I really have to fight to turn it off to go to bed. The graphics are nice, much nicer that Alpha Centauri, and the flow of the game really keeps you involved. It took a while to learn how to pump out the modern weapons, but I finally did it. One drawback is the waiting between rounds later in the game. They show every worker's movement and every enemy's movement in your range of sight. This slows the game to a crawl. Also, when you get an upgrade for aquaduct or hospital the computer proceeds to inform you which cities need that upgrade. This is a hassle when you have thirty cities! The only other bad thing is that the battles aren't always so fair. My Panzer should be able to walk over a knight, and yet the knight can actually do a fair amount of damage; and I don't see how a frigate could ever hurt a battleship. A battleship can toast a target 20 miles away!! Nevertheless, I have enjoyed playing this game, which says a lot being one who normally stays away from turn based games.

I can't stop playing this game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: October 25, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This is hands down the most addictive game I have ever played. Even after I won for the first time, I had to play again to see if I could win in a different way.

I can't comment on the difference between this and previous versions, but I have noticed a lot of people commenting on comparisons between this and the SimCity series. I can say as a former SimCity-phile...I love both. SimCity is great for what it is, but Civ satisfies a different side of gaming, the conquest bug gets at you after a while. Imagine if SimCity let you build a military and go conquer your neighbors...that's what Civ does in a way.

Very therapeutic!

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next 

Actions