Customer Reviews

Civilization 3

5 star:		(177)
4 star:		(98)
3 star:		(78)
2 star:		(66)
1 star:		(94)

 

 

I read the comments of another reviewer whose thought process was along these lines: "I'll keep playing until I get X, then I'll go to bed/dinner". I had to laugh, because that same thought process has kept me up many a night playing "Civilization 3". There is no way to describe the addictiveness (not a word, but you get the idea) of this game.

Having played the original "Civilization" back in college in the mid-90s, I should have known what I was in for when I got Civ 3. I had no idea how much more addictive it would become in this new and improved version. And what an improvement it is. The graphics are amazing, with highly detailed units (fully animated now) and terrain squares. The user interface is much simpler - no more menu bars at the top of the screen. Visuals of other world leaders are now animated, with facial clues to their moods and attitudes towards you.

Gameplay is also different. There are now multiple ways to win the game including (for the pacifists out there) cultural and diplomatic victories. The ability to build and support various units has also changed with the idea of strategic resources - they appear only when technology that uses them has been discovered (which makes sense - if you did not know what to do with oil, why would it be a resource to you until you could use it), and your access to any given resource at the time you need it may not be easy. So even if you discover Flight, you cannot build jet fighters unless you have access to aluminum (either through trade or by having deposits of it in your territory).

Empire management is done through advisors for domestic activities, trade, diplomacy, military and science (the science advisor is never satisfied with his budget, and always complains that he needs more funding - how typical), and by directing the activities of your workers, military units, civilians and so on.

Having read some of the other reviews here, I have to agree that there are a few quibbles to nitpick over. Like the inequities in battle units - I have had elephants and barbarians invade and take out cities fortified with jets and tanks. Like the slow progress of science even at unsustainably high budget levels. But my complaints are few, and my hours of sleep are growing fewer. Once you become immersed in this game you'll know what I mean.

To answer another reviewer's question, the game runs just fine on Windows XP. I have not noticed any problems with graphics, animations or gameplay (my system is an Athlon XP 1.33 gHz with 128 MB system RAM and 64MB video RAM). "Civilization 3" is a great game for novice gameplayers (it's fairly intuitive and easy to learn) and for fans of the older versions of the game and fans of strategy games in general. Just be prepared to say bye to your friends and family and any outdoor activities. You won't be seeing them for a while.

Where Civ II is merely an add on of new improvements, units and graphical improvements to Civ I, Civ III will be that and a lot of new things.

Civ III goes into areas that were not explored by its predecessors, mainly Civ II.

In Civ III, economic and diplomacy will play a much more significant roles. In fact, economic, warfare and diplomacy will be interwined. Changes in one will affect the other.

For example, ivory, a resources that is required to keep the civilians happy, will be indispensible to the success of any Civ III players. If the Civ III players do not have access to ivories, they will have to explore and colonize land that do have ivory, or negotiate trade treaties to obtain ivories. If colonization and trade treaties fails, then players can always opt for war.

This feature will add a new dimension to the gameplay. Players will no longer be colonizing land randomly. They will have to give a careful consideration to whether or not it is good to build a city here to obtain resources.

Diplomacy will also be greatly improved. Players will no longer be negotiating the same items. For example, players in Civ III can negotiate maps for technologies, money for maps, and so on. Players can also request a civilliation to stop exporting certain resources imperative to creation of certain armies to another civilization so that that civilization will not be able to build armies.

There will be empire boarder and cultural points. The higher the culture rating that your civilization is, the more ilkely that a small cities of rival civilization may be assimilated into your empire, thus becoming a part of your territory.

There are many many more new features that will make this game a much more of an empire building game than just a war game. It requires more tactical considerations in the areas of economic, diplomacy and war. no longer is this game just about war. It is aslo about acquisition of resources and development of economy. It is a major step in redirecting the focus of empire building games.

I'd like to address the negative reviews I've read of Civ3 in this forum. It's obvious there's a huge range of reactions. I disagree with anyone who gave this game less than a four, since I think it's a huge improvement over Civ2. From the comments of reviewers who gave this game three or less stars, I can see that they didn't have a grasp of how to play, or what was really happening with the game. Also, I've been laughing my head off at people complaining about Greek aircraft carries blowing up their simple galleys!

First, my gaming experience: I've beaten the game a couple times now at Monarch level, but haven't yet conquered Emperor. The game IS hard, and this contributes to the entertainment I've reaped from the game. The AIs are very aggressive, which means you MUST maintain adequate defenses as a deterrent to war. If you do not have defenses and/or response teams, the AIs will realize war with you will be profitable, and they WILL attack.

