Rating: 
Summary: CivII + I
Review: I am sort of amazed at the complaints I read here. First, the diplomacy is not the be-all, end-all of diplomatic relations, but the system does allow for more varied trading than what CivII had to offer. I consider this a plus, even if it isn't quite as in-depth as it could be. Second, the addition of culture really adds another dimension to gameplay. No slash and burn here, you'll lose your cities. A strong culture is a win-win scenario for your own cities, it makes your citizens happier and can cause other nations cities to defect to you. Third, the resources also add significant depth. Luxuries and strategic resources both are very important for success. Fourth, back to diplomacy. Its touch of realism becomes more obvious now, you have to be bartering from a position of authority, either in culture, resources, or power, in order to get good deals. This can be difficult if you're not in a position of power to begin with, but once you're there, keep dealing. Having an advisor that basically tells you when a foreign leader will accept a deal really helps. Other civs must respect or fear you, otherwise they will sell you down the river. Frustrating? Maybe. Realistic? I'd vote yes. Fifth, I can't say much yet for military battles since my strategies have always been based on science. But since Fundamentalism is gone it seems the military might is harder than it was in CivII, which I think is a good thing. Though the leaders obviously give you an advantage, I'd have to say that anyone relying on leader production probably doesn't have a very good grasp of strategy in the first place. Consider leaders like stumbling upon a vital resource: count yourself lucky. Sixth, "small wonders". Some wonders are not limited to one civ building them. For instance, the Apollo program, exposing all the world map, requires that each civilization builds it to gain its benefits. I think this is a much better addition. Seventh, the so-called "tedious" end-game. Um... no kidding? For me, end-game was where I finally pulled everything together. It wasn't tedious at all, but sure it takes a long time to take a turn. What else would you expect from a very large civilization? You've been growing it all these years, you have so many cities and units to manage, of course it will take some time. All in all, I find this to be a welcome improvement over CivII. With intriguing modifications, most of my strategies from CivII carried over well. I'd recommend it without reservation if you enjoyed CivII.
Rating: 
Summary: NOT QUITE GAME OF THE YEAR MATERIAL
Review: I bought this game because I had heard so many good things about it, and the box said "Game of the Year" and "The Best Computer Game Ever!". So I bought this game, along with my new computer, and played it. The first time I played it, I did not understand what to do, but I got the hang of it quickly. The first thing I noticed was that the time flew by when I was playig, but the game itself didn't seem to fly by like the time. This game is very time consuming and long (I think that there is no limit to the gameplay, but I am not sure). It is also hard. Bandit tribes attack you constantly, unless you wipe them out, and you are almost always at war with someone. The AI is very intellegent, sometimes almost too intellegent, like when they attack, they know that that attack will hurt you civilization. The units are also very unbalanced- a spearman can defeat a musketman.I thought that, with this game being game of the year, this would not be a problem, but I thought wrong. This unbalance can get to be very annoying when you are trying to take over an enemy city, or fend off would-be invaders. The battles are also unrealistic- it is just two large warriors standing on the map fighting each-other. This is the same with everyone else- the workers, etc. Also, when you zoom in to see your city, all it shows are a few buildings and houses and roads. I thought that I would be able to build/design my city, but, again, I thought wrong. The trading is also unfair. The other civilizations always want an unfair trade, for example, if we are trading Masonry for, let's say, Writing, it can't be one for the other. It has to be: I give them Masonry and 200 gold, and all I get is Writing. Do you think this is a fair trade? And if I try to counter-offer, and take away the gold, my advisor says that they wuold be INSULTED by this trade! The people at Infograms and Firaxis did not do a good job at evening out the human player and the AI. The other civilizations also demand tribute, and if you deny, most of the time, they wage war against you. There are not many pros for this game, but at least there are some. The graphics are very good. Warning: DO NOT buy this game if you have a 32mb graphics card or lower. It will take a very long time to load and will not work properly. Only buy this game if you have a 64mb card or better. Trust me on this one. Another pro is, again, this game is long. Like a long movie, I feel that I get my money's worth. Short movies and game are not worth the price, which in this case, is 40 $. Overall, this game is O.K., not great. If you want soe GREAT games, check out Blitzkrieg, Medieval: Total War, Starcraft, and 1503 AD: The New World, to name a few. Only buy this game if you are looking for a challenge and if you have a lot of spare time!
Hope this review helped!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Very overrated and very mediocre
Review: I don't think that I have ever been as disappointed in a game as I was in this one. I used to think that if the game had "Sid Meier" on the box, it had to be a masterpiece. I guess I was wrong. "Civilization 3" is the original "Civilization" with a graphics upgrade, and then a few new features, most of which are extremely annoying. The only good aspects of the game are what was included in the original, and they haven't been upgraded to stay ahead of the competition. What's new is basically bad. To start with, this games most glaring problem is its "Diplomacy". Any professional reviewer who writes about this great new "diplomacy" system should resign in shame. "Diplomacy" in "Civilization 3" is a complete and utter joke. The game's new diplomatic options are pointless. Each civilization that you meet is extremely warlike and aggressive, and declares war on you shortly after you meet them unless you give in to their blackmail demands to fork over all of your gold. This means that instead of building cities and researching advances, you are fighting a two or three-front war before you even reach the Middle Ages. I played at least 10 games on various difficulty levels to see what would happen, and it was the same result every time. Since the computer advances faster than you even if you are spending all of your money on science, then it's only a matter of time before you are wiped out. Another annoyance that has been increased in the game is civil disorder. Cities erupt into civil disorder much earlier than the original game, which means that your citizens are rioting before you even have time to build a single structure, unless you station a bunch of military units there. The only improvement that has been made to the combat system is the use of hit points, which prevents a caveman from defeating a tank. That is the only improvement. The rest is mediocre, especially when you compare it to other strategy games out there. It is also unbalanced. Some units, like catapults, have been neutered so bad that they are completely useless. The way to take a city in the game is to just build up a massive army of the same unit and beat on a city in a war of attrition. Combat is oversimplified and devoid of the strategy and tactics that you find in good turn-based strategy games. These faults might be acceptable if the game could run without crashing, but even with all of the patches, this game locks up and crashes constantly. I had more trouble getting this game to run than with any other game released in at least the past 3 years. The graphics aren't exactly pushing the limits of today's systems, so I don't know what the problem is. If you don't mind getting the old game with just a graphics upgrade and a few bad new features, then you might like Civ 3. On the other hand, if you are looking for a great turn-based strategy, you have a lot of other options to choose from. The rest of the turn-based strategy world has caught up and surpassed Sid Meier's work. Skip Civ 3, or go see if you can find the original somewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: A Very Good Game!
