Civilization 3

Rating:
Summary: The most dissappointing Civlization game
Review: The long awaited sequel to; perhaps, the best strategy game of all time is Civilization III. It may also be the most disappointing sequel. This review will be slanted for people who have played Civilization II.

There are some new things that have improved the game, such as nationality boundaries, the idea of national patriotism, military units capable of bombarding other units or cities, and the new air missions are all improvements.

Let's focus on what went wrong. For starters, 'Diplomacy is dead'. The 2-dimensional AI is a regression from Alpha Centuri, you wouldn't be able to tell them apart if they didn't look different because they all act very similar. Each other nation is very aggressive even when the player's forces overpower them greatly. The AI will force cities into the tightest spots within a player's territory regardless of their diplomatic stances. When war is declared with a computer-controlled nation, they quickly gather the support of the rest of the computer nations to team against the player. Within three turns, a player could very well be fighting a worldwide war with every other known nation.

The small villages that give a player a random effect when moving into could have a tremendous impact on the game. Many military units require a natural resource to build these units. If you gain a scientific advance that provides your nation the ability to create military units that require a natural resource, the computer will never allow you these resources. If the player discovers the same advance on his own without the help of a "goodie hut" the computer will give the required natural resources. The result is that a "goodie hut" can be a permanent critical disaster for your civ, forcing you to chuck it all in and start over.

The small complaints are not near the magnitude of the previous ones, although they still effect the enjoy ability of the game. The Wonders lose their feelings of awe and satisfaction upon completion. There are no wonder movies, nor a reminder of what a wonder does in the announcement screen once it's completed. The espionage and features of a spy or diplomat are all but completely gone and the features that programmers added in their place feel very much like an afterthought. This last point is a personal complaint; Civilization II had a playable map of Earth. Civilization III also has one but the map is so much smaller, that England can only hold one city and the entire continent of Australia may be able to hold four. The world map has shrunk so much that it really loses its appeal.

The final answer = The game is not that difficult, but it is not that fun either.

Rating:
Summary: Think twice before buying this game
Review: There are a few improvements with Civ 3, like resources and allowing a larger map, but overall Civ 3 is very annoying.

As many reviewers have already stated, corruption is a major problem. This makes it difficult to build a large empire. Also, unlike in Civ 2, there is no government with zero corruption, and even "minimal" corruption is extremely high.

One HUGE problem that not many reviewers have noticed is that war weariness under republics and democracies is exhorbitantly high, even on the "low" level. In Civ 2 and the Call to Power series, I could have an offensive war while using a non-dictatorial government and be able to manage any unhappiness problems due to war, but this is simply not possible in Civ 3. If you have a republican or democratic government, you MUST be at peace or unhapiness will get to be out of control in a few turns. Even if someone else starts the war and conquers one of your cities, your people will find it unacceptable to conquer that city back or conquer any of their cities. What's worse, the enemy will not even go to the negotiating table at that point, so the only choice is to allow unhappiness to go out of control (it can't even be controlled with a very high luxury rate after awhile) or switch to a ... dictatorial government (and suffer anarchy for several turns, which means continued unhappiness and civil disorder). Also, rioters can destroy major city improvements in addition to halting all production, so its not like you can just let cities stay in civil disorder.

There are some good things about culture, but it also creates major problems. For example, a conquered city can revert back to its original civilization, and take any occupying force along with it. This is EXTREMELY annoying and also historically inaccurate. I cannot think of a single time in history where a large occupying force has switched loyalties to the original civilization when there is discontent rather than fighting back against revolutionaries.

Diplomacy is also horrible. The AI teams give each other good deals while they expect you to give them much more than they are willing to give you in return.

Combat is also a problem. All civ games give an advantage to large, low-tech armies over small, high tech ones to some point, but I think that this is something that needs to be fixed and it certainly wasn't in Civ 3. In Civ 2, I often lost stealth bombers to archers, and unfortunately there are similar problems in Civ 3.

Overall, Civ 3 has too many problems. Unless there is a patch that fixes all or most of these problems, I would suggest that you don't buy Civ 3.

