User Reviews (1 - 11 of 26)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

It's a good game, but doesn't live up to the hype

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 43 / 45
Date: November 04, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Everyone talks about what a great improvement Civ-3 is over Civ-2. Well, I've played the game almost non-stop for the last 4 days and have realized that it's pretty much the same friggin' game with just a few tweaks. A quick patch could have made Civ-2 into this same exact game, but then they wouldn't get our ($).

But the game has some good aspects to it. First of all, the graphics have gotten a huge face lift. They aren't groundbreaking visuals, but they're a welcomed upgrade. Also, the animations for the units is done just right. Certain sound effects though are a little wierd (why the hell does a riflemen sound like he's firing his gun when he's just walking?). The music isn't unbearable as with most strategy games. In fact, some of the tunes are pretty nice to listen to. The addition of culture is nice as well, your boarders can expand simply by having a high culture rating. This allows for some huge and productive cities and it also lets you conquer enemy lands peacefully (your culture can spill over into neighboring territory).

Now the gripes:

The diplomacy system was supposed to be a big improvement over Civ-2 but it feels like the same system just with new leader portraits. You can request things like access to lands, trade embargos & mutual protection acts... so that IS new. But the system is generally pointless. The CPU players will always make heavy demands, often wanting to make trades heavily in their favor and rejecting anything reasonable. If you play on the easier levels, diplomacy is useless because you will surpass the other civilizations to the point where they have nothing to offer you. And if you play the harder levels diplomacy is STILL useless because the CPU players will surpass you and not want to hear a word you have to say. I also noticed (and this is on all difficulty levels) that nations that you haven't pissed off have no problem giving you their entire treasuries. Every game I played I would contact another civilization every few turns, demand a tribute of all of their gold, and they ALWAYS just hand it over. Maybe it's a bug, but I've yet to be rejected.

On the harder levels, the game will seem more like it's cheating rather than giving you good competition. You'll notice that no matter how quickly you work on that wonder, somebody ALWAYS beats you to it (and always by like 2 friggin' turns!). The computer musters up troops by means totally unknown. In a game as America, I was at war with neighboring Aztecs and they kept sending in hordes of their special unit guys. This wouldn't have seemed strange except for the fact that they had NO gold in treasury (they kept giving it to me when I asked for it) and all of their cities were size 3 and smaller, which means SLOW production. So how in the world do the Aztecs keep raising all these troops? The world my never know.

Combat itself is also a little unbalanced. How in the world a Russian Cossack (a guy on a horse) can slay a German Panzer (a friggin' tank!) is a mystery to me. But all to often you'll see archers beating riflemen or cavalry slaying tanks. I don't care how good of a horseman you are, you're not beating a tank! Not only that, but the special units are unbalanced. Some civs, such as Aztecs and Zulus, get their special units earlier in the game. This gives military dominance to the player who wants to use these civs. But then you have civs like America and Germany who get their guys later in the game, making them the dominant force in the end. So if you wanna play the Zulu, you'll get your little super-warrior guy in the BC times, but that won't do you much good against the American F-15 or the German Panzer later on the game (although it seems as though a Cossack is quite the match!).

Anothet thing, the Civlization characteristics are useless. I saw no difference in the speed of workers with an industrious nation. As for militaristic civs... I was playing as Germany (who is militaristic & scientific). Not only was I behind in technology to non-scientific civs, but non-militaristic civs would whoop my but in battle with the same units. Meaning that if my swordsman fought an American swordsman, I'd lose the battle although Americans aren't militaristic. The only real difference you'll notice is that Religious civs never have anarchy and Scientific civs get a free advance with every new technology age. Other than that, the other characteristics offer no real edge or personality.

All in all, the game is good only because it's the same thing as before. The new additions aren't necessarily good ones (such as not being able to rush Wonders), but I guess they had to make SOMETHING different. A lot of the streamlining takes away from the game (such as getting rid of spys, now you just pay to do espinage activity) but it's still fun. Is it better than Civ-2?It really should be, but in the end it seems as though Civ-3 is just lacking that fire that Civ-2 had. It has the ingredients of a good game, but that's because it's basically just Civ-2 with an extra layer of icing on the cake.

But you'll notice that the game doesn't quite grip you and keep you playing like Civ-2 did. You won't be able to put your finger on it. You might never really understand why this game isn't addictive when it very well should be. But as you play it, you'll never be able to escape the feeling that Civilization III is just missing... something.

Not as much fun as hoped

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 14 / 17
Date: November 14, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I've been playing Civ (in one version or another) since the original came out long ago. I've been looking forward to playing Civ3, well, ever since Civ2 came out. I've been disappointed. Overall, lots of nice new features, but several items make this game unplayable. The killer flaw, to me at least, is the new role that corruption has in the game. No matter what kind of civilization you have, once your society gets big enough, and no matter what improvements you have, you will have overwhelming corruption. Playing a democracy, will all Wonders, and all city improvements, and 50% of the people in the town as entertainers, still have revolts and 98% corruption in dozens of cities. Not fun, and not realistic. I'm hoping that a patch will fix it, but considering they already have a good chunk of my money....

Better and better and better ...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 21
Date: November 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Sid Meier and his crew have done it again. I played it three-hours straight the first time I booted it up. It runs flawlessly and has enough tweeks that it is like a whole new game, but with familiar ghosts from past versions scattered here and there. I'd like to write more, but I've got to go play Civ III.

