Rating: 
Summary: Awesome
Review: Great graphics and gameplay. I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: In the long run, the most fun was de-installing it.
Review: This was a fascinating and addictive game for me until I got the feeling that the AI is really biased against the "human" player. What finally put me over the edge was when I noticed how, after becoming a "democracy", all my cities started burning all at once when I got into a war. This happened nearly all the time whether I declared war on another civ, or they declared war on me, for whatever reason. I couldn't keep them productive for more than a few turns at at time. I had cities full of entertainers and they still weren't happy. It became utterly predictable, and you can't really win a war when all your cities go off-line. (Not to mention the sheer monotony of always going into your cities to fix them.) This isn't reality. Unjust wars cause civil unrest in a democracy, but wars considered "just" seem to bring everyone together to accomplish amazing things (speaking from the American experience in WWII, anyway.) Why isn't that historical fact programmed into this game? I also noticed that the "right" price for negotiating a purchase of technology from another civ often seems to be exactly what it takes to complete clean out my treasury. That doesn't seem right either. I'll grant that this game was not designed for kids, necessarily, and it is meant to be challenging, but the AI seems so tough, and arbitrarily so, that it stops being fun. No matter how much I learn about the game, and there's a lot to learn, it doesn't get me closer to winning. Ironically, when the de-install routine completed, I got a panel saying that install is complete, and offering me the choice to re-start my computer. Sheesh. That one seems to have gotten past QA. In fact, I think this game should have been tested and tweaked a few more months before being released. It just doesn't seem quite right.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun, but plagued by imbalances
Review: I am not a veteran of the Civilzation series, so I am writing this review based solely on my experiences with this game and not Sid's other works (although I did have a blast with Alpha Centauri). Ill keep this short and pithy. Its a good game and sucks away your time. I am on a very fast computer (1.6gig w/1gig DDR Ram) and the times it takes calculating turns are not the sharpest out there. Also, this game has some very odd unit imbalances, eg - Musketman (you heard me) taking out 21st century AFV's. You can spot other small imbalances in the game which are more bothersome then a hinderance of gameplay, but overall if you enjoy strategy, empire-building games, pick this one up.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best game on the block
Review: I'm a fan of all games, FPS, RTS, RPG, and Sims so by no means am I partial to any one gaming catigory, so when i saw Civ 3 I thought it looked original but i was sorely mistaken. After an exciting introduction my expectaitions were running high but I was soon to find out that this was but another AOE clone with a Alpha Cetauri engine. I gave it 2 stars because of the 2 redeeming qualitys:
1:The music
2:The Intro movie
Rating:
Summary: Caution: Addictive game.
Review: This game is awesome. This game is so addictive that I can't stop playing now. My advice is, unless you have time, don't try to start this game, or you will devote too much time on it because it is so great. Game interface can be improved, so do some game concepts. But overall, this game is great.
Rating:
Summary: Nice concepts, poorly executed
Review: To give you an idea of my skill level, I can consistently win Civilization 2 at the prince level, occasionally at king. I was disappointed with Call to Power, mostly because it added a layer of micromanagement that made the game more tedious and less enjoyable. I have given Civ 3 more of a chance than Call to Power, mostly because I have a more powerful computer now (666mHz, 384M ram). I have played exclusively on Chieftain level. The redesign features some changes in the rules that getting used to. Chief among these is the abandonment of zone of control. I still foolishly leave workers (a new unit; workers build roads and irrigation, leaving settlers nothing to do but make new towns) unprotected, and my enemies walk right by me and steal them. It would be interesting if you could alter the game by toggling ZOC on or off. Some of the units engage in combat differently. Catapults, cannons, and artillery bombard their opponents rather than directly assault them. But the units must still be defeated by other combat units. Certain fast moving units can pull out of a losing battle, and can take shots at enemies moving through what used to be the zone of control. There is not enough imbalance, however, between modern and ancient units, and I have suffered the same frustration other reviewers have with regard to watching an archer eliminate an infantry and sack a colony. I like the fact that each civilization has a unique unit. My favorite is the German panzer, replacing the tank. The advance curve is very, very disappointing in this game. Every time I have played, advances come far too slowly. You have more control over the technologies you can choose, and can queue these choices just like your production queues in cities. I have read several other reviewers comment on how slow the game is at the end. I'm reassured, at least, to know that this was not some problem with my computer. Playing with a lot of civilizations on the "very huge" map makes the late turns take three to four minutes. That's not my idea of a fun time on a computer game. The average size world is not much better. One thing I have not noticed other reviewers comment on is some of the difficulties with managing unrest within the interface. I can't see any difference in the happy, content, and unhappy icons for most civilizations. This was easy in Civ2: the unhappy faces were Red. In Civ3, they are frowning, but it's very difficult to see the different faces. Why couldn't they have a red background? Also, the city management screen has a column showing the Happy and Content citizens, but not the unhappy. The Happy/Content stat is just about meaningless; what you need to know is the happy and sad comparison. And, unlike Civ2, the game does not pause after each city goes into unrest, so you have to go back to the advisor screen to check on each one. There are other criticisms that I think have already been rehashed. I will close by saying I hope that Infogrames is making notes of what is written here and elsewhere about Civ3 and make some changes in Civ4.
