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I *was* excited about this game, too bad it hoovers the tool

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 15 / 26
Date: August 01, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The AI is good and the graphics are nice. However the performance is abominable. I have been running this on two Macs, a PowerMac G4 733 with 1.5Gb of RAM and a Dual 1Ghz PowerMac with 1.5Gb of RAM and performance on both platforms is completely unacceptable. It is obvious to me that the programmers at Firaxis didn't do any usability testing or performance QA before they shipped this. Civilization Call to Power on a G3 is a speed demon compared to this game on the G4. I don't know what's wrong with this game but I'm giving up on the Mac version as it is just too slow to play. I strongly recommend avoiding the Macintosh version of this game, it's awful.

Good ideas. Poor execution

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 45 / 50
Date: February 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This sequel enhances both the good and the bad of Civ II. The graphics and sound are both far superior toCiv II, as would be expected. And the new concepts, suchas allowing cultural domination, diplomatic victory (taken from Alpha Centauri, no doubt) are good touches. Making trade a high level decision is, pehaps, ahistorical, in that rulers rarely became involved in the details of trade until AFTER a particular item was proven critical, but I won't quibble over this particular interpretation of economic history. New minor wonders, a few new inmprovements, all good. BUT......

There are several flaws that make the game frustrating to the point of being unplayable. The most significant is the rampant, uncontrollable corruption and waste in the cities. As with the earlier version, the further you are from the capital, the worse the corruption and waste. But this version takes this to an unworkable extreme. "Distant" cities on the same continent waste almost all product and steal almost all trade -- and forget cities off continent. The court and police improvements do next to nothing to stop it, even under Democracy. No historical society could have survived the levels of corruption and waste that regularly exist in the game.

Trade is another problem. It quickly becomes apparent that the AI will accept nothing less that 1/3 of your income in return for next to nothing. Don't even bother trying after you get into the A.D period.

Speaking of the AI! The A stands for artificial , NOT AMORAL. The cheating was often bad in Civ II, but it's stunningly disappointing in Civ III. AI Warriors consistently knocking off tanks!?! Yes low-tech may triumph occassionally in the real world, but not nearly as often as in Civ III.

The Mac version shipped without a terrain editor, but one has been promised by the MacSoft website. I hope it is as versitile as the Civ II editor, and that, unlike the Alpha Centauri editor, we'll be able to score the maps that are user made. The Alpha Centauri editor didn't allow this: I guess the developers thought too many users might be "cheating."

Which brings me to my last point. I get a very strong feeling that the makers of this game think there is a "right" way to enjoy the game. PLEASE! It's a game, a toy. Some days gamers want a challenge, on others we just want to kick (...). Given the quotes from Kant and Keirkegaard in Alpha Centauri, I wil assume that there are at least some philosphy readers on Meier's team, so I implore you to remember your semiotics. Linguistic utterances that are closed and allow few interpretations are like technical manuals, those that offer multiple interpretations are like poetry. Civ II was, for the most part, poetry. Civ III feels like a big, slow technical manual.

And how often do you re-read technical manuals?

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.

No Multiplayer Support

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 9
Date: February 22, 2002
Author: Amazon User

The MacOS X port of this game is done pretty well. However, Civilization 3 is a lot like its predecessors in terms of gameplay. The main changes being improved user interface, graphics, and no multiplayer support. I subtracted 3 stars for going backwards.

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.

Not quite Civ II

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 17 / 18
Date: January 04, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It hurts me to say something bad about a civilization game, but to be honest, this one just does not measure up to it's predecessor. I owned, played and LOVED both the original Civ. and Civ II. This game however leaves a LOT to be desired. Wile it DOES give the much needed diplomacy / trading option upgrades that are so desperately lacking in Civ II, the game play tradeoffs are not, in my opinion, near worth it.

The new interface is nice looking, though it is not intuitive, and is really clunky. For example, in order to establish an embassy with a foreign power, (diplomat and spy units no longer exist) one does not go to the foreign relations advisor, but instead clicks on a star that is attached to ones own capitol, every other foreign ministry action is carried out through the foreign relations advisor. There are other examples.

Much of the information that was previously available to the player in the main play screen is no longer available in the main screen, and some of it seems to be completely unavailable. An example would be terrain information. In Civ II the game would automatically give you the terrain info for the square the active unit was situated on. This is really helpful in a lot of situations, if for instance you are trying to build a road to someplace, and you cant see if a road exists in the square (because your unit is blocking it) and you have forgotten if you have built a road in that square or not - looking at the window that says definitely one way or another is nice. In Civ III in order to get the terrain info you must Cmd-Click on the square - and the resulting window still does not tell you if there are improvements or not. Again, there are other examples.

