Rating: 
Summary: A little Surprising
Review: I must confess to being a little surprised by this game. Firaxis has typically produced quite good games in the past, and Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire remains one of the best games of all time in my books.However, Civ III surprised me in that it offered little, if anything, new in this genre, except slightly better graphics. This is not necessarily a bad thing. However, the rest of the game is so poorly thrown together as to render it almost unplayable. Using Windows XP, the operating system bluescreens playing this game about once every twenty turns. The game crashes without taking down the OS at a similar rate, and the memory consumption (in the neighbourhood of 150+MB by 1700) is astronomical. Fortunately/sadly enough, I can typically run the game in the debugger and just step over the assembly instructions that cause the crashes. Much of this is issues with XP (crashes are almost always in sound driver code), as well as DirectX 8.0, but it's still pretty bad. Speed is also pretty awful. Even sitting there with my hand on the SHIFT key to speed up unit movement animation, the game regularly pauses with (Please Wait ...) and loads take forever. On a 1GHz system, that's sub-optimal. The inability to group units means turns take a remarkable amount of time as the game goes along, especially as i spend 90% of my time cleaning up pollution by 1875. The inability to curb corruption to any reasonable degree is frustrating, as is the AI that has other empires touchy as heck, but expecting you to be fully tolerant of their units in your space. This is the first game in this family in quite some time to not have little movie clips for the wonders of the world, which, quite honestly, I enjoy immensely, even after seeing them a hundred times. On the plus side, graphics are slighly better in this game, and the trade system continues to improve. The increase in choice in the number of empires you can play against is quite nice. If you are a Civ fan and ABSOLUTELY must play the latest and greatest versions of this, then you might want to give this game a go. Otherwise, go buy Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire, and have some fun.
Rating: 
Summary: It Came by Mail
Review: I like eating cheese, and this game didn't come with any cheese. If it had come with cheese, I would've rated it higher.
Rating:
Summary: Major Disappointment
Review: I have played Civ 2 for more hours than I can count. It is a great great game. I really looked forward to Civ 3, but it is such a piece of garbage, I can't belive it. Did these people actually try to play it before they released it ? I will stick with Civ 2. I've already thrown Civ 3 into the back of my closet.
DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY !
Rating: 
Summary: What are you all Talking about!
Review: I don't know about what type of game everyone is expecting, but I really looked forward to this game only to find out that it got bashed by a lot of people. I just think that most people are spoiled in the types of games they plan...sure there are going to be bugs, but one has just to get around them. I personally find the new highlights "wonderful" and think that the old stuff (which many people have accused of being a con) still great. I play this game with some of my friends when I am at school, and we play it while we do our homework. We have played mostly every single game known to date, and...well...I think this is one of the greatest. I like the features about the game which everyone seemed to harass. I think it's a great sequel to the game.
Rating:
Summary: What are you all Talking about!
Review: I don't know about what type of game everyone is expecting, but I really looked forward to this game only to find out that it got bashed by alot of people. I just think that most people are spoiled in the types of games they plan...sure there are going to be bugs, but one has just to get around them. I personally find the new highlights "wonderful" and think that the old stuff (which many people have accused of being a con) still great. I play this game with some of my friends when I am at school, and we play it while we do our homework. We have played mostly every single game known to date, and...well...I think this is one of the greatest. I like the features about the game which everyone seemed to harras. I think it's a great sequel to the game.
Rating:
Summary: Some much potential
Review: I was a big fan of Civ 2 and so I should be a fan of Civ 3 (especially since, without the graphics upgrade, it's essentially a patch release for Civ2) but I can't do it - simply too much waisted potential here. Are there things I like? Yea. I appreciated the concept of culture - especially when an enemy placed a city very close to one of my largest ones and a few turns later the people revolted and wanted to join me. But these were few and far between. For those with experience with Alpha Centari (a game many consider a Civ 2 sequal) think about some of the advances of that game (now years old) - shouldn't we have expected this game to be an evolutionary step above that? Why can't I combine a settler with a horse for movement advantage or add some military characteristics to a worker so they can defend themselves - more shields for a better unit. Imagine the advances in play if you could invest a ton of resources and tech into a small group of "Super Units" and then watch an enemy's numbers try to overcome you. Also, why no method to start mid game (IE - you have X amount of points to spend on cities and units in this region while your enemy does the same) or challenges - Two equal societies approach a rich land mass with the winner kicking the other off. Lack of network play is another negative but with the game left in the shape it's in I can see why it was left out. I find it hard to imagine that any significant amount of game testing went into this! There are better games to spend your money on! -Eric
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing: a Review for Civilzation 'Veterans'/Fans
Review: As a Civilization fan, I desperately wanted the third edition to live up to it's predecessors' reputation. I was in for a disappointment. There are many good points to be made but unfortunately these are shadowed by the bad. For fans of the Civilization series (and of Alpha Centauri and Call to Power) here is a general summary of the game: Negatives: 1) The AI is a disaster (my main criticism): illogical diplomacy and ridiculous opposition city building - The opposition civs totally saturate the map with their own cities.