On higher levels, the computers are cheating, which means that instead of following the exact rules a human must for production and development, they are skipping steps. The only way to combat this is by using brain-borne strategies the AIs are (currently) incapable of developing. Here are a few such tactics.

1: Surprise attack. The AIs aren't very good at detecting or executing suprise attacks. You can qeue up a huge army on the enemy's border, and as long as you don't cross into it, he won't even blink. Then you drop the hammer and sweep through their territory.

2: Domination of resources. A critical (and wholely realistic) factor in the Civ3 world is the control of limited resources required to building units and advancing. For example, if you develop The Wheel and see horses in open terrain, you had better get those horses, all of them, into your territory before the enemy does. Procurement of horses gives you chariots and horsemen, which have the HUGE advantage of withdrawing from combat when losing.

This example carries over into all other game resources. Without rubber, you have no infantry. Without oil, you have no tanks, no planes, and no battleships. You may have to attack enemy cities that control these resources. Or, you can raid those resource sites, cut off access by destroying roads, which prevents the enemy from using those resources to build needed units until he can build the road again.

3: Geographical placement. The AI doesn't consolidate their empire according to geography as well as humans can.

4: Selling captured cities. If you capture a city, and expect that you can't hold it, it's often beneficial to sell the thing. This way you can get lots of advances and resources for what may be zero cost, depending on how the battle went. Better yet, if the city being sold belongs to a civ with a strong culture, the city may revert back to your enemies, or be capture by your enemies, allowing you to recapture and resell it. Muhahahahahahahaaaa!

5: Save, inspect, reload. Save the game. Spy on an enemy city to determine its strength and the units there. Once you know this, reload the game. This way you save hundreds of gold pieces, but you still know what's there.

These are just a few tactics I personally use. It's impossible to name them all, and considering the depth of the game, I'm sure there are many more out there you can find.

Now, addressing the complaints about the game:

1: Why do I need a better system to play? This is because Civ3 is designed to be BETTER than previous Civs. Better AI, more options to win, better graphics and better interface. This all demands more computing power. If you just want something that runs on a P2 300mhz, why not stick with Civ2?

2: Combat is unrealistic. Not so. In fact, I love the combat simulator. It's all match. One complaint here is that simple units can destroy advanced units. I don't think those who complain are looking at the match, unit type, and geography. For example, how can samurai beat a tank? Here's how.

Samurai attack strength is 4. Tank defense strength is 6. The combat math adds the attack strength, 4, and the defense strength, 6, and comes out with 10. Then it rolls a random number, and say it comes out with 1-4, it will give the Samurai the victory, and the tank will lose one hit point. Now, the tank has a 60% chance of winning the battle against the samurai. The samurai could win. Two samurai would almost certainly win.

Now, this is because tanks are OFFENSIVE UNITS. A tanks strength is halved when it's just sitting there, acting like a pillbox. On attack, a tank strength is 12. So, add 12+4 = 16. A random role between 1 and 16 is thrown. If the number lands between 1-4 the samurai defends. If the number is between 5-16, the tank wins. The tank has a 75% chance of winning. Three out of four samurai are toast.

Realism in attack strengths: Most reviewers who criticize the combat cite that simple units have no way of combatting more advanced units. For example, how is a samurai going to defend against a tank? Well, you're assuming that both parties are on a perfectly flat, open field, and the buttoned-up tank is going against a samurai standing with his sword. In reality, I can only imagine that a bunch of samurai would not do this, but build barriers, try to make terrain traps for the tanks, etc. You also have to factor in the losses from normal breakdowns and maintenance, which can be significant. Also, from my observations, the computer doesn't cheat with combat numbers, but production numbers in the cities.

Also, geography plays a huge part. Put your infantry in a hill and the hill boosts defense 50%. That means defense for infantry goes up to 18. Infantry in a mountain have defense of 24. Try attacking that treat and see how far you get.

Basically, you could put a spearman, defense 2, into a city on a hill. Now he has defense 3. Then, put a wall around the city, and he has defense boosted 100%. Now his defense is six. Try attacking him with anything less than cavalry and watch a Bronze Age spearman tear you a new one. Heheheheheh. Good thing - the computer doesn't like to make walls and barracks.

