Customer Reviews

Sid Meier's Civilization 3 Complete

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

In my opinion this is the greatest strategy game of all time. You start off with one city and watch it grow and flourish into a country/civiliazation. The game features enormous depth along with the brilliantly simple interface which allows the player as much control as he/she sees fit.

I've played the PC version and I'm happy to say that the Mac version is identical. Runs great on my Powerbook G4 and Tiger.

I'm a Civ 3 addict. I've lost weeks if not months (to date) of my life playing Civ 3, so I decided to buy the Complete package since Aspyr released a free patch to make Complete (not the original) run natively on Intel Macs. (You can download the patch at Apple menu > Mac OS X Software...)

The enhancements of Civ III Complete are widely written about on the net, but I hadn't read about one thing which I'm particularly annoyed about. The game requires that you insert the DVD in order to start. Mounting a disk image (I tried both Disk Utility and Toast) doesn't work. This is endlessly annoying since the drive is loud, it takes extra time, you have to remember to carry the DVD if you go travelling, etc. If I had known this, I might have just saved my money and stuck with the original Civ 3, which ran fine with a disk image.

The copy protection is hardly effective against determined pirates (I imagine you can clone the DVD) yet it punishes those of us who have paid for a legal copy. What's the point of that? Still, if you can look past that, I wholeheartedly recommend the game.

Civ III is a wonderful game -- if it'll run on your Mac. The box is seriously misleading (it says it supports iMacs), with the result that I bought it for my new Intel iMac, only to have it crash and crash hard every time a city changes hands. I contacted Aspyr and they inform me that there is no fix available. I am a diehard Civ fan but I'm pretty disgusted by this.

In late 2002, I took a second job at a major electronics retailer and decided to use my employee discount on what looked like a cool game: Civilization III. That game changed my life... in the gaming sense. It was everything I ever thought a computer game should be: turn-based strategy with multiple avenues to test my ego and self-promoted genius. Above all features of Civ3, however, my most favorite was the customization of the game through the map editor and the wonderful online resources of the Civ community. (I've downloaded more Civ3 files than MP3s.) This allowed me to express my self-proclaimed genius with new rules, technologies, and units (and all the accompanying chronologies and requisites) at my discretion. Nothing could get any better, I had thought.

When Civ4 was being talked about, however, I couldn't imagine on what grounds they could improve - except perhaps making the game even more customizable and thorough. Well, you've already read about the differing features of the game: less micro-management, more diplomatic and trade features, new technology trees, enhancing popular mechanics found in previous Civ titles, and of course, going 3D with it all.

When playing Civilization IV, you sense an overwhelming POTENTIAL to be a really great game. In my mind, that potential has not been fulfilled, and I hereby advise you to purchase Civ3 Complete instead and forego Civ4 if you haven't chosen so already. If you have already purchased Civ4, let's send a message to Firaxis Games that they need to do better - let's stop purchasing Civ products until they are actually without so many bugs, that aren't rushed to be released for the holidays, and that don't insult our intelligence by requiring expensive "expansion packs" which merely add content that should already have been included in the original release.

Here is a list of comparative reasons to only own Civ3 and not Civ4 and boycott future Civ titles until something changes for the better:

1. There is no map editor in Civ4. Instead, they included a "World Builder" which is so awkward and strange. It is not like Civ3's map editor where you can set starting positions, resources, civilizations, and terrain BEFORE you play the map. The "World Builder" of Civ4 only allows you to alter scenarios from the installation or randomly generated maps. You cannot create maps from scratch - you can only change what has already been created within predefined parameters.

2. Who needs 3D graphics for a turn-based strategy game? Civ4 is not fully 3D; it merely allows a tilting view from ground level to overhead. That can be cool, but consider the offset: it is unnecessary for this genre, it diverts computer resources from other cool and more thorough features, and it makes the game extremely difficult to modify. For Civ3, there are well over 1,000 things you can either download or make yourself and put right into the game. You don't have to know XTML or Python programming languages as you would in Civ4. Civ4 requires advanced education (like a graphics design or computer science degree) to simply alter things like governments, units, buildings, and game rules. Waiting for others to design them (like the amateur online community or the professional expansion packs) isn't so fun anymore.

3. Expanding content for more money? This was a problem with Civ3, as well - its first expansion pack was a total waste of money because everything was later put on the second expansion pack. People bought the first expansion pack because they loved Civ3 so much and didn't know it was a waste. (Many video game makers are taking advantage of gamers in this way, not just the Civilization makers.) My point here is to fight back. We already know what they are going to pull: Civ4 has an expansion pack out there titled Warlords. It basically includes elements intentionally left out so as to somehow formulate a "new" product. In the base version of Civ4, you have the Great People: artists, scientists, merchants, and prophets. Hmmm... now we get the warlords, eh? Oh, and a few other civilizations and buildings left out from before. Nice try... Boycott this type of marketing out of sheer principle. Play Civ3 Complete until Civ5 comes out if you have to. Maybe Civ will be less of a cheap shot then.

