Rating: 
Summary: Not a Sequal, A re-release with New Graphics
Review: I bought this thinking I'd find a new game, with new units, with some interesting changes from the previous two versions.Instead, I got Civilization that was released in the early 90s with new graphics. There is nothing new that I would justify this being called a sequal. This is simply a re-make of a great game. It's not worth the investment in the high price they are asking for this item.
Rating: 
Summary: Civilization is back!
Review: Civilization 3 is a must for those who like strategy, not real time strategy, but the real one, that one that makes you a ruler of the world (and I mean that, in civ 3 you rule a civilization from the begging of time and can make them rule the world). Anyone that likes the original Civilization or even the second one will love that one too...
Rating: 
Summary: Watch your first, second, and last steps...
Review: The pace of this version of the ever-popular Civilization line-up may have a few old-time users wishing for the simpler days of easy expansion and tech development... or maybe its just the new play system. The pace in the beginning of the game is slow, as we have come to expect. Rome was not built in a day. However, because of the new complexities in empire management, civilization attributes, land features, etc., everything from where you place your initial city to how you spend even your first bit of income can have a massive impact on the outcome of the game. How close you are to early resources, the seaboard, cold/warm/hot climates, etc., can make or break you. This feature could be seen as being somewhat true to actual civilizations around the world, but can be a headache to someone looking for a nice game. If you get used to the new play system and its intricacies, the game actually looks to top the first two. New options for victory add little to actual gameplay, but the other elements such as civ-specific advantages, terrain-specific items that can actually be used for something, and the added need to be a diplomat (with a whole new set-up for this too) on top of things more than makes up for the time needed to get acustom to the new environment. It might have been nice, however, to see this tied to perhaps a second version of or add-on for Alpha Centauri to
somehow reflect the two as being part of the same saga. Perhaps we will...
Rating: 
Summary: Change my mind?
Review: First let me say that I HATE turn based games!This is mainly because I play single player most of the time.If I had a friend to play against instead of just the AI maybe I would change my mind but I doubt it.I bought this game hoping it WOULD change my mind but alas no.With all the hype and glorious attributes touted for this game it should have knocked my socks off.At first it does intrigue,but then the flaws begin to appear.The AI is much too agressive and takes unfair advantage.The resources you need to build certain units are controlled by the very same unfair AI making diplomacy almost useless by the outrageous demands it makes and refuses to budge from.Cheats would be the only way I see to get on balance with the AI unless Sid&co deem to release a patch to level this out.Like many others I would like to see some personalization of one's own characters instead of everything Sid.I gave it an extra star for the historical content and teaching potential the game posseses but I would not recomend it as a "fun" game unless you're a big fan of the series.Look elsewhere for the "just 1 more clik" feeling,such as Age of Empires or Empire Earth.I had no problems with crashes or lockups on my machine(PIII 1ghz.GF3),code is good&no graphical glitches seen.Doesn't live up to it's potential.
Rating:
Summary: Creating a civ...
Review: This game is interesting for a while let's say 3 month. But I have to say after a while once you have create a big civ., you get a bit bored cause need load of time to reach new discovers and new stuff...
It is a nice game but get it second hand... same kind like sim city... would need more flexibility to be more atractive... bye for now...
steve
Rating: 
Summary: You should cheat too!
Review: Civilization III has all of the aspects that made CIV II and the original huge, time-guzzling monsters. Every turn involves the micromanagement of every possible aspect of running a society. You have to decide what to research, what each city should build, if all of your citizens are happy enough not to revolt, what terrain squares to upgrade, and endless other options. The time system in this game is ridiculous. You have generally from 4000 BC to 2050 AD or less to achieve a victory. While over 6000 years may seem like a very long time, when the game clicks off 50, 20, 10, and/or 5 years a game turn, that time runs out quickly. Even at the lowest difficulty level, your adversaries are given huge advantages over your civilization. They can seemingly create super units with little or no build time, supporting dozens more units than your civilization (even if they're the same size.) The enemy's units are harder to destroy, always seeming to win even fights. Their units can move across terrain features that would take your same units multiple moves in a single move, and they can even run away twice when your units can run away only once. The diplomatic AI, supposedly more advanced than the previous versions, still demands ridiculous deals and the game never allows you to make similar demands or respond in the same way to those demands. Game balancing is almost non-existent, in so much as a battleship (of the World War II type) can be easily destroyed by Iron Clads and Frigates (of the American Civil War era.) Submarines that are supposed to be invisible to enemy units (with the exception of a VERY select few according to in-game help info) will always be attacked by ships supposedly incapable of seeing them. Your units are always forced to fight to the death if they are the most powerful (but not healthiest) unit in a given stack, while their units are allowed to change their defense to always defend with the healthiest unit in a stack. I could go on for hours about the excessive, abusive, intolerable, demoralizing, shameful cheating that the computer opponent is allowed to commit in the name of "BETTER AI." On the technical side of the game, the interface is unintuitive and generally ugly. Menus are in strange places, and your advisor screens are nearly impossible to get useful information from. The graphics are a warmed over version of the Civilization II game, and the sound and music are embarrassingly poor quality. Response time is a major issue, with late game enemy turns taking 30 seconds to 1 minute per enemy. Start up time for the game itself is good, and I have not experienced any crashes with this game (patched version 1.16f). Also, the game manual is large, but uninformative, and the index and table of contents are almost useless in aiding you in your search for some obscure game quirk. Overall, this game is not worth your substantial amount of time and money. If you must purchase it, try to save as much money getting it as possible, and find all the trainers and cheat codes you can get, because this game DOES NOT PLAY FAIR.
Rating:
Summary: Still addictive after all these years
Review: I've played each version of civilization and this one is the best. It is harder than other versions of the game in that it takes away quirks of the game that could be exploited by gamers. For example, you can no longer buy wonders and you do not know the turn before when another culture is about to finish up a wonder.
Since it takes so long to build a wonder, it is often not worth the risk of building the wonder since if someone else builds it first, you have wasted a lot of shields. There has been some complaints about game speed, but you can toggle preferences so that you do not have to see how the enemy moved or have the battles animated. This does speed things up. The addition of having each race have different advantages and special units also makes the game more interesting and allows replaying the game with different strategies.
Rating:
Summary: Great game with one little erk.
Review: I just purchased Civ III and I think it is a wonderful game. Very creative and real. The only problem I have is the limit on how long you can play (up to yr. 2050). Why can't you just keep going if you want to?
Rating:
Summary: Haven't been able to get this game to run and no support
Review: The previous version of this game has been my alltime favorite. However, after trying to intall this game for over a month, with no help from tech support, I finally gave up. The older games still work on my PC, but my advice is save your money and play the older versions. At least you can install and play them.
Rating:
Summary: Fun game but not stable
Review: This game is actually a lot of fun. However, the game keeps crashing from every 5 minutes to 2 hours. I can't figure out what's causing it and it is very very frustrating. I downloaded their latest driver and even tried run windows 98 compatible mode as they suggested, now the program won't even start. I finally removed it from my system. It's a shame because I was about to be hooked on this game. So, buyers! be aware. This program is full of bug. I can't believe they released beta version. That's why I love Blizzard games, they delay their release schedules on their new games just to make it sure it's ready for the release. FYI, I have Intel motherboard with Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz with 128MB of Rambus RAM; 40 GB EIDE hard drive and ATI RADEON All in Wonder. I am running on Windows XP Home edition with 3 full patches installed. My system is very stable. This game is the only game so far wouldn't run. From Southern Califonia gamer...
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