2. Corruption and waste. If you cities are too far from your capital, you're screwed. You need your cities spaced strategically around the capital, otherwise they don't pay you money, etc. The courthouse option, IMHO, is not strong enough because it barely decreases corruption. The Forbidden Palace, though, is an awesome tool, and virtually eliminates corruption in the cities surrounding the place it sits.

Well, I guess I rambled enough. I just love this game, because there are so many ways to win, so many different paths to take. The only thing I don't like is it's too addictive! I need to sleep sometimes.

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.

For a decade, since I was 13, I've played the civilization series, and I've greatly anticipated the arrival of the third Civilization game. This is everything Call to Power wasn't, and more. First off, if you take off the good graphics, take away the great AI, and chisel off some other features, you have the same game that you had 10 years ago. But even so, that gaming premise has never grown old. The new resource system is terrific, it makes world trade and diplomacy much more important than it was in the previous two games. The aquisition of precious resources, especially those that pretty much start new eras, such as coal, seem to be clustered in spots. there was a time in my game, when the only source of oil on the entire map readily available was in the hands of my traditional enemy, the aztecs.
Second, wars are much harder to win. Morale and training are much more important than even in Firaxis' most recent god game, Alpha Centauri. No longer can you construct a handful of powerful units, you must build overwhelming armies of top of the line troops to win a war. AI doesen't make this easier, they're pretty smart, taking advantage of terrain, and often having massive armies of their own. Transit times between areas of conflict are also more important. No longer can you capture a handful of cities on the other side of the world and let the cities there build the units for you. These cities are uncooperative at best, often rejoining their mother country if you don't defend them well enough.
Diplomacy is where the game excels greatly. No longer can you establish a peace treaty with an agressive civilization. No, you have to pay them, and guarantee that you won't attack them. The AI is great at diplomacy, and an inexperienced player will soon be surrounded by an AI coalition if they aren't experienced. Resources have a great effect in diplomacy, a civilization with all the coal on the map will often have better relations with other civs.
In general, at its core, Civilization III is pretty much the same game I played when I was 13, but the add ons adds the prospect of replayability high for many players. In other words, BUY THIS GAME. I accidentally stayed up till one on a monday playing, horrible, barely was awake at work....Tip: Never start a game with settings on Huge World, with 70% water, you'll soon find that transit times for ships are unbearable, especially in wars, where it takes 20 years for top of the line troops to reach their destination, and by then they're bound to be outgunned by newer troops.

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.

While Civilization III *should* have been a significant update to the Civilization games, it is not. In short, it is a huge disappointment. If you already own Civilization II, stick with it--you'll be happy you did. And if you don't have any Civilization game yet, try to get a copy of Civilization II on Auctions first before you you actually give your money to Infogrames.

The problems with Civilization III outweigh its advances:

1. The game was released with a series of bugs worthy of a beta version at best. For instance, cavalry units can vainquish tanks, archers can vainquish bombers. It's just not realistic.

2. There is new AI for a more fulfilling and complex diplomatic side to the game. That said, you can keep track of only eight civilizations in your diplomacy screen--while you are playing with 16 civilizations in the game. Furthermore, the diplomacy and trade screens are clunky to use. They are reminiscent of Windows 3.1 approaches to UI, not Windows 98, 2000, ME, XP, etc.

3. The Cheat Mode feature has been removed, which was an important learning tool in the last version.

4. No animations in the diplomacy and Wonders. When you build a Wonder, you find yourself profoundly disappointed with the popup window telling you you did it.

5. True alliances are possible, but they are in general worthless because your allies do not consult you on their military maneuvers. You enter an alliance, and you are sucked into a war you didn't want in a turn or two.

6. Air units are less fun to use in this version of the game because of a new one-turn "range and return" approach. You feel like your air units just never fly!

There are some important and meaningful improvements to this game (e.g. diplomacy, cultural wins, culture in general) that should have been in Civilization II, but overall Civilization III is a flavorless and insipid "update" to Civilization II that Infogrames and Sid Meyer released at least 6 months too early. As I said, the game is more like a beta than a final product (there are already three patches to download to correct all the problems). It's just not as fun as Civilization II.

I would dissuade anyone from spending their money on this game--Infogrames and Sid Meyer should be punished for this sloppy and uninspired release. Let's encourage them to focus on quality assurance and creativity for Civ 4. But if Civ 3 portends the future of this series of games, Civ 4 will be a profound disappointment as well.

I cannot recommend this game.

