Rating: 
Summary: Civ 3 not as good as its forerunners
Review: Why did they have to do that? Why take out the strategic rules that make the game such a playable masterpiece? And the A.I. is sooo slow. Go and play Civilisation Alpha Centauri instead, its is at least 5 times better. For more civ reviews: http://www.otterit.co.nz/games/games.htm
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting and fun, but pales in contrast to competition...
Review: ...most notably "Rise of Nations". Which is why I wanted to briefly jump in and offer a quick piece of advice, if you're seriously considering buying this game, consider Rise of Nations first; it's more complex, less buggy, it has "real" multiplayer (that works excellent), and the graphics are considerably better.Hope this was a help...
Rating: 
Summary: Will Keep You Intrigued for Months!
Review: If you pay the ten bucks, buy this game, and don't find it to be a worthwhile investment, you're not going to enjoy any video game. This is my favorite game of all time. I was playing it for 6 months straight. You will only tire of it when you buy another game! I highly suggest this masterpiece by Sid Meyers!
Rating:
Summary: How can you hate this?
Review: Anyone who didn't like this had there head to far up there a** to realize that they were missing out. I can't stand all the other reviews ripping the game. This is just telling all those 40 year old men living in their mom's basment that this game is not meant to be played by rejects who have speant more time in their lives in fornt of the computer then outside. It is meant to be played by active teenagers like me who need a game to play to take a break on. I usually don't write reviews, but I couldn't stand all those people hating the game. So, to all geeks who hate this game, keep your biased moronic views to yourself we don't want to hear them. If you got a problem with this email me!
Rating: 
Summary: Just hold off a little longer . . . No multiplayer
Review: They took the game Civilization, cut it up in to three games and added some graphics:
- Civilization III: No network, or multiplayer. That's the one I'm reviewing.
- Play the World: The network support you were suppose to get for free.
- Conquests: Mod's and downloads are free at some companies. They would give them out, bonding with the customers, and providing a loyal customer base. In the late 90's they began to charge for them too. (Evil 90's marketing people. We will see that one again.)
But, if you like playing Civilization alone (against the computer), want the new graphics, or have never tried it, pick it up. It was never a bad turn based, board looking game. Fraxis split the company up, ran off to MD, and uses the French to publish to keep the cost down. Gotta do, what you gotta do I guess. Hang out there a little while longer and they will make the good stuff for us again. Currently, we are getting the run around with the last couple edition of the Civ's.
Rating:
Summary: Civ III limitations
Review: In their attempts to improve upon Civilization II, the producers of Civilization III have proved the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." While the graphics are beautiful there are numerous features that deserve debate. For example, the number of civilization "Advances" has apparently been increased resulting in longer, sometimes seemingly interminable, pathways through different "Ages." Increased food and mine production requires putting a railroad in every square until the map becomes a weird looking morass. "Wonders" consume incredible amounts of turns and can only be speeded up with a "Great Leader" gained through conquest and then there is the bizarre nature of weighted battles between military units. I've had a battleship sink itself by attacking a destroyer (?)! Three modern tanks are required to destroy nine primitive warriors, and thus "weakened" each tank can be destroyed by a warrior. C'mon! An opposing AI's civilization is considered more "powerful" simply because it has a large number of primitive units such as warriors and archers as opposed to modern armor, Bradley vehicles, and jet airplanes. Galleys with oars are only slightly slower than a destroyer which moves at the same speed as a battleship. I seem to recall that the designers wanted to de-emphasize conquest and city building by allowing for victory through diplomatic or cultural superiority for example. But gameplay seems to demand the former and simultaneously discourages it. Because of the increase in corruption as a function of distance from the capitol city, trying to achieve useful productivity in a conquered city becomes frustrating at best and essentially impossible if you've invaded another continent or island. If you don't continually try to establish new cities, you'll find yourself soon surrounded by opposing AI cities located in really odd places. You can attack them. If they're close to your capitol--fine, but if they're not, you'll struggle trying to get them to be productive. In the meantime, your population's discontent grows making the "war" sort of useless since productivity is reduced and building slows, thus limiting chances for victory by means other than war. In later stages, a newly conquered city will revolt unless you garrison it with an absurd number of units and build "happiness" improvements as quickly as possible. Gameplay becomes too ambiguous and irrational. You should build lots of units, but don't use them. You should build lots of cities, but not too far away. You should develop your cultural or scientific lead, but this gets limited by building armies--which are not really used. This kind of gameplay is not fun, it's annoying when spread out over the purported 540 turns it takes to play a complete game.
