Rating: 
Summary: Irritating beyond belief
Review: I have played this game on a low level for about a week and keep getting no where. I feel that I want that part of my life back. The original civ game was reasonably easy to pick up. Civ 2 changed some small aspects but was the same game. This game has a lot of features which basically aid the A1. The key to doing any good is the access to rescources. The A1 almost always has access to plentiful rescources. It is also able to produce at a faster rate than the game player. In militar conflict the A1 also is aware of the garrison level of the players cities and is able to attack weakly held ones. The notion about culture and building temples is in the imagination of the designer. The cities controlled by the A1 are able to resist huge amounts of cathederals and no matter how much you build your borders do not expand. (Except occasionally to obscure valueless cities. Another problem is the fact that units don't work. If you own a tank it will be destroyed by some neathedral warrior with an Axe. The A1's most pathetic units have easy wins all the time. ...
Rating: 
Summary: A must buy for any strategy fan
Review: This game is awesom in both gameplay and graphics. I have Civilation: Call To Power and it can't compete with this game. There are infinite amount of ways to win and moving up the tech tree. There are a lot of cool units to build over more than 8000 year period. The game is a little hard to learn but just give it a constant effort and build a couple of experimental civilations first until you get a strategy that suites you. This one is definitly worth the money; great graphics, a lot of attention to detail, historical background on all real world buildings and units, and a very long replay value.
Rating: 
Summary: it's ok, but civ II gold / expansions better
Review: well, it's better than most games out there, though europa universalis II is surging forward. could win. sid made some interesting adjustments as far as abilities specific to different cultures (races, tribes ...whatever,) but i think blew the game with his "culture points" sids vision of "how life should be" screws up gameplay with "if a team has enough old libraries and marketplaces, then an army of tanks can't hold them..."
Rating:
Summary: Amazing. It truly deserves 5 stars.
Review: Sid Meier and the other creators have accomplished quite a feat with their newest creation, Civilization 3 (Civ3). A sequel to the best-selling turn-based strategy game Civilization 2, and procalimed "Best Strategy Game of 2001", Civ3 truly lives up to its name.
First, for those not familiar with the Civ series: in civ, you guide your civilization through history from 4000BC to the 21st century. It is somewhat like a board game but much more involved, fun, exciting, etc. You take the game one turn at a time moving units, managing your cities (like what they will build next), researching new technologies, waging war, negotiating with rivals, and so on.
Now that you are familiar with the concept, let's go on to some of the specific merits of Civ3. The unit and technology tree is very balanced and accurate, making the game fun and realistic at the same time (which is more than I can say for some other strategy games...). The combat system is based partially on chance, and partially on strategy. It is wonderfully balanced, and although some people might say it is unfair and completely random, that is NOT TRUE. No, a tank won't lose to spearman.
The diplomacy feature is unique to the civ series in its depth, and it has been perfected further in civ3. You can trade virtually any resource with allies (or enemies), enter into military alliances or trade maps, you name it!
The graphics and sound are not the ones you'd find in today's 3D shooter or racing or similar games, but that is not the goal here either. Still, Civ2 players will notice SIGNIFICANT advances in graphics from the previous version. Check the screenshots if you dont believe me.
Also, the game gets updated often to weed out misbalances. There have already been 2 patches realesed (head over to www.civ3.com for details.)
The game itself has a great feeling to it, which can best be described as "balanced". If you like the genre (turn-based strategy, or just strategy), nothing to date comes closer to perfection. That's right. Perfection.
Despite all this, there are some minor cons of civ3, and my review wouldn't seem credible without mentioning these. In my opinion, the game ends too soon (in 2050AD). Although some would argue that this is a great feature to end some stalemates that might develop and decide on a final winner, i find this too early in terms of technology research. I always seem to fall well short of the maximum available technologies, although this might have been an intended feature.
Another con comes from the nature of the game - that you always start in 4000BC, and always against computers. Although there are a number of variations to the game settings, the startup can get very repetitive, especially if you enjoy the later periods (such as when you get tanks and planes).
Also, if your computer is a bit lower-end (like a 128MB RAM Celeron), you will experience considerable delays between turns towards the end of the game, as the opponents have longer thinking time. But this is all a factor of the map size, number of opponents, and turns elapsed, and of course of your system specs. And it isn't that bad, I play this on my 192MB RAM, 600Mhz Celeron laptop... Bottom line - you can't get better than this in the genre. Don't listen to those who bash the game without providing explanations of why. Until someone proves otherwise, this is THE best game of its class today. But don't just drool over my (or others') words - BUY IT!
Rating:
Summary: would love to play it
Review: I love the other Civi 2 series games and have them all. Test of Time is my favorite so I was really looking forward to this one. Unfortunately, over 4 1/2 months, six calls to technical support and a new monitor, I can't get it installed enough to see if it will work. I have never seen so many bugs in my life. Technical support tried but I am getting error messages about allocating warp buffers, hard drive space (with 2 GB free mind you), and other error messages. I never had any trouble with Civ2 and its offspring but I took this back to the store. They had had so many complaints that they let me return it even though I was past the time for a full refund.
Rating:
Summary: More like a the creation of a genius!!
Review: This is a quite amazing game! It takes a Real Time Strategy game and puts it in turn-based form. The graphics are quite an improvement over Civ2. It is very complicated and hard to learn, but if you filp through the manual, you'll understand everything anfter your 1st game. The object of the game is to win by one of the mulitple ways. That is what makes this game truly great: something besides war. You don't have to win by killing everyone. You can also win by researching everything and building a space suttle. Or by getting the other players to like you. Don't get me wrong, you can win by conquering. The warfare is a little bit skewed (ex: Armored knight being killed by a basic warrior with a stone axe) But once you're past the begining, it's not much of a problem. This game is totally addictive. It took me four hours to get through one time period. Don't think that this is going to be a quick game. You can save, of couse, though. I would recomened this game to any strategy game fan. Sid Meier has created yet another great game.
Rating:
Summary: MyReview
Review: Best turn based strategy game Ive played. Only improvement needeed is multiplayer capabilities!
Rating:
Summary: Computer Game Mega Flop!
Review: One would think that a new version of a classic game would be a tremendous improvement. Unfortunately, Civilization III would prove you wrong. The user interface is frustratingly slow. Press the "enter" key, and the game takes 3-4 seconds to recognize that you did something. Others, like the 'r' key for building railroads, do not work at all. Most importantly, the game prevents civilization advancements even at the easiest level. I've got cavalry and musketeers charging computer-generated catapults, archers, and warriors bearing stone axes in game year 1956. And frequently, my cavalry loses! The game's artificial intelligence is corrupt! So, don't buy Civilization III. Stick with the classic Civ II, instead
Rating:
Summary: NO MORE LIFE
Review: Not really just kidding. This game is freaking awesome. I'm like totally addicted to it. And playing it took me off the online gaming circuit for a bit. Which after a few months is starting to save me money from those monthly payments.
This game is running just smooth even though my machine is ancient as heck. running it on a 400 mhz amdk. with a rage fury pro and a soundblaster. this thing runs smooth as ice once i set it up properly.
Rating:
Summary: I Hate This Game, Nothing Works Here.........
Review: I loved Alpha Centauri. I blew [money] on Civ3. This turkey crashes IMMEDIATELY upon performing the first move, every time. That's in spite of my 850 Mhz Pent 3 processor, SB Live 5.1 soundcard and GeForce 2MX video card. Not a driver issue, it's a bug-riddled, patch-addicted, no support...
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