Rating: 
Summary: An old friend!
Review: Ok as is mandated by good manners, I must admit that I was an adict of Civ I, and Railroad Tycoon. When Civ II came out, I was overjoyed. While many will say it is incremental to Civ I, it had so many improvements in interface and playability that it took the greatest Turnbased Strategy game and made it more accesible, and perfectly addictive (what with being able to play it in a window while doing other things...)Now of course I played the hell out of Alpha Centauri and tried out Civilization Call to Power although it never really pleased me the same way as Civ II did. I infact played Civ II more than any other game ever in any genre. Now Civ III is a great improvement to Civ II. The concept of culture is very satifying and closes some of the more annoying problems in Civ II (it is no longer safe to just throw a city into the middle of the opposition to hoard good spots. Eventually being surrounded by opposition will cause you to lose your city.) The requirement to trade for vital resources adds a real issue, as does the more sophisticated alliances. In an example I just played through, I spend forward to get to Steam Engine first, but found I had (despite a wide range of territory) no coal. No coal means no railroad tracks. There I was with an entire army of workers waiting to sweep through and give me rail roads and the speedier movement, and production increase. I looked around and no one was trading coal.
I sent out explorers and could not find anyone except one nation with coal. They were trading with me but no coal. There was almost no coal on the board. 3 resources. There were 10 countries. I was literally forced to solve this problem or be left behind in technology despite all my advancements. And worse, it was too dangerous to just go to war with the nation as they had alliances. The end result required a combination of diplomatic effort, and battle that really showed the worth of all of those features. I had to maneuver into being attacked (so my people wouldn't get too upset) and then create alliances to attack the allies of my opposition, mobilize my nation to a war economy. In essentially one hour every aspect of the new economic and diplomatic model proved itself. And this is at Chieftain level. On a second note, my Fiance who hates strategy games couldn't take her eyes off this one, and snuck in after I went to bed and played until morning. So from both the eyes of an old fan and a new convert this game is a success. Negatives?:
At later levels it is slow (not in graphics or interface but in opponent turns). Civ always took a while to move once you got to big developed civs and it hasn't changed. Still it is totally playable. You can't play in a window anymore, and it is stuck at 1024x768 (I wish it would either play in a window or work at 1280x1024) You CAN switch to other apps while you are playing. ENJOY!!!
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Game With Numerous Flaws
Review: I'll start out by saying that this is the first civilization game I have played. Civilization 3 takes forever to learn. I read the entire manual but that was still not enough. The manual tells you what you can do, but not how to accomplishment it. It also has a horrible index so finding anything is a challenge. I then tried the tutorial which was even worse, at first it is ok but eventually it just stops guiding you through the game. There is also a civilopedia which is an in game encyclopdeia. This is useful for telling you what each advance does and unit stats but not much else. Another annoyance is the read-me file. In the read-me file it has about a page of changes that didn't make the manual. Some are rather major such as not being able to conduct certain tasks and new civiliztion characteristics. In my opinion they should have released the game a month later and combined the civilopedia, manual and read-me file into one super manual. This would have made the game much easier to learn. Another problem with the game is that the civilizations are not very unique. Sure each one has a unique unit and unique characteristics but compared to age of empires the civs are all the same. However, the game is not all bad. The gameplay is great and you really get into it once you learn how to play. It is great how you can win without fighting(too much). This gives players all different ways to win. Finding a balanced strategy can be a challenge. Diplomacy is another great aspect. It is fun to wheel and deal to get just one more gold for whatever you have traded. There are numerous options and the people all have distinct personalities. The AI is relativly smart, for example if you sign a right of passage act and sneak attack an opponent nobody will even think of signing a right of passage act with you for many years because of what you did. This makes keeping your word in treaties important. Overall I feel that Civilization 3 is a good buy if you are willing to learn to play the game. If you like games where you can pop the cd in and play then this is not for you. There are some bugs and no multiplayer support but I am sure that there will be numerous patches to fix all of this. Pros:
Great Gameplay
Diplomacy
Numerous ways to Win
AI personalities Cons:
Horrible manual/tutorial
High Learning Curve
Civs are NOT very Unique
Rating:
Summary: Civ III - Yet Another Perfect Game by Sid
Review: Folks, A lot of these reviews seem to have been writen before the people got the game. Well I waited untill I got it, Played it A LOT, and formed a true founded opinion. This is my conclusion: Sid Meier must have sold his soal to the devil to make games this fun, adicting, and engrosing every single blooming time he makes a game!! The entire Civ III game is very well put together. Here are the highlights in my opinion: The AI of the computer opponents has REALLY impressed me. No more parking a defensive unit on a mountain and just watching wave after wave of enemies destroy themselfs on it. If they can't beat it easily, they'll probe you for weak spots. If they find one, they'll go around your defenses. Also, no more useless treaties and alliances. If you make a military alliance, you Allie will do everything within it's power to go kick your mutal enemies butt. Bartering for trade deals works great. The list goes on and on. Military Battles have been perfected. No more Stealth bombers randomly getting beat by a footsoldier from ancient times. All unites have 'hit points' that determine how much strength units have left. These 'hit points' can be recovered if unit rests in neutral territory or goes to a friendly city. Faster units will retreat if getting beat on to hard, thus often saving you expensive units to fight another day. Cities have governers now that will run the city as much as you want it to. Very usufull when you get tons of cities later in the game, and cuts down on rioting citizens a lot as the governer will fix an unhappy citizen before it comes to rioting. These are just a FEW of the improvements that I've seen over the older Civ games. The basic play of the game is still very familiar of the older versions able to completely keep the fun level of game, if not improve it! When you get this game, and you MUST get it if you like stratagy games, NEVER sit down to play it without a watch or you will find the sun rising and the time for work/school approaching... It IS that good. It does live up to, and even surpass previous Civ games. Civilization - The game lives on in a very big way.