By far the most questionable innovation of the designers, however, is the concept of randomly appearing (and disappearing) "Strategic Resources." You may devote many hours playing a game only to discover that an essential resource such as coal, oil, saltpeter, or aluminum isn't on the continent that you occupy! Worse, the sole resource you have may be "exhausted" and thus disappear. If you can't obtain it through trade (no other player has it or will trade it) or conquest (with all of the above hassles) or establishing a difficult to defend remote outpost, basically the game is over. Maybe some find that to be fun. After 10 or 20 hours of play, it seems more like masochism to waste that much time going nowhere.
Rating:
Summary: Call To Power is better
Review: Wow, was I disappointed with this version of Civ. I LOVED Civs I and II, but this one is a step backwards. Activision's Call To Power is much better, even though it had plenty of flaws. Civ III is VERY biased towards the computer. You will be hard pressed to build wonders, take cities, expand, advance, and negotiate. Even with the latest patches. In this version, they introduced the cool idea of having to have resources to build units. That's great, but the other civilizations will NOT trade them to you, even when you offer cities, technology, luxuries, resources, etc!
Rating:
Summary: I Wish Better Graphics Weren't the Only Positive Addition
Review: I'll warn you before I give my two cents, I played both previous versions of Civilization religiously when they were first released so Sid Meier's classic strategy game is not new ground for my PC gaming tastes. As a matter of fact, that might be my biggest complaint about the second sequel. Except for improved graphics, there really wasn't much of a change between parts two and three. Sure, the trading and espionage system was altered, the wonders changed a little and diplomacy was improved, but if you played Civ 2 as much as I did, you should have no problem diving right into Civ 3. I might have used the in-game Civilopedia for a grand total of fifteen minutes, otherwise it was as if I hadn't even left Civ 2. I still had some classic Civ fun but it didn't last long. I spent more time with strategy games that were nowhere near as good as Civ 3 only because they offered something fresh. Now, if you've never had the pleasure to play a Civilization game, quickly pick the latest edition up because it might be the most addictive strategy game ever. Even to this day, I occasionally find myself reinstalling the game and spending an entire Saturday conquering the world. If you're a Civ fanatic or Civ rookie, I'm sure you'll enjoy the newest addition but for the rest of the PC gaming community, you might want to wait until Civ 3 and all its expansions are packaged together into an economy deluxe edition only so you'll get a chance to play more new content in the sequel. One warning for all gamers: On giant maps with the max amount of civilizations, this game can go slow, ESPECIALLY in later years when the continent is saturated with cities. Civ 3 boasts the best AI of the entire series but I'm not sure a smarter computer opponent was worth the grueling decision making time for the CPU. The game still captures the classic Civ magic we all love but I've played the first two games so often I'd rather see a remake of Alpha Centauri or Colonization which have yet to see a sequel.
Rating:
Summary: confusing
Review: This game looks great and I was happy to get it but it makes no sense wansoever. far to hard to find out and the reason the box weighs more than an average video game is because of its HUGE instruction manual! dont get this game unless u hav a lot of time and your good with stradegy.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent game, but not perfect.
Review: It seems that most of the negative reviews of Civ 3 are based on it being too hard. From the other side, Civ 3 offers tremendous advantage to someone who almost never loses at Deity level in Civ 2. The difficulty in Civ 3 is a blessing, not a curse. The best part of Civ 3 is the addition of resources and luxuries. Very true to history, and usually have a substantial effect on strategy. While the relative ineffectiveness of catapult/cannon/artillery is frustrating to a Civ 2 tyrant, different weapons can take their place. The common complaint about "16th century x shouldn't defeat 21st century y" is unfounded. History is filled with examples of primitive and inferior weaponry defeating higher technology. On the downside, the culture model is rather poor. Though as much as we all hate watching a city switch over to a rival, its not fair to call this feature "historically inaccurate". Game play is very slow in larger games in the later years. (Turning off animations helps). It can be difficult to get a game started in which it seems like the player is not at a severe disadvantage. I've also encountered cases where Civ 3 ignores my preferences for terrain conditions. (Gives me a panagea when I ask for lots of little islands). One of the complaints that does seem to have some merit to it is the AIs conspiring or "cheating" at higher levels. They do seem to have a sixth sense about which cities are weakest, and "computers only" collaboration is a bit too common. But in the end, the player can prevail. A lot of complaints seem to come from Civ 2 players who are unable or unwilling to modify their strategy to the Civ 3 model. The added flexibility of play is what makes Civ 3 a "must have" for strategy gamers, though I have gone back to playing Civ 2 more than once.
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