Rating: 
Summary: A great game, a ture classic
Review: If you even ever play a turn-based game and liked it, I would highly recommed Civilation 3. The game is one of the best of its kind. Challengeing, fun, and a perfect learning curve. But this comes with time. At first when I got this game I thought I had bought a poorly game with good graphics. But after making myself play for hours I came understand why the game has the "annoying" features. Features like demands, towns turn over to a another empire, ect. The games A.I is great, the best I have in a turn base game. Just has impressive is the trading. Things you do at start of game will come in play with trading. Say you wipe out the Rome(for no reason) at 2250 b.c. Later at 1955 a.d civilations will view you has a hostile empire and not trade. This is very annoying but make you rethink delcaring war. Another great bonus is the good graphics and good sound. I highly recommed this game. But if you don't have time it is shoveware. It takes around 30 hours just to get good. Other than that it is a great game.
Rating: 
Summary: Many ways to play it
Review: I'm not generally into games and I hate stuff that is merely violent, noisy, and rushed. I love Civilization 3. Mainly it is more interesting than Age of Empires and comparable games because there are various, rich, and very effective routes to success other than warfare, including diplomacy and cultural influence. Civilization 3 got rid of the hokey and irritating advisor cartoons of Civilization 2. Good move. The graphic improvement over Civ2 is nice but I wish it were even nicer. I wish there were more imagery down on the "street" scale to just wander around in, like Myst and RIven. The maps get tiring to look at after a while. You have to have a good screen to see clearly everything you need to know. But yuh can't have everything, right? I expect more visual sophistication and beauty will come about in future versions. I hope the next one won't need all the patches that this one did, and will run more smoothly. One feature which has gotten many players indignant is the fact that relatively primitive armies can put the hurt on the player's own more advanced military. Being a bit of a barbarian myself, I kind of like this little foible. And anyhow, think of the Viet Cong vs. the U.S. Or maybe regard it as a message from the game designer to young (male) aspiring world rulers: Hey! Put your energy into something besides military technology. Anyhow, there is no point at all in playing Civ 3 with the intention of either learning or applying much realistic history. An interest or background in archeology or anthropology or social and technological histroy may make the game more enjoyable, but not if you take it too seriously. If you don't know anything on those subjects, Civ 3 isn't the place to learn much. It is more instructive than totally fantasy-based and 1st person shooter games, of course, but it weirds me out to think that some parents and teachers seem to view it as educational. That is only slightly less silly than trying to teach mediaeval history by letting kids watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Rating:
Summary: Get ready for some long nights!
Review: The first thing I need to warn you about are the long sleepless nights ahead of you if you buy this game. I am a big fan of this genre, and Civ III is a nice addition. At first glance, this game looks a lot like Civ II, and some of the pitfalls of Civ II are still resident in Civ III. The biggest and most obvious difference is the new concept of resources. Each terrain type may have special "resources" on them. If you control the terrain, you get the resource. (Think oil in the Middle East). The resources could be strategic (like iron, horses, or oil), or luxuries (like wine, silks, or spices). The strategic resources are needed to build military units, while the luxuries brighten the lives of your population. The distribution of the resoources could be quite scarce and tend to be condensed in pockets. This leads to aggressive land grabs by the competing civs. This adds to the military strategy. The other significant change from Civ II is the concept of an Army. An army allows you to group 3 (or 4) military units into a single fighting unit. All 3 units in the army must be defeated by the single foe before the army is defeated. This is a huge advantage for the army. But, sadly, Civ III suffers as a war game. In fact, if you reach demacracy, it is almost impossible to sustain a long military campaign. Because you will have literally hundreds of military units to move individually, carrying out your well crafted battle plans becomes long and tedious. But, like its predecessor, Civ III is highly addictive. Each turn leads into the next in a way that makes stopping very difficult. So I could recommend Civ III and eagerly look forward to the expansion pack!
Rating:
Summary: Easily the best game ever
Review: I can't believe the reviews I'm reading here. It has to be noted that a lot of the gripes that people have, such as corruption, AI-to-AI tech trading and difficulty, can be changed in the editor that ships with the game. It should also be noted that the in-box game version is 1.07f; there is a 10MB patch available, taking the version up to 1.29f, that also fixes a lot of issues. So buy this game and download the patch. ... So don't be put off by all the negative comments; a lot of these people clearly have no idea what they're talking about. It sounds like a lot of people have picked up the game, been frustrated because they coudn't win right away and come here to whine. This is a superb game, and the customisable aspects will keep you playing and modding for a very long time.