Rating: 
Summary: Glacially Slow, plus Abysmal User Interface
Review: The user interface to this game renders it almost unusable. For that matter, the game is incredibly slow, at least on a 1Ghz processor. As you progress, the game flashes spastically from one part of the map to another in a clumsy attempt to show you opponents movement. But this is typical of the poorly conceived interface. I guess they must have rushed this out for the holidays. If you are going to spend hours and days doing something, is a coherent user interface too much to ask? The graphics (are aweful) too; very primitive; I expected more. This was my first experience with Sid Meier's games. He should find a different job, maybe a compost heap or glacier simulation. I found Age of Empires much more usable, and am eagerly awaiting the next version of that this spring.
Rating: 
Summary: Civ3 is a big step back ...
Review: from Civ:Call To Power 2. 1) It's not multiplayer
2) The combat is back to that old "one-at-a-time" system.
3) Units only reflected current tech, no futuristic stuff. Or lawyers, televangelists, etc.
4) The AI players *still* cheat, but you can't cheat at all. .. in short, why did they bother ? Does Sid need the paycheck ?
Rating:
Summary: A real disappointment
Review: I had high hopes for this successor but they were dashed almost immediately. The game is like an emasculated version of Civ II that runs far, far slower. By emasculated, I mean that there are actually FEWER game options than Civ II. For example, there are fewer city improvements available and no more units like spies and caravans. Combat is confusing with tiny icons that are difficult to tell apart. It is also impossible to zoom the map beyond three different levels. Diplomacy is a tricky nightmare. The graphics are glitzy but they do nothing but eat up drive space. Some may find this picky, but one of the things I loved about Civ II was the refrigeration improvement that allowed a second level of irrigation. That's gone too. Also, the game opens each time with that annoying animation. It was cool the first time, but not EVERY time... There is literally nothing I enjoy about this game that isn't offered in Civ II. I find myself playing Civ II instead of its successor. Civ III is a strangely cold, remote, and utterly soulless product. It is oddly telling in Civ III that when I pressed the "retire" button, it offered me the option to "end this nightmare." I gladly clicked "yes".
Rating:
Summary: this is to counter balance the people who gave it 5 stars
Review: yes lots and lots of people gave this game 5 stars even though it hadn't even shipped. Most of the people who actually bought the game didn't like it so this should even out the overall score a little. Maybe not.