All of the interface things would be bearable if it were not for one glairing fault with the game. It runs SLOWLY. There is no other way to say it, gracefully or not. It is a dog. I have a relatively new computer, purchased about the time the game was released... and the game is painful to play. There is an excruciating pause between each units movement. For example: If you want to move a unit three steps down a road, you direct the unit, and it moves, then you wait, then you get to direct it again, and it moves again... then you wait again... then you get to move the unit a last time, it moves for a last time, and then you get to wait again... until the game locates your next unit and the process starts over. Moving units has always been problematic in Civ games, and this just makes it excruciating.

The way combat is carried out is improved a bit, but there was nothing drastically wrong with it before. On the whole there seems to be something of a liberal "Anti-War" agenda undermining the entire war making process, as the entire enterprise of going to war has become much more difficult. The main improvements are in diplomatic and trade negotiations - which are MUCH needed improvements.

On the whole, this edition is not an improvement over the previous edition so much as it is an entirely different animal... If I had never played the previous two versions I would likely not be the least bit unhappy, but having played the previous versions this feels like a half effort to me, like the funding ran out before it was finished and it had to get to market or die. In my opinion, Civ II is a much better game, with more thought included, if less eye-candy.

Really Disappointing

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 25 / 30
Date: April 13, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Civilization III in a word is simply a dissapointment. Measured on its own, its an OK game but compared against previous masterpieces like Civilization I, II, and Alpha Centauri, Civilization III pales in comparison. First off, the new graphics are quite impressive, however one cannot enjoy them because the game does not seem to be optimized at all for the Macintosh or PC. Whereas, the games' response in the three previous versions was snappy and quick, Civilization III plods along. Second, the AI is very poorly done. Though the whole diplomacy concept has been redone admirably, the AI is very one-dimensional and more often than not, a cheat. Alpha Centauri I believe had the most refined AI to date in a Sid Meier game. The AI of Civilization III is simply frustrating. I cannot tell you how annoying it is to have lost battles to units which are light-years behind in technology. That is, to lose a modern tank to a warrior or a phalanx unit. It happens too often. Third, the game seems to follow a trend now being set by software manufactures, especially those for the Mac OS. The game is incomplete and unfinished. One has to download two patches, PC users probably more, to correct major flaws in gameplay and stability. I really do not think it fair to pay on the order...for a beta-quality software product. Also, the editor does not ship with the Macintosh version. Also, the great elements of Civilization I, II, and Alpha Centauri were not incorporated into Civilization III. For example, the feature of Alpha Centauri whereby you had over 32,000 possible unit types was omitted from Civilization III. Definitely a step backwards. Also with Civilization II, it was, in practice, truly possible to win the game other than through war and conquest. Civilization III in practice forces you down one track. Expand feverishly, and conquer, conquer, conquer. Finally, my biggest qualm with the game is simply the replay factor. Civilization I, II, and Alpha Centauri kept me up for hours and sometimes days at end. This is especially dangerous for me as I am currently in college. Civilization III however does not do it for me. I have surprisingly played the game only 7 days and then put it back on the shelf. Civilization III's underlying concepts and ideas have enormous potential to provide an unprecedented challenge and yet still be addictively fun. The actual game itself however becomes boring due to either frustration or banality. I hope Civilization III is not a sign of things to come from Sid Meier.

It does not match up to its predecessors.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 25 / 29
Date: June 02, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Civilization III is a great game, very in depth and enjoyable. However, it is NOT a civilization sequel, by no means does the game continue the legacy of the undisputed best game series of all time.

To start off, the game is built for a windows interface, which makes the game simply a windows' game that runs in a Macintosh, even the instructions have commands that make use of the right click. This makes the Mac version user-unfriendly.

Furthermore, to mention a few flaws, the game lacks the details that had made the previous versions so enjoyable. Details such as the male/female civilization leaders, among others.

The game does not have a world map, something I personally enjoyed. I liked running the Spanish empire from the Iberian Peninsula, not from... wherever. Also, there is no longer a Spanish Civilization as well as many other loved civilizations from Civilization II.

Multiplayer games are not available, fact that simply put my copy into the closed closet.

There are many other things that are not to my liking, but I do not feel it is necessary for me to write a 1000 word review about them.

I have heard a Gold Edition is in progress, I can only hope that they make this version specifically for the Macintosh and that they use the game foundations from Civilization II, which are by far better.

In few words, Civilization III is a dissapointment.

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.

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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