Rating:
Summary: Easily the best game ever
Review: ...It has to be noted that a lot of the gripes that people have, such as corruption, AI-to-AI tech trading and difficulty, can be changed in the editor that ships with the game. It should also be noted that the in-box game version is 1.07f; there is a 10MB patch available, taking the version up to 1.29f, that also fixes a lot of issues. So buy this game and download the patch. ...So don't be put off by all the negative comments; a lot of these people clearly have no idea what they're talking about. ...This is a superb game, and the customisable aspects will keep you playing and modding for a very long time.
Rating:
Summary: Finally Civilization gives peacefully nations a chance
Review: Civilization is easy to learn but its complexity and levels of difficulty make it impossible to master. This is the best game for gamers who don't necessarily want war games; military strength being just one aspect of controlling a successful civilization. Science, economy, population growth and public opinion are all critical factors as well. I've played each version of this game since the beginning when it didn't even require a mouse. Although Civilization III is not phenomenally better than the last one (Civilization II Gold) it does have several nice upgrades. Improved automation frees players from some of the tedious movements and selections, the graphics are better and some of the Wonders and units have been tweaked to perform better. Neighboring cities often volunteer to join successful civilizations, which makes playing "peacefully" more rewarding. The trade routes are more manageable (a little lews interesting though), and the sea vessels much more varied in this version.
Civilization III does not allow multiplayer play like the last version, (a companion program upgrade coming out before Christmas will though) nor does it have all the different scenarios in Civilization Gold. (I would have liked it to include at least the historical relevant ones, maybe they'll be on the upgrade as well.) First time Civilization players and occasional players might get a better bargain out of Civilization II Gold, the older model, if they can find it. A typical game is time consuming and can potentially become an obsession. It usually takes me over a week per game when playing a couple hours a day. When you have a large number of active units the game slows down quite a bit.
This game comes with a useful and interesting manual (speaking as someone who really hates reading manuals). If any game could ever be considered educational, this one should be. The standard earth selection and the information provided about World Wonders and military units can be used to illustrate history and geography. There's nothing objectionable for parents or younger players, which is nice. Of course, the main reason to get the game is because it's fun to play.
Alpha Centari by the same designers is another game I recommend. It's similar in format but with a unique premise and different enough to be very interesting.
Rating:
Summary: "We are Rich, sire! Rich, Rich, Rich!"
Review: Just a quick note to tell all that I do like Civ 3, but really, really, really miss the "real life" advisors from Civilization II. I think the actors playing those parts added a lot of flavor to the game that the text boxes in Civ 3 just can't match.
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but with downsides
Review: A good game overall... This game will devour you, for a while. My two big gripes are: 1) No multiplayer, nothing is as fun as beating... your friends 2) When you increase the difficulty, the computer cheats. Rather than making the enemies stronger, faster, and smarter, they swap technologies and give them away as soon as they are learned so that you are effectively playing on a team by yourself and against all other civilizations. (i used a trainer to find out how the game became harder) After playing alot of Civ2, i think that this is a step up in difficulty, and graphics. The trading (ie: sucking up) can be a kick in the pants, but sometimes you gotta play second fiddle on the way to the top.
Rating: 
Summary: Worthless
Review: This game is a joke. There simply is no AI. The only thing that keeps you from winning is the "AI" deciding beforehand what will happen. enemy units appear from nowhere, city enhancements do not work. Buying this game amounts to throwing your money away.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredibly disappointing
Review: Having purchased and enjoyed all 3 of the previous Civ/Alpha Centurai installments, I was looking forward to Civ3. Unfortunately, the combat aspect is a total failure. The game consistently skews the outcomes of the battles in favor of the computer despite any and all tactical advantages you might have. Despite the attributes listed in the game manual for attack/defense and terrain bonuses, the computer will win an overwhelming majority of all battles regardless of the odds even on the lowest difficulty levels. So despite careful planning to provide your nation with troops with the strongest possible attack and defense abilities, and despite being able to place them where they will gain the maximum benefits of the terrain, the inferior troops of the computer nations win more then half of the battles that they should statistically lose. I don't mind a challenge, but the game is essentially unplayable as the non-computer units do not perform at their described level. It's a shame because the rest of the game (nation building, exploring, acquiring resources, etc.) is an improvement of an already fantastic engine that has been developed in the earlier versions. However, if your army is unable to fight, you won't survive. Very frustrating.
| 