4. The last reason why you should be content with Civilization III and completely forget that Civilization IV was ever made is the most simple. Purchasing Civ3 Complete right now (1) will cost you less than half of Civ4; (2) is fully expanded while Civ4 is still looking to make more money off of us; and (3) Civ3 has the very same level of addictive game play as any other Civilization title. If you have already dropped the cash for Civ4, simply do not support Civ4 any longer. In fact, uninstall it and put it in your drawer as a sad chapter of shameless marketing. Yes, Civ4 is fun, but it is does not live up to its potential in most ways. Playing Civ3 will take up your time quite nicely until they release a REAL title that doesn't take advantage of us so blatantly.

To conclude, my overall point to stick with Civ3 and forego Civ4 is this: without an easy, efficient, and overwhelmingly powerful customizing interface (like an awesome map editor that allows FULL customization), we are simply asking for "re-tread" products. The fact that Firaxis did not include a kick-butt map editor proves in my mind that they expect us to wait for their "expansions" to come out and spend at least $150 each before they move onto Civ5. Hold out with Civ3 Complete and wait until Civ4 goes away.

So not all of us have MacBook Pros to run Civ 4 on, and the old G4-based portables are "left with" only Civilization 3. Still, that's hardly a consolation prize. This is a game that can easily suck multiple nights' sleep from your schedule and still leave you saying, "just one more turn ..."

Runs full screen or in a window (the latter option I found by accident when I started the game up and had the Alt key held down). I personally prefer a large-size window, which then allows me to switch to other apps without having to save and quit. One warning on full screen: if your PowerBook is running on battery, you won't get the "running low on battery" warning, and eventually your PowerBook will just go to sleep. Bringing it back up will give you about five seconds to successfully save the game and quit out, or you'll eventually lose all power and have to start over from an auto-save. Just one of those full-screen-app side effects. To avoid that and other app-switching issues, run it in a window and hide your dock.

In any case, I'm sure most of the people reading this are familiar with the Civilization series. If you aren't, then buy this now and get familiar with it. Civ 3 added several new gameplay features from Civ 2. While this "Complete" version just came out for OS X this year, a "just the game" version had been put out by another company a few years back, for OS 9 (although I believe there was some success running in Classic). This version suffers slightly from having been released after Civ 4 came out for PCs, which added some significant new gameplay features over what Civ 3 had (and "corrected" some of the game design nits introduced in Civ3). However, as I noted above, Civ 4 on the Mac requires a pretty hefty machine, and if you haven't bought a new laptop in the past six months then you definitely aren't going to be playing Civ 4.

Civ 4, I've heard, runs just fine on G5 desktops. However, given the amount of time you'll likely be spending with your armies gallivanting about the countryside, your hind quarters might get uncomfortably sore sitting at your desk for that long. I highly recommend playing Civ on a nice, comfortable couch, or propped up in bed. On the other hand, you might find yourself a little more inclined to just let the damned brits have their way for a few hours while you catch a few z's if you weren't already reclined in bed ... Hmmm ...

I ordered the software and it came without a serial number and the software does not work. I have exchanged at least 4 e-mails with them and have still not been able to get it to work. I can only assume that the software that Amazon sold was a fraud. Very disappointing.

This is the most addictive turn based game I have ever played, and I don't normally like them. If you looking for a way to lose hours of your life this really is the game to do it with.

I had bought this years ago when I bought my G4 iMac. Later I downloaded the updates to make it compatible with newer version of OS X and the Intel chip. I let it go when I sold my previous Mac.

Since then Aspyr has totally updated this wonderful game. I was very pleasantly surprised that I did not have to download any updates. Aspyr has also removed the legacy code for the G4 and G5 chips. This version is much smaller which means a much quicker install.

I'm running Snow Leopard on a Unibody MacBook Pro. The game has been completely stable with NO problems while playing. One comment. You can configure how it will run by holding down the Command key while starting the game. It has crashed after quitting this mode. But when restarted it's been rock solid.

The software key that was printed on the back of the case was incorrect. It should be five groups of five characters each. Mine wasn't. Email support was not helpful, they seemed to assume that I couldn't follow instructions even though I gave the key in my email. I called the support phone number and was given a correct key which worked great.

Civ 3 for the Mac is another edition of the highly-successful Civ series and Sid Meier deserves kudos for another strong product. Gameplay is entertaining and a clear step up in many ways from its 1996 predecessor. Civ 3 succeeds in being a strategy game, but not one so thick with the strategies that it`ll take months to master it all.

That said I was disappointed by what was not present in the Civ 3: Complete package released by Aspyr. Civ 3 has cut out the Cheat Mode, one of the most noticeable features of Civ 2. The Cheat mode, a backdoor into the inner workings of the game, was the tunnel through which much of the game`s content could be altered by players. As a result of its absence the game is far harder to customize and tinker with. Also missing is the map editor, a feature which saw heavy use by Civ 2 fanatics (just check out the size of some online databases.) The Scenario Editor, through which Civ 2 could be turned into almost any strategy game, has been shown the door. My understanding is that several of these elements were included in the PC version so why aren`t they present for the Mac?

In gameplay terms Civ 3 is a clear triumph over its predecessor. I just wish we hadn`t sacrificed all that customizability in the meantime to get here.

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The Civilizations series produces the best strategy games on the market, bar none. The game came in fine working order but the serial number to activate the game was missing. I had to wait a whole weekend to get Aspyr on the phone to get a new one so I could play. In the long run, not the worst thing that could have happened, but it was a serious killjoy when the package arrived.