2) Two many civs slows the game down dramatically (even with a P4 1.8, 256MB RAM I was waiting nearly a minute between years as the game progressed).
3) No wonder videos - just a picture: this was disappointing too.
4) The game progresses too fast that even at Chieftain level it is difficult to build the spaceship in time before your retirement. Positives: 1) The concept of culture (great move: a city with a high culture rating may force other nearby civilisation cities to change nationality)
2) More opposition civilizations (up to 16)
3) Better graphics (although this is to be expected
4) Concept of different leader personalities (not that this is really evident as you play the game)
5) More endings to the game (diplomatic, cultural, scientific/space, land domination or points victories)
6) Better technological progress
7) A game editor
8) Importance of raw materials (e.g. without uranium you can't build a nuke)
9) Concept of leaders and armies.
10) Experience levels of units (much like in Aplha Centauri)
11) Better advisor info and advise (although they don't talk to you!)
12) "View city" is back and better than before With a decent patch (that would sort out the AI problems) my rating could perhaps go up to 5 stars. But right now the game is quite frustrating and despite all the positives it is outweighed by lack of playability. My advise is to wait for a decent patch (if one ever turns up?!?)...then get playing otherwise prepare to be frustrated.
Rating: 
Summary: This is NOT civ 2 - and it shouldn't be confused with it
Review: I've read dozens of reviews by computer gamers saying things like "they got rid of this" and "it's so much worse than civ II." Why are they even mentioning the predecessor? This game is Civ 3 - a new game with new strategies to win. Don't get me wrong - this game is not perfect. It's probably not as much of a leap forward over the second civ than civ II was over the original civilization. This game is very similar, but emphasis has been placed on diplomacy, resources and culture rather than being able to produce 100 armor units and take over the world rather quickly. The AI is much smarter here, and I would say more aggressive as well. The deals you make may seem a little unfair, but it seems more realistic than the first two civ games. Also, city placement and access to resources are so very important. Since you must have certain resources to make certain units, the realism is maintained, even though it can be rather difficult to find what you need.
I believe that all this makes the third installment a different game. Not so different that longtime civ fans will be confused, but enough to keep them fans of the series. I also had no problems with installation, and the game has not frozen once (On a 733MHz, 128 RAM pentium III). If you play the game with your old civ and civII strategies in mind, you will be disappointed. Instead, realize that there is more to this game in building wonders and trade agreements than in total military conquest. Admittedly, I was first troubled that the enemy almost always has more military units that always seem equal or better than yours, but then I discovered that diplomacy actually WORKS in this game. The graphics are good - considering that this is a strategy game, and graphics are not all that important. I actually find the units and terrain to be much improved graphics-wise. I would say that this seems like a more cerebral game than the second civ. Like I said, those looking for pure military domination need not apply. All in all, I find this a very balanced strategy game, with military, diplomacy, culture (a very cool addition, making it important to build all those improvements!) and trade all being equally important. I say give it a shot - It's been a blast to play, and I can't find anything to really complain about.
Rating:
Summary: Give me a break!
Review: I have played this game trying to find some positive aspects for it. Give me a break list: 1. How can a spearman defeat my tank? I know there is some degree of imagination here....give me a break! 2. Why can't I group the units into an army more easily? I have to move each unit one-by-one and then watch them move!! Give me a break! 3. I can't tell other AI's to keep there distance from my cities, but everytime my scout passes by there worker i get nasty messages! Give me a break! 4. Resources.... can i find some please? 5. Espionage? Do you have 3000 gold ? Give me a break! Bottom line... maybe some civ2 fans might love the upgrade, but it would only seem good business to get some freash opinions on the game revamp. Please test the game before spending money!!
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: The game play is addictive like Civ 2, and the game AI is impressive but not better than Alpha Centauri. The game interface is ridiculously unintuitive and bad. It is a good game overall but definately not worthy of the current technology. But then again, anything after Call to Power is going to be a good game.
| 