Ok, so in eager anticipation of the release of the third installment of the best, and most time consuming, game in computing history, I went ahead and did the logical thing: I dumped my girlfriend. It would have happened eventually I figured, the choice being the game or her and I figured I might as well make a clean break of it-lest it interfere with the countless months of fun that lay ahead. I eagerly installed the game. A short while later I watched breathlessly as a warrior with a stone axe defeated my conscripted infantryman armed with a modern firearm. Then he defeated a second infantryman and then a third and a fourth. Later on still, I tried to exhale slowly as my hardwon accumulation of ironclads were ambushed and sunk to their last rivet by a lessor fleet of aggressive wooden galleons. Appealing to my neighbors for aid I discovered that it was too late, if only I had accepted their earlier diplomatic proposals-but I had foolishly found their requests for the entirety of my treasury and the secrets of Engineering, Masonry, Conscription, Physics, Combustion, Communism, Democracy, Chivalry, Flight and Gunpowder to great a price to pay.
Now my long empty nights are not filled with the chirpy soundtrack of civ 3 but of the lonely ghostly ballads of Roy Orbison as I cry myself to sleep.

When it comes to entertainment, I'm a blood-and-guts kind of guy-and video games are no exception. But the first game in my alphabetized library is not *Half-Life* or *Max Payne*. Since I enjoy epic games as much as shooters, I bought and played *Civilization III*, the latest in Sid Meier's brilliant world-strategy series. Not exactly a sequel, I find *Civilization III* a polished and streamlined remake of its predecessor.

What do I mean by remake? Well first let's take a look at the series. The original *Civilization* put the player at the head of a human pre-civilization. His or her job was to lead the people into recorded history, across 6,000 years to the present. The player could choose governments, build a war machine, control emigration, and develop science. Back in my day, *Civilization II* ruled the roost of intellectual strategy games (mainly because my computer could run it). But it also expanded greatly upon the original game, by increasing the types of units and concepts, by improving the existing units and concepts, and by adding various editor programs and expansions. After *Civ II* Activision developed a separate series-*Call to Power*. *CtP* added an entire future age; complete with a story and timeline. In other words, *Civ II* and *CtP* came that much closer to being epic and diverse.

*Civilization III* does not step forward; it runs in place and shows off its muscles. And I have to admit; this game looks and plays pretty good. *Civ III* initially loads a bit slowly on my 1.05 Ghz and my 256MB. In-game reloading is quick and animation is generally smooth. The graphics easily surpass the previous titles, and includes unit animation as in the *Call to Power* offshoot. Looking at the map window is like looking at a real satellite image, and the terrain tiles blend together. I can't complain about the interface; the multiple menus of *Civ II* have folded into a single screen here. Handy buttons allow all unit commands to be quickly and easily issued by point-and-click (only the appropriate buttons will appear for each individual unit). I can complain that even on my gaming platform *Civ III* crashed several times, particularly when I was using catapults to bombard a rival city.

The programmers at Firaxis don't bombard the player with features either. The watchword around the office must have been "slim and sexy." Homogenizing the menus and adding a unit orders panel seems to have led to a complete revamp of the previous SOP. Trade no longer depends on special units; instead it is handled through the diplomacy screen. Diplomacy is accessed directly from buttons on the main map screen. Speaking of diplomacy, embassies and spies are also handled by buttons instead of units. Military units also no longer consume resources from individual cities; instead they simply cost gold from the national treasury. By the way, the player must now take extra caution when choosing city locations-terraforming doesn't exist in *Civ III*. Finally, the numbers of civilizations, government types, and victory time limits have been reduced.

All the reductions and subtractions do not allow this game to step forward, at least when compared to the considerably longer and more developed *Call to Power*. But Firaxis doesn't let Civ *III* step back either. Many important additions make *Civilization III* relatively dynamic, and the most important to me is the concept of Culture. Previous games lacked political boundaries, which meant the player's civilization was always a collection of city-states. Any rival civilization could walk right in and start planting its own cities. In *Civ III* your cities still claim personal resource squares, but they also generate a Culture influence. Each city's culture grows if the right improvements are built. The areas of influence not only overlap to claim an entire mass of land and sea, but neighboring cities may defect if their own culture is too weak to resist. Along with the concept of Culture is the concept of Strategic Resources, which are needed to build certain units and improvements. Civilizations will automatically collect any resources falling within the culture boundary, provided said resource is connected by road or rail.

It may seem to the reader by now that *Civilization III* is more realistic than its ancestors. Many of the changes and eliminations have been balanced out by concepts such as Culture and Strategic Resources. The manual explains most of the revisions and additions.