Not the masterpiece I expected

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: May 14, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have followed all the hype surrounding this title long before it was released. I have played every previous Sid Meier title to exhaustion, insatisfied if I had not mastered every trick. So, once Civ3 appeared in Amazon, I readily preordered it and set aside a week of my time for it.

Civ3 is certainly a great game. It is visually beautiful, its AI is impressing, and it is certainly a lot better that Civ2. However, I found several disadvantages:

* the immense corruption forces you to play with a max of 12 cities (unless you start hacking around in the editor, as I did).

* There is no unit workshop.

* As the focus of the game is now much less combat and much more empire management, you may play several games that are boringly peaceful all up to the modern age - and perhaps to the very end.

* The tech tree has a few modifications, but nothing original here. No original unit abilities, either. Apart from the culture idea, no significant changes to the old successful formula.

Now, I am not saying the game is bad. It simply does not have this extra little something that made Civ2 an excellent game and Alpha Centauri an excellent sequel. I expected more - what, I cannot really say. But I know I didn't find it in Civ3.

Good, but modern combat very unrealistic

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: November 13, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Civ III is a much more challenging game to play than Civ II (although that may be because I don't know the tricks of Civ III yet). I like some of the changes, like trade and territories. However, there are some serious problems with game-play in the "modern" era.

Ancient combat is much better in Civ III. It basically wasn't worth it in Civ II, but in Civ III you have to capture a few cities in the ancient world or you're left in the dust.

However modern combat has some serious problems. For starters, the air units can only bomb, which means they can't destroy enemy units. Which is unrealistic, given that the battleship became obsolete once the aircraft carrier was invented. In Civ III, you can't sink a battleship with a bomber. Gimme a break.

Another very serious problem with the air units is that their range is limited to 8 or so, and never goes up. This means that the effective range of a Battleship for a Civ that has Magellen's Expedition is 9 (7 moves + 2 bombard), where a Stealth Bomber is 8 spaces. Completely unrealistic and unplayable. I had enemies harrassing my shores when I had complete air superiority. They need to fix this. We now have real stealth bombers that travel half-way around the world to bomb Cavalry in Afghanistan. (Which I used to do in Civ II...)

Submarines are also useless. I couldn't even sink a defenseless cargo carrier with one. Their only use is acting as scouts so you can see more than 2 squares from your territory (yet another gripe - the fog of war isn't very realistic given modern sonar arrays, satellites, and "trawlers").

I think they're going to need a major playability fix for the modern era. If they do that, it will be a great game.

A truly AWSOME game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: April 28, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I preorderd this game and still play it for hours on end. I was/am a big fan of the other Civilization games and was not disappointed with the third installment of the series. Anyone who dreamed of running a great civilization to glory or loves strategy and management should purchase this game. I LOVE this game. Also the game editor is very well done and can really change the game for unlimited power and you can customize your own worlds to every last detail and in fact I'm going to play it right now.

Do not buy the tin version

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: November 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

You get the nice box, sure, but the added stuff is not worth the extra $$$.

Buy the game in a "normal" box, I wish I had.

A real "must have" for civers

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 13
Date: October 22, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Civ III is the wet dream of all real Civilization fans.
Let's just say that many of us has been waiting for
this moment for years; at least since 1998/9.
I can warmly recommend this game for all strategy gamers,
but I suppose those who enjoy games like Quake III Arena,
should try to find something else. Anyway, ***** (5 stars)
is my rating for Civ III. Strategy fan, try it out!

(...)
-Rasbelin-

ALL CIVZ AND NOW THE BEST

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 19
Date: October 16, 2001
Author: Amazon User

When Civ 2 came out, it was the greatest most in depth game ever made, and I played it for hours on end. Giving people the ability to deal with diplomacy commerce military religeon and city building of a vast empire. The game spanned from 4000 bc to 2020 AD, having the technology vastly change. Creating a giant empire by hand was one of the greatest thrills ever, facing leaders like Abe Lincoln, Gengis Khan, and Shaka Zulu. Unlike most strategy games, the civ series is played like a very very complex boardgame, making it more of a strategy game than simply who can click the fastest. Civ 3 adds many different options too the game. The greatly enhanced graphics will make the game even greater eye candy, along with the new culture system, which will affect how a leader deals with conquered cities and his/her own cities. Another difference i have heard of will be the Unique Units for each civilization. For instance, the german unique unit is Panzier tanks, while the mongols is horse archers, and the Persians have 'immortals'. ALL of these things together promise to make one of the most complex, exciting, game ever made. BUY IT!!

I wish this were a great game... but it isn't...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 9 / 19
Date: November 20, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I am amazed, completely stunned, by the scope of the failure of this product. I expected SO much more from Firaxis...

Civilization has long been my favorite game, and the latest incarnation is clearly subpar, for all but complete newbies to the franchize.

Let me see if I can count the most important ways this version sucks...

- Fixed resolution of graphics (my god, what's up with this?)
- Gameplay logic that defies common sense (archers defeating tanks?!?)
- Complete lack of a micro-econ simulation
- The sim is likely to end LONG before any modern day epoch is realized
- There are no real changes from the original, just token improvements to the current tech tree
- There are no advancements beyond the modern epoch
- Scope and complexity of management sim takes DAYS/WEEKS of continuous gameplay to resolve; who has whole WEEKS to play a single game expect some out-of-school teenager?

I could go on... but its just not worth it... my advice is that everyone go back to the game "Colonization" (circa 1993) which is far superior in just about every way to this Civ3 junk...

Sid... hang your head in shame

Review Page: 1 2 3 Next 

Actions