Rating:
Summary: Strategie
Review: I find this game similar to Age of Empires. Civilization 3 includes less violence and I find it very entertaining. I recommend this game because you have to think. Civilization isn't like some racing game where all you do is stear. In Civilization you make strategeis. 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Great game. But Missing the details.
Review: Civilization III is a fantastic game, and I would recomend it to people; it is the best strategy game out there. So why is it not perfect? The details are missing. The first thing that bothered me was that Civilization III forgot about some essential civilizations like the the Spanish. Secondly, the male - female leader swaps depending on gender are gone; but... The inspiring wonder movies are also gone.
Aside from the graphics, the game is pretty good, however it would have been better if it had been more similar to Civilization II.

Rating:
Summary: Civ I & II Addict Finds Civ III Tedious
Review: I was a complete and total Civ I & II addict, staying up all night and developing ulcers running my civ. I pre-ordered my copy of Civ III and could not wait to get it. After patching it twice so it would run on my 1-year old computer without crashing, I was ready to rock! Unfortunately the game is just not as much fun to play, corruption robs your cities of productivity. The more successful your civ, the more tedious the game is to play.

I can't really complain about the slow gameplay because of hardware, my computer is a 1.33 GHz, the game just is boring when you are winning and frustrating when you are losing (the computer cheats).

Civ II is just way more FUN!

Rating:
Summary: Five stars if it wasn't so ADDICTIVE
Review:

I'd like to address the negative reviews I've read of Civ3 in this forum. It's obvious there's a huge range of reactions. I disagree with anyone who gave this game less than a four, since I think it's a huge improvement over Civ2. From the comments of reviewers who gave this game three or less stars, I can see that they didn't have a grasp of how to play, or what was really happening with the game. Also, I've been laughing my head off at people complaining about Greek aircraft carries blowing up their simple galleys!

First, my gaming experience: I've beaten the game a couple times now at Monarch level, but haven't yet conquered Emperor. The game IS hard, and this contributes to the entertainment I've reaped from the game. The AIs are very aggressive, which means you MUST maintain adequate defenses as a deterrent to war. If you do not have defenses and/or response teams, the AIs will realize war with you will be profitable, and they WILL attack.

On higher levels, the computers are cheating, which means that instead of following the exact rules a human must for production and development, they are skipping steps. The only way to combat this is by using brain-borne strategies the AIs are (currently) incapable of developing. Here are a few such tactics.

1: Surprise attack. The AIs aren't very good at detecting or executing suprise attacks. You can qeue up a huge army on the enemy's border, and as long as you don't cross into it, he won't even blink. Then you drop the hammer and sweep through their territory.

2: Domination of resources. A critical (and wholely realistic) factor in the Civ3 world is the control of limited resources required to building units and advancing. For example, if you develop The Wheel and see horses in open terrain, you had better get those horses, all of them, into your territory before the enemy does. Procurement of horses gives you chariots and horsemen, which have the HUGE advantage of withdrawing from combat when losing.

This example carries over into all other game resources. Without rubber, you have no infantry. Without oil, you have no tanks, no planes, and no battleships. You may have to attack enemy cities that control these resources. Or, you can raid those resource sites, cut off access by destroying roads, which prevents the enemy from using those resources to build needed units until he can build the road again.

3: Geographical placement. The AI doesn't consolidate their empire according to geography as well as humans can.

4: Selling captured cities. If you capture a city, and expect that you can't hold it, it's often beneficial to sell the thing. This way you can get lots of advances and resources for what may be zero cost, depending on how the battle went. Better yet, if the city being sold belongs to a civ with a strong culture, the city may revert back to your enemies, or be capture by your enemies, allowing you to recapture and resell it. Muhahahahahahahaaaa!

5: Save, inspect, reload. Save the game. Spy on an enemy city to determine its strength and the units there. Once you know this, reload the game. This way you save hundreds of gold pieces, but you still know what's there.

These are just a few tactics I personally use. It's impossible to name them all, and considering the depth of the game, I'm sure there are many more out there you can find.

Now, addressing the complaints about the game:

1: Why do I need a better system to play? This is because Civ3 is designed to be BETTER than previous Civs. Better AI, more options to win, better graphics and better interface. This all demands more computing power. If you just want something that runs on a P2 300mhz, why not stick with Civ2?

2: Combat is unrealistic. Not so. In fact, I love the combat simulator. It's all match. One complaint here is that simple units can destroy advanced units. I don't think those who complain are looking at the match, unit type, and geography. For example, how can samurai beat a tank? Here's how.