Rating:
Summary: A few specifics
Review: A brief history is in order. I enjoyed Civ, I really enjoyed Civ2 (and test of time), hated A Call to Power and Alpha Centauri (oh the blasphemy I know). So how does Civ3 fit in? I like it. I like it a lot. Enough to dethrone Civ2 as my favorite all time "strategy game"? I haven't had it long enough to make that time of determination. Games of this nature don't leap out and "grab" out, it takes time. Most of the other reviews have dwelled upon the graphics (much improved), the interface (different, no better no worse in my mind), and some of the other "features". Rather than rehash what they've already said I'm going to touch upon specifics about the game and how they affected my style of play vs. Civ2. Note, these refer to the game being played at King level. 1) Settlers - These guys now cost two "population" points to build, and no longer "improve terrain". Terrain improvements are handled by "workers" that cost one population point to build. 2) Irrigation - Until you discover electricity you cannot use sea's to irrigate. You have to have access to a fresh water lake or river. 3) Building Wonders - When one city starts building a wonder, another city cannot start work on that wonder as well. When a wonder you are working on is built by another nation, your city automatically switches to another improvement. (so no storing shields). You cannot "hurry" a wonder unless you sacrifice a leader. Leaders are units that rise from elite units during victorious combat. Can be used to create armies (group three or four units) or used to hurry city improvements. Very hard to get. 4) No Captured Tech's - When you capture an enemy city, you no longer get one tech they have that you don't. Also Darwin's Voyage (Theory of Evolution) no longer grants you your choice of two techs, it gives you two techs at random from the list of choices available to you. 5) Governments - No more Senates! Yeah, but cities go into disorder often in Republics and Democracies when you are at war. The longer the war (and the more you are losing it) the unhappier the cities become. You can literally starve a city to death trying to keep them happy. No more Fundamentalism. 6) Trade routes - No more trade routes between cities, rather you trade resources and luxuries between nations. This means you cannot increase the amount of "commerce" of a city. Also no more food trade routes. 7) Air units - Are "stationed" at a city (or aircraft carrier) and no longer move like other units. They can "bomb" squares with in their range. 8) AI Wars - The various computer opponents do hold to their treaties with you...at least as much as you hold to them. They will also fight and destroy each other, if you can convince them too. 9) Borders and culture - Borders are clearly defined in Civ3, and are determined by your city culture (certain city improvements lead to an increase in culture). If a resource is not within your borders you cannot use it, even if it would be with in the boundaries of your city. In addition you must have a road/railroad passing through a resource to be able to get the benefit of it. 10) Resources - Some units and improvements require certain resources before you can produce them. Not all of these resources are visible at the start of the game. They become visible after you make the discovery that allows you to "see" them. If you don't have a key resource, such as "Iron", "Horses", "Saltpeter", or "Oil" within your borders and you cannot trade with another nation for them, you are screwed. Or you go to war. Those are the top ten things that have impacted my play over Civ2. Now some things that didn't change. You can still expect to see a spearman (the Civ3 version of the Phalanx) take out a tank and you will see your own mechanized infantry get destroyed by an archer.
When you are "Number 1" no one is friendly to you.
The AI always knows where your troops are.
AI's will go from being at war with each other to being the best of friends the second you attack one of them (as long as you aren't allied with one of them anyway). A word about War.
It has been said that one of the goals for Civ3 was to make it less combat orientated. If that was a real goal, the developers failed at it. In Civ2 my civilization went through three passes. Expansion, Tech, and Conquer. In Civ3 I'm in combat almost from the start to finish, either for resources, tribute, or "lebensraum". It really seems like you have no choice.
Rating: 
Summary: I was expecting more from a sequel for a classic game.
Review: My opinion of Civlization III is based on the fact that I have played its predecessors. If you haven't played any of the Civilization games, by all means, purchase this game as quick as possible because you have no idea what you're missing! A time encompassing game primarily about world conquest, you control a civilization from caveman times to the present day and expand world borders attempting to win the game in different ways. The third version of this popular series still follows the same gameplay format that made it a universal favorite and that's why I had problems with it: It didn't change much. I suppose it's difficult for a software company to live up to a famous title's reputation when it's already one of the classic strategy games of all-time but I didn't feel like I got my money's worth after playing this game for a week. Frankly, I'm already bored with the game. There are some new and interesting changes to the game. One of the most obvious new features is a system that relies on specific resources (oil, rubber, etc.) rather than allowing you the ability to build anything you choose. Another great new feature is the expanded diplomacy option with just about anything in the game available for trading with other countries. The game is much smarter now and computer opponents make better decisions. This may have led to what I find one of the biggest problems in the game, the incredibly slow running speed. The more computer controlled civilizations you allow in your game, the slower it runs from turn to turn. Even with low amounts of civilizations, when the game has progressed to a later point in time and the world is heavily populated, it can take at least a minute for the computer to decide its moves in one turn. I have a decent system and would recommend that anyone with a slow processor be prepared to practice their patience as you will be playing games that will take a LONG TIME. I have no problem with strategy games that take a while before completing the objectives but Civilization III loses its appeal when I make decisions in a few quick seconds and then wait a minute or two for the computer to complete its turn. If this is your first time to play the Civilization series, the instruction manual is phenomenal and it is equipped with an in-game encylopedia that describes all units, buildings, wonders, etc. to you. I was disappointed that the game didn't come with enough new aspects to force me to read the instructions much. I jumped right in to Civilization III as though I didn't miss anything from the previous version. The provided scenarios/maps aren't near as good as the other versions and civilizations do not start in their historically correct positions on a simulated world map. I would check the internet as there are bound to be plenty of interesting maps and modifications created by players. Also, the game does not come with a multiplayer internet format. Knowing the recent history of PC games, the company will probably release a costly expansion pack in later months that will allow you to play this on the internet with other players. A great game for anyone that is new to the Civilization series but in my opinion, only a fair game for returning players.
Rating:
Summary: Sell the house sell the kids!
Review: Out here man we are all his children man. We are all his children.
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