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By Far the WORST Civ release of all time

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: January 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The Mac version is crippled compared to the PC version due to the absence of an editor. There was a beta version of the editor, but it hardly worked reliably. The game is incredibly slow on the Mac, on a large map, be prepared to wait five or more minutes on a PowerMac G4 1GHZ with 1Gb of RAM between turns (and that is bottom line, turns can frequenlty take much longer). The AI is absolutely stupid, war breaks out all the time and there is little one can do about it. Alliances are silly. The diplomatic options overall are just crippled and lame (a backward step from Civ II). The ONLY thing this game has going for it is lots of good press and nice looking graphics. Don't even think about using a nuke on a city with an airport, roads connected, or a harbor... the game will freeze after the explosion for approximately three minutes before letting you continue. These issues have not been observed on the PC. Buy Civ IV as that appears to be a far more enjoyable, fast, well thought out version of this title.

More than I Expected

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: July 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I don't play many computer games but a couple of Amazon.com reviews made Civilization 3 seem worth the investment and in the short few weeks I've had the game it has paid huge dividends. While I enjoy the escape it offers, starting with a warrior and moving through the various ages that defined the competing civilizations in our world is a "blast". What I appreciate most about the game, though, is the effect its had on my ten year old son. The game has helped him formulate some really cool questions, like "Dad, what is Sun Tzu's Art of War?"

This game sucks!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 5
Date: April 23, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Even though the concept of this game is great, the fighing between units sucks. Tanks, modern armor, and most strongest infantry units will get their a**es whooped by archers and wariors with sticks. It's screwed up!! Plus, you can't kill any units with bombardments from battleships and the bombs from planes can't sink ships or kill land units. It's really cheap.

Civilization III Rocks

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Civ3 is a great strategy game that tests your skills of ruling an empire. It is really easy to use, especially if you customize the rule in the CivIII Editor. Civ3 has okay graphics, but that can be overlooked since the rest of the game is excellent.

Terrific

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 6
Date: February 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is totally addictive. It can be a little boring if you don't tweak the options to not show you every little move the game makes. Once that is done you're good to go. With three diferent map sizes and six {?) different map styles the possibilities are endless. You can even choose the type of climate you want! And you don't have to always be the Americans either. There is a whole clan of rival civilizations to choose from. Not to mention the different degrees of difficulty to choose from! There is like eight or so to choose from. I've been playing this game for 2 years now and I still haven't played all the different choices to choose from. Like I said, I've been playing this game for two years and it's still as addictive as when I first picked it up. I highly recommend it!

Great Game, But Some Changes from Civ 2 are not for better

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: November 09, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Over all, I really like the game. Most of the changes from Civ 2 are good, but there is one REALLY annoying one that costs this version a full star, one and a half if I could, and that is the fact that ships and planes cannot destroy units. They can only bombard them, which can weaken them to a point where they're ALMOST finished, but they cannot finish them off themselves. Planes can destroy planes, ships can destroy ships, but planes cannot destroy ships or land units, and ships can't destroy land units (or planes). I would imagine that the makers had many complaints about this and hopefully they'll put it back the way it was for Civ IV. If your a Civ nut, buy it. If not, wait for Civ IV.

Yes, the AI cheats!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: November 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

First, this game is extremely fun. I've owned it for years now, and I keep reinstalling it and playing it again.

I think it's a huge step up from Civ II, but there are still huge flaws. The game is made for limitless possibilities, yet the designers obviously didn't try any of them. I had once conquered a huge map before, and had to shut down the computer because the game insisted on popping up the exact same text message for all of my cities (literally hundreds of them - around 300) for about 3 seconds each. 300x3/60 = 15 minutes. - If anyone is curious, it was the message stating "we love the king day" had been cancled, due to my excessive warring in Democracy.