Review: I enjoyed playing this game it looks great but the lag is that it takes hours and hours of my time to play...Sorry to say but I finally got sick of it and trashed it...it is now just sitting on my desktop! But before I got sick of it it got 5 stars now maybe a 3...
Rating:
Summary: Well thought out, but tiresome . . .
Review: I have never played Civ II, so Civ III was a new experience for me. It seems that the creators expanded the number of ways one can win, which is nice, but the game is still in rough form. I must agree with another reviewer who advised waitng for Civ IV. The biggest problem of all, of course, is the amount of time it takes to play the game. At the easiest game setting, it can take 13 or 14 hours to reach the end game. This is not a game for those who like to finish everything in one sitting. Expect frequent game saves. The diplomacy features are nicely done, and I would look forward to an expansion of possible dialogue options. Yes, the AI can pick on you and ruin your fun (some people complained about this in other reviews), but that is how real life works. This is a great game for seeing the different theories about how civilizations grow and expand in action. It definitely requires thought about how you will handle the situation given to you at the beginning of the game. (I will say that you can win in any situation, even when you are on an isolated island, provided you adapt to the hand that fate dealt you.) My complaints about the design include an impossible espionage interface. I could place spies, but could not get them to do anything. Also, others have noticed with amusement that the battle resolutions are a bit odd. For example, a 16th century galleon was able to damage and sink a 21st century nuclear submarine. The battles are supposed to be based on attack and defense factors (assigned numbers plus defensive walls, population sizes, etc.) with some randomization, but the random influence needs to be scaled back a bit. I would suggest creating classes of combatants that could reasonably be expected to fight each other. If two units of different classes meet, the unit from the more advanced class should have an easy win without randomization. Leaders should be explained in more detail; I have never been able to create one, even after setting barbarians to raging and destroying major enemy civilizations. The communications panel should be expanded to allow cantact with all known civilizations, as well. (You are currently limited to seven, or I have know idea how to do it if this is not the case.) Finally, the manual should be expanded or done away with. You spend to much time going back and forth between the help files and the booklet. In addition, the game takes three of four days to learn (along with about 100 pages of reading.)This isn't so bad for what you get back, but some may not be willing to invest that kind of time in a game that takes half a day to win. Overall, this is a good game for perfectionists with a god complex. (Deity is one of the difficulty settings.) However, it is a very bad game for those who prefer action or first person adventure.
Rating:
Summary: Civilization 3
Review: I have read a few of these reviews and I think some of the criticism is unfair. Civ 3 is a different beast to 1 and 2, where development of the civilisation rather than combat is a serious route to success. In terms of difficulty, it is hard, but I think some of the guys here who are saying it is impossible are replicating tactics from 1 and 2. Dimpolmacy isn't great - its a bit of a missed opportunity, but as long as you didn't want exactly the SAME game as before but expanded with better graphics, then I think you'll like it. As before in 1 and 2 though, end games drag on and on with turns taking eons. I think some sort of thought (along the theme of the armies but with less dependance on random occurance) in combining units (and also for workers for clearing pollition) would have made life a whole lot easier, and made my girlfriend less likely to turn on me with a knife and demand the computer be turned off....!
Rating:
Summary: Civilization III Review
Review: I love this game. It's the ultimate strategy game, and it got me hooked. The game is much superior to it's predecessor, Civ II, which I also have. It has better graphics, more diplomacy options, better editor, more realistic barbarians, better governments, trade, and is overall just a much better game. The only reason I didn't give this 5 stars is because not everything is realistic. For example, it doesn't have natural disasters, and I think it needs more civs.
Rating:
Summary: Great Game
Review: I loved the game it was the best with all the ways to win and the real life set up.I loved how you get to be diffferent civs and don't have to be the same person everytime. The best part of the game is though that you can customize it and add stuff to you like mods which are basically like expansion packs except created by kids and are usually quite interesting.
Rating:
Summary: CIV III - Boring
Review: I thought it would be much better than Age of Empires, but I was wrong. Just as in that game, you can never find a winning scenario. I don't know how some of these psople wrote reviews on winning and becoming supreme deity status. The game is slow, there is no diplomacy between nations. Everyone of them declares war on you. All of the opposing civ's reach higher status than you. The other problem is you always run out of resources and are down to 0 gold before you know it. You can't customize policies with other nations and they all want to blackmail you into giving up all of your gold.
I like Medieval better. Not as much detail but far better strategy game.
Rating:
Summary: An incredible improvement
Review: I thought that civ3 would not have enough to leave civ2 collecting dust, but i found that the new additions and amazing improvements have made civ3 an outstanding game that can be played over and over again. Another 10 to Sid Meier
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