And yet the world of *Civilization II* remains. From the graphics to the game play, *Civilization II* is polished and revised to make this current incarnation. I was a bit disappointed at first, when I realized that so many concepts and units were cut back. But once I realized *Civ III's* place as a classic remake, I relaxed and just played the game. For a shoot-`em-up guy like me, that's pretty civil.

Some will criticise Civ III for not being a radical departure from Civ II. But I don't know how fair this is. Civ is a winning formula, and I am happy to see it built on once more.

The problems I will mention have frustrated my enjoyment to some degree, but it is still an addictive game. I am tempted to give the game three stars for the lack of multiplayer. Most games players these days expect online gaming as standard, and I was very disappointed to see Civ shipped without it. However, the makers have made the game very customisable (editing of rules and maps is allowed) so I expect to see some good fan made scenarios in the future.

An (incomplete) overview of the big differences from the predecessors:

Culture and nationality: Each Civilization has specific abilities (example: the Egyptians are industrious, meaning they build faster, and religious, meaning they build religious buildings especially fast, and have no anarchy between governments. Other Civs have different special abilities). Unlike Civ II, you now have national borders (so no more pesky AI players dumping cities in your midst). Strong culture expands your borders, sometimes at the expense of weaker cultures. Your people also have culture; they know which nation they belong to. You can improve your culture by building certain city improvements and wonders of the world. If one of your cities is captured, the inhabitants already in the city retain their national identity. If your culture is strong and that of the conquerors is weak, your people may actually overturn enemy rule and revert to your control! A strong military presence can prevent reversion, but the spectre of governing cities full of unhappy foreigners is a deterrent to war (something that Civ really needed). Strong culture can also cause cities from other Civs to defect peacefully to your control. Lastly, an impressive culture will improve the demeanour of other leaders and will make them easier to deal with.

Resources: You now need to have access to various resources (by ownership or trade) in order to build certain things. For example, without iron you can't build knights, and without coal you can't build railroads. Luxury resources (such as gems) make your people happy, and can also be traded. The presence of resources makes the game much more interesting.

Combat: Combat is probably the area that generates most controversy in Civ, and I'm afraid Civ3 is no exception.

Air units can't move as such, you just base them in a city, and they have an operational range of x squares. They do their missions and if they are not shot down, they return to base automatically. To someone who has lost a lot of planes by accidentally leaving them floating around in the air, this is a big improvement. But you have to manually assign them to their missions for every single turn. It would be nice to put them on air defense until further notice.

It's good for combat to be slightly unpredictable, because it makes war risky (another much needed disincentive to war) but it's a little too unpredictable in this game. I've lost modern infantry units to Bronze Age spearmen and seen submarines sunk by transport ships.

War discontent seems to be solely dependent on culture and government. Foreign nationals in your city will always be upset at war with their motherland. People in a republic or democracy will not tolerate war at all well, which is fine, but they pay no regard to how the war started or how competently you marshal your forces. In Civ3, settlers and workers (guys who build roads etc) are drawn from your city population, so you have a strong incentive to look after them. But military forces are merely manufactured goods, and nobody mourns their loss. This can make fighting very difficult, because both you and your enemies can have unlimited tolerance of attrition. A common AI tactic is to send hordes of obsolete units to certain death, just to wear down your defenders, and then send the proper units in.

Another major problem is that you cannot use roads and rail in enemy territory. Rail is fair enough, because your enemies aren't going to drive trains for you, and to give you unlimited free traversal of their territory would be silly. But why should the road quit working? My armoured counter-offensive against the Babylonians came to an abrupt end when I found that my tanks could only move two squares at a time in enemy territory (while their defending forces had the unlimited movement afforded by rail). The no roads restriction makes any tactical offensive action very difficult. Defenders don't have to bother about defending or sabotaging transport links, and attackers are reduced to a crude, massed frontal offensive, creeping forward and winning by attrition.

Zones of control (where you were prevented from passing close to enemy units) have gone. You can now pass by enemy units, but some units get to take a free shot at you. Another infuriating feature is that this only applies to passing units, and not approaching units. So you can pass between two fortresses adjoining a city attack the city with impunity (you would have to move one square further along before the zone of control would come into play). One good thing about this scheme is that an ancient unit can't block a tank from passing by (don't worry, they don't get free attacks either).

The user interface is generally good (more subtle, less popup windows), but there are a couple of big problems: there is no facility for you to group your units so that they move with one command (so you have to move units one by one).