Another FATAL flaw is the combat system. It will literally have you ripping out your hair, or throwing your monitor across the room. The AI cheats badly. In the long game I had played, only on the second difficulty, I lost hundreds of "Modern Armor" tanks attacking primitive units such as pikemen. And I loved it when the little cave-man row-boat destroyed my battleship. Yet the AI could smash my Mech-Infintry (Best Defensive unit) with pathetic units such as Knights and other sword-based fighters. These things don't happen in the real word. One tank could probably take out thousands of little guys with sticks. And no matter how many times you shoot the tank with arrows, it's just not going to damage it. If it only happened once in a while, fine. But trust me, you will need extreme self control to keep your cool after spending so much time researching techs and building up this deadly beautiful army of tanks, only to have it completely worthless in the end. So it's either play the game on the easiest setting (the AI is basically retarded here, and the game very boring), or stress out.

I'll stop complaining now. And I'll add the fact that I wouldn't be so touchy about it if I hated it. It really is a fun game, especially for strategy fans. Just don't take the end results as serious as I did!

"Just Brilliant"

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 8
Date: August 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

When I got Civilization II Gold Edition, I thought civilization can't possibly get better. I was wrong, the mix of good graphics and more realistic events make this fantasic. When I played civ II, it was easy to get technology off people. Now all I know is that if you want to conqueror the world, you can't just go off bribing technologies, you have to fight with an army, not just an army but a huge one. Even cheiftain you need at least 10 armies to take over a city, and when you get to deity level- its a mission impossible. Again I think Civ's just can't get better, but with technology improving by the second- who knows what Sid meir might produce!

One step forward, two back.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: March 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Pros:

Aerial view - Shows what is in your city. You build a factory, a factory appears in the city. Really neat.

Leaders - You win a battle, you have a chance of getting one of these. After you take them to your city, They can:

Make an Army - This is great. They turn into a unit which can hold other units making a super unit. They, however, cannot go into boats (I think), so they are pointless on island maps because you need to take them back to your city. Good for protecting your island I guess.

Complete Improvement (Or unit I think) - Rushes an improvement or building.

Battle animation - The animation is nice. I perfer Call to Power's battles, but this isn't bad.

Cons:

Annoying interface - The interface isn't hard tot use.. its just annoying to use.

Slow - Game gets REALLY slow later on in huge maps. This is beyond annoying. Waiting several minutes between turns, a few between unit movements.. Its a mess.

Flat terrain - The terrain is flat. Sure, there are tiles with mountains on them, but its flat. Very much unlike Alpha Centauri, which has very nice looking terrain.

Set units - I know this would be hard to do in a Civilization game, but not impossible. In Alpha Centauri, you can change things around in units. Give them a different weapon, body, shielding, etc.

Espionage Prices - The prices for Espionage things are WAY too high. Impossible to afford on island maps because you can't have billions of cities to give you money.

Unfair AI - The AI never accepts fair deals. Even on the lowest setting. And when you ask what they want for a technology, they usually ask for 4 of yours or 3k gold. Even if its a lousy technology.

Multiplayer - Multiplayer isn't included. Of course, you can buy it for thirty dollars more. Expect to see more of this in future games. Buy half now, half later. Its BS.

This is all I can think of right now. I'm sure there are more pros.. and cons.

In the end, this isn't a bad game. It just.. Isn't very good. Go buy Alpha Centauri and the Alien Crossfire expansion.

Mac version has no editor

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: February 13, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The ad says it comes with an editor for the maps and etc. This is not true, unless you have a PC. They have been promising this for a long time, and I am beginning to get tired of playing this game and still no editor. This is unacceptable support from the publishers.

It is a good game. I have played it a lot in the last six months, but the delay on the editor is now becoming a real sore point. I would give it 5 stars otherwise. It plays well, and with plenty of speed on my flat-screen iMac, by the way. This will be a great game when the publishers live up to their advertising and supply the editors. It is just wrong to advertise this product as coming with an editor. Shame on you for deceptive advertising!

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