Rating:
Summary: Great fun and educational; needs useability improvements.
Review: This is an engrossing and educational game. I would give it five stars if it wasn't so much work to play. Though I've enjoyed it immensely so far, the fatigue factor is starting to wear on me, so I don't know how much longer I'll be playing this. If I was a secondary school teacher I would assign this game as homework. It helps one understand just what had to happen to give us the real civilization we enjoy today, and it's a great mental workout. During the course of gameplay, however, I find myself stumbling over certain useabiliby issues over and over. So, I'll list my suggestions for improvements here since they're on my mind. (And by the way, I play using a 19" Trinitron monitor, and I feel sorry for anyone with less.) 1. I just noticed I got some pollution before I've built my first factory. Must be a city of real slobs. 2. I need a better way of distinguishing soldiers from workers. During peace, I manipulate workers a lot. During war, I am constanty redeploying soldiers. I need a "military movement interface" and a "worker movement interface" so I can rapidly separate them and shift them around without looking at cities and squares on this map and sorting out the units. 3. Why can't workers gain experience and become more productive like the way soldiers become veteran and elite? This game unwittingly shows a bit of cynicism toward the "working class". They don't learn! 4. Too much double-clicking to get things done! I've played this game many hours now and I still keep moving units accidentally because you have to click once to "activate" while the game has already defaulted you to a seemingly random unit somewhere on the board. 5. I need an easier way to see the "resource points" available on a map square. Perhaps a section of the square could cause an automatic pop-up window as I roll over it. 6. I need an easier way to see the different units on a map square. I see the little white "ticks", but they don't differentiate between military and workers. How about one color for military and another for workers? 7. When I tell a unit to make a move requiring several turns, the unit should remember where I told it to go for as many turns as necessary and not make me go back and keep moving it over and over. 8. The tutorial is helpful but does not go far enough into the game to really tell you what's going on. Gold is essential, and it took me a while to figure out how to get and manage it. 9. The load/save file window isn't wide enough to show the file names automatically generated by the game. 10. I haven't yet found the way to delete a saved game file. 11. Finally, why the "X" for "no" and the "O" for "yes" on all the screens? Why not "yes" and "no"? Sheesh! Is this supposed to save effort in making different language versions?
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not great
Review: This is a really good game, but it's cursed with a lot of bugs, that Firaxis still hasn't been able to fix with multiple patches. As of version 1.21, the game still crashes near the end, so you can't even finish most games. Otherwise, it's a fantastic game, and definatly worth buying, just beware that you're going to have problems with it.
Rating: 
Summary: The game that won't end
Review: First, I have played all the prior Civs including I, II, call to power, even test of time... I am a real fan of this genre. This version (Civ III) definitely provides the best game play early on but some serious problems drag you down about 15 hours into: 1) Pollution >> I don't mind it, but I mind having to manually send hordes of workers to clean it up EVERY turn ... An auto-clean mode would be welcome (regular auto mode will have them changing all your mines to irrigation). 2) War weariness >> not realistic. 10 rounds into a justified war and 90% of my cities mutiny -- Cities have to be manually adjusted unless one wants to try one's luck with the governors. 3) Opponent uber troops. Why do I need a 10:1 superiority in numbers even with several levels of technological advantage (can archers really bring down my mountain fortified cavalry?). One tank should be able to walk through a civ using swordsmen. Hell, the civ should fall to their knees trembling and call me GOD if I show up with a tank in their 11 th century development stage, don't ya think? These three issues are major to me because they detract from the flow of the game - keeping me doing busy work instead of big picture stuff. All in all not worth the $50.
Rating:
Summary: Nowhere near Civ II
Review: Like a lot of people, I was a big fan of CivII. So I also had high (and perhaps unreasonable) expectations for this version. However, I'm bothered by many of the annoying aspects of the game that have disappointed a fair number of other people. Problems with combat (as many people have pointed out, how can a warrior beat my infantry?), corruption (it's almost useless to establish cities on other islands since they never become productive), resources and trade are really annoying. The biggest problem is that there's no way to overcome these obstacles. It's not simply that some of the "old" strategies don't work as well. Instead, they don't work at all. There are certain situations that are simply insurmountable no matter what you do (try colonizing a new continent and see if you can ever get the corruption level down at all). And that is unacceptable unless you want to be completely wedded to a much smaller set of approaches to the game. One last thing to get a sense for the inflexibility of this version. In CivII, you could save and replay a turn until you won a battle if you really wanted to kick some ass (admittedly cheating, but sometimes you just want to rule the world). In this version, replaying a turn with the same actions NEVER leads to a different outcome. This suggests a lack of flexibility that is reflected elsewhere.
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