Rating: 
Summary: A Classic, Upgraded
Review: Everybody's favorite strategy game has now appeared in its third incarnation, and its bigger and better than ever. It looks better and plays better (if a bit too slowly). And there are several new ways to win--including the familiar world conquest and space-ship methods, as well as diplomatic victory and cultural victory. There's also a "histographic" victory--i.e., if you have the most points when the game ends (2050), you da man (or woman). (Alpha Centaurians will be disappointed, however, to discover that there is no economic victory--sorry all you Libertarians!)
But it's not for the casual player. Those expert Civ2 addicts who used to complain that the AI was too easy should be more than satisifed now. It's far more clever now. But the casual player will probably find it virtually impossible to beat it, even on the lower levels. The game play is more realistic: you can't build units until you have the resources to do so (want a musketman? you better have or trade for saltpeter). There's a flaw, though--you may find your source of oil has been mysteriously used up, although you don't even have any use for it yet. (Sid! will you fix this, please!)There's a neat rules editor for those who want to alter things a little (want the Great Library to expire at the invention of the "printing press," which is really more logical than the default "education," be Sid's guest!). Of course, if you alter them too much the game will either crash or it will be so easy it won't be fun any more. Your choice. One thing you may well want to do is to alter the colors sported by the valiant French citizens and units. They look like an explosion in a raspberry sherbet factory. (Be careful not to accidentally select a color used by another civilization though.) The rules editor, of course, can't deal with the annoyances from before: unit movement is still majorly clunky (why you can't just move a stack of like units simultaneously I will never understand) and the AI doesn't prioritize when your turn comes round again. Say you're waiting anxiously for it to be your turn again so your brave Americans can wreak havoc upon the treacherous Babylonians, who've declared war on you--again. And you're all set to unleash your brave cavalry, but the AI, of course, starts your turn off in a far corner, removed from the action. And when you find your cavalry ready to roll out (one of six), as soon as you move the first you find you are, bewilderingly, back in the far corner again. Some quibbles: the scoring of the game is unbalanced in favor of territory. It doesn't matter if you have seven happy cities on a small continent. If the AI (suspiciously rapidly) plonks down 15 crummy ones on a large continent, his score is better. There's too much pollution, too soon. It appears during the industrial age (roughly around 1800, 1750 if you're clever), and you are expected to set your workers to clear it, when in point of fact _no_ civilization did _anything_ about pollution until after World War II. There is far too much corruption, especially considering that the game now is more integrated, in the sense that the cities make up a nation-state rather than a series of loosely connected city states. The game seems remarkably stable; the version I installed did not crash, but there is already a bug fix posted on the Civ3.com website. You'll probably want to download it. All in all, it's probably what civ-ers have been waiting for. And now, I suppose, we shall all be waiting for Alpha Centauri 2. So it goes.
Rating: 
Summary: Ages-long Concept, Excellent Execution
Review: Pros:
*It's a Civ game. Unlike Civ 2, which was mostly an enhanced Civ 1, Civ 3 lobs completely new features into a never-stale game. Those unfamiliar with the Civ franchise are encouraged to buy a copy, fast. *The new features are done well. Culture is a new concept that is both intuitive for the theme of the game and an excellent mechanic, done very well. Borders, seen in Alpha Centauri, are more fleshed out and useful. I figured the trade table would be similar to Alpha Centauri's, but it's much, much better. Some things--such as small wonders and startegic resources--I always thought should have been included in the original two. *Unique civs seem to be a half-hearted attempt to make an Age-of-Empires style game, with a few nods to Alpha Centauri. But it works! The only problem I forsee is if they ever want to add new Civs (which would be cool) they would have to repeat the same advantage pairs, or else create new ones. Still, the new units are pretty cool if of limited use. *Replayability. One gripe I've had about most recent strategy games is their insistance on using scenerios exclusively for the game. A few make half-hearted attempts to make a "randomized" scenerio generator, but these are always pitiful. Cons:
*Some things just don't seem to have been playtested enough. Science advancements drag on and never seem like they're going anywhere. Corruption and Waste are painfully high--even with cities 10 spaces away from the Palace, under a Republic, seem to have half of their shields lost to waste. *The designers reached back to the original Civ to get some concepts, and this was a Very Bad Idea. One is the fact that a few wonders are continent-only; I always hated it in the original Civ and was glad they ditched it for Civ 2. But it's back, and it effectively makes overseas conquests undesirable unless you're going for a full conquest win. *Wonders seem impossible to finish. This is actually more realistic--you can't be working on the same Wonder in two different cities, you're not warned when a rival is about to finish their Wonder, you can't rush it--but it makes the actual gameplay less fun. I could live with one or two of the above restrictions, but not all three. *The ditching of the firepower part of units was probably a good idea, but there should have been some other way to differenciate between unit eras--the aforementioned elephant vs. tank problem. In Civ 2, this was solved by granting a bonus to the later unit, where victory was not ensured but highly likely by the more advanced unit. Now, there's no difference. *This is a perception thing: it seems like cities are more difficult to defend. Granted, this works both ways, but I'm not sure why they implemented it. (And, statistically, I think it has stayed the same since Civ 2; like I said, it's just a perception thing.) *They reduced the number of Wonders! No, ...., I want MORE Wonders! (Okay, if you add the Small Wonders and Large Wonders together, there ARE more wonders now, but they shouldn't have gotten rid of some of them. I *liked* Marco Polo's Embassy, the Eiffel Tower, and the Statue of Liberty.) So it seems like there's more Con than Pro. Not so! While I'm not going to say the Cons are mere quibbles, I am willing to give the benefit of the doubt and note that it's due to expectations. Civ 3 has been an enjoyable experience since I began, and I heartily recommend it to any fan of the genre.