Samurai attack strength is 4. Tank defense strength is 6. The combat math adds the attack strength, 4, and the defense strength, 6, and comes out with 10. Then it rolls a random number, and say it comes out with 1-4, it will give the Samurai the victory, and the tank will lose one hit point. Now, the tank has a 60% chance of winning the battle against the samurai. The samurai could win. Two samurai would almost certainly win.

Now, this is because tanks are OFFENSIVE UNITS. A tanks strength is halved when it's just sitting there, acting like a pillbox. On attack, a tank strength is 12. So, add 12+4 = 16. A random role between 1 and 16 is thrown. If the number lands between 1-4 the samurai defends. If the number is between 5-16, the tank wins. The tank has a 75% chance of winning. Three out of four samurai are toast.

Realism in attack strengths: Most reviewers who criticize the combat cite that simple units have no way of combatting more advanced units. For example, how is a samurai going to defend against a tank? Well, you're assuming that both parties are on a perfectly flat, open field, and the buttoned-up tank is going against a samurai standing with his sword. In reality, I can only imagine that a bunch of samurai would not do this, but build barriers, try to make terrain traps for the tanks, etc. You also have to factor in the losses from normal breakdowns and maintenance, which can be significant. Also, from my observations, the computer doesn't cheat with combat numbers, but production numbers in the cities.

Also, geography plays a huge part. Put your infantry in a hill and the hill boosts defense 50%. That means defense for infantry goes up to 18. Infantry in a mountain have defense of 24. Try attacking that treat and see how far you get.

Basically, you could put a spearman, defense 2, into a city on a hill. Now he has defense 3. Then, put a wall around the city, and he has defense boosted 100%. Now his defense is six. Try attacking him with anything less than cavalry and watch a Bronze Age spearman tear you a new one. Heheheheheh. Good thing - the computer doesn't like to make walls and barracks.

2. Corruption and waste. If you cities are too far from your capital, you're screwed. You need your cities spaced strategically around the capital, otherwise they don't pay you money, etc. The courthouse option, IMHO, is not strong enough because it barely decreases corruption. The Forbidden Palace, though, is an awesome tool, and virtually eliminates corruption in the cities surrounding the place it sits.

Well, I guess I rambled enough. I just love this game, because there are so many ways to win, so many different paths to take. The only thing I don't like is it's too addictive! I need to sleep sometimes.

Rating:
Summary: The overexploitation of a franchise.
Review: ~Civilization was excellent. I loved that game.

~Civilization II was 10 times better, my favorite game of all time until 'Europa Universalis II' came out.

~Civilization III.... it was long in development, building everyon's excitement.. only to find that the game had been stripped of substance and flexibility of Civ II to be replaced with some cheap memory intensive graphics. The Funny thing is that the stuff they stripped were really easy text-based encoding, like the number civilizations and their cities. I have to give this game a bad rating... it was obviously not a well thought out adventure, but instead an exscuse to use the "Civ" name and make a few bucks.

Rating:
Summary: Lived up to my expectations, but did not exceed them...
Review: An excellent game, historically accurate and still as addictive as the first 2 Civilization games. It met my expectations by having improved graphics and new twists on diplomacy, trade and war. This made me re-evaluate my game winning strategy that worked so well with the last Civs. This game could have exceeded my expectation by having newer units and going further into the future with new technologies, etc. I felt that the game ended too early (scoring-wise), but there's already a modification out that can change that. In some ways the game also felt unfinished. Maybe there's an expansion pack in the future? I hope so. I'm not going to get into the changes in the game because there's so many I don't think there's enough room here. ... .

Rating:
Summary: THE PURSUIT OF PERFECTION !!!!
Review: Much improvement over civ II. Excelent graphics, excelent animation. Civilization is on whole differnet level of computer game. The people who gave this game less than 5 stars dont have a clue. This is the best simulation of real world country/culture interactions ever. You would have to be an actual world leader to have it more real. Oh and this game is highly addictive. So dont play if if you care about your GPA

Rating:
Summary: The game that is illogical
Review: This game defies all logic. The computer routinely undertakes illogical endeavors that make the game more frustrating than fun. As an avid fan of the prior civilization games, I find this one to be utterly senseless. It is nealry impossible to compete with the computer because it is able to complete similar operation in half the time. I would suggest that consumers look elsewhere for a good developmental game. Look back to Civilation Call to POwer or Civ 2; it'll be far more enjoyable.