Rating:
Summary: Decent but ...
Review: have been a fan of Civ 3 ever since Civ 1 came out. This newest edition to the Civ family is great in that it is the first one that Sid Myer has had anything to do with in years. The graphics are awesome but there are some problems. We are back to the same outmoded AI that allows a warrior to kill a tank. Also I made the mistake of exchanging World and Territory maps with everyone on my first big game. That was a huge mistake since it lengthened my game time by HOURS since when you have a world map and access to other tribes movements you have to wait for all of their units to move before you can play. That can take a huge amount of time and even though I turned everything off in graphics that I could I still had to wait for every other tribe to move. Those problems aside the new diplomatic options and the new victory options are a lot of fun. There are several new ways to win Civ now that can considerably shorten each game -- if that is what you want to do. It also individualizes the game play a bit more for those people who like to play with different strategies. Now you can win through cultural domination -- world domination, through space race, and a couple of other options. It's fun. This is a great addition to the Civ family of games -- with just a few glitches.
Rating: 
Summary: best if you don't have Civ2
Review: I really, really wanted to enjoy this title, having spent many many hours playing Civ1 and Civ2. However, I found that it suffers from "sequel-itis" - they tweak this, they tweak that, they modify the other thing, but there's nothing new and compelling that really makes it that much better than Civ2. Indeed, many of the changes seem designed to take experienced Civ2 players and "stick them in the mud" - they have added all sorts of penalties that penalize large empires, and slow down the research tree, which wind up just making the game more frustrating, not more enjoyable.
If you don't have Civ2, I'd strongly recommend this one - if you do, I don't know that it's worth $... for a marginally better game.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best!
Review: This is a classic history game. You can choose from over ten different empires to rule. If you're new at this game, there's a tutorial mode, and you have advisors. You can even customize your own planet! This is a very entertaining strategy game.
Rating: 
Summary: This is 10 years behind the times
Review: I just purchased this game and I am very dissipointed. I am a avid Age of Empires player in all three versions of AOE and the Civ 3 AI leaves much to be desired. With AOE you don't have to take turns and the AI is advanced to where all other players are moving at the same time you are. Civ 3 is like going back to a computer chess game. 700 megs of disk space?? That is nuts. They need to get some tech education and then write a new game. Don't buy this. Get AOE instead.
Rating:
Summary: Better than advertised
Review: I had expected this to be nothing more than an improved-graphics upgrade to Civ 2. I couldn't have been more wrong. The changes that have been made to the game make it much more fun to play than Civ 2 ever was. I love the way cultural improvements effect the cities around your coutry, and the new diplomacy is awesome. I can't understand the reviews calling this buggy; I know there are some issues later in the game, but here's already been a patch released for those, and I had no problem whatsoever getting the game running on a 400Mhz processor with a 4 GB hadrive with Windows ME. If you enjoy turn-based strategy games, there is no better than Civ 3!
Rating:
Summary: Don't Buy
Review: This game was rushed to the public and needed about 3 more months of testing to work out all the bugs. You think if it is the third in the series it would have all the features of 1 and 2 but it doesn't. This game had so much potential to be the best ever but Fraxis ruined it. Just buy a copy of Civ 2 and wait for Civ 4.
Rating:
Summary: Widowmaker
Review: My wife has named this game "The Widowmaker" because of its extremely addicting nature. I recommend it unless you need 8 hours of sleep per night or have a job and small children.
Rating:
Summary: Go back and play Civ 1 again
Review: I am a long time gamer, and Civ 1 is my absolute favorite game of all time. When I first got this game, I was very impressed with the new units, the new system of advisors, the improvements upon civ 2, so on, and so forth. For a long time, I spent countless nights, as other gamers have, just playing, endlessly, rediculously, and for periods of 20 hours. Stay up all night playing, go get breakfast, sleep until 4pm. That was my day. However, there are a few complaints I have which lead me to the 3-star review. 1: The AI seems to get unfair advantages such as impossible unit victories (spearmen taking out armed calvary) at higher difficulty levels. Higher difficulty should be like playing against a more skilled opponent, not a godlike one. 2: The system of corruption makes world domination stupid and pointless. One facet of this game is the ability to conquer the world. In this game, however no matter what you do, your remote cities that are not on the same continent as your capital will practically NEVER produce ANYTHING. (Even if you are a democracy and the cities have courthouses.) In my opinion, this makes the game practically unplayable, for you must base every attack from your homeland. 3: The game "ends" at year 2050. Why? That is so stupid. I can't even say it enough. STUPID! 4: Automated Workers are NOT customizable, and they value food production over resource production. 5: Domestic advisor values building aqueducts and hospitals (expansionist) over building ANYTHING else (annoying, you can't turn this feature off, or customize it). ================================================= Now that you've read what I thought the weak points of the game were, I suggest you go play Civ 1. You can still find it available for download at some sites (search for "civwin"). You *will* find that Civ 3 is quite similar to civ 1. With some key differences, which I will not go into here. But, as a seasoned gamer familiar with all types of games from FPS to RPG, I suggest you try Civ 1. The graphics are entertainingly bad, and gameplay is much more fun.
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