Customer Reviews

Sid Meier's Civilization III: Limited Edition Tin

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

Everyone talks about what a great improvement Civ-3 is over Civ-2. Well, I've played the game almost non-stop for the last 4 days and have realized that it's pretty much the same friggin' game with just a few tweaks. A quick patch could have made Civ-2 into this same exact game, but then they wouldn't get our ($).

But the game has some good aspects to it. First of all, the graphics have gotten a huge face lift. They aren't groundbreaking visuals, but they're a welcomed upgrade. Also, the animations for the units is done just right. Certain sound effects though are a little wierd (why the hell does a riflemen sound like he's firing his gun when he's just walking?). The music isn't unbearable as with most strategy games. In fact, some of the tunes are pretty nice to listen to. The addition of culture is nice as well, your boarders can expand simply by having a high culture rating. This allows for some huge and productive cities and it also lets you conquer enemy lands peacefully (your culture can spill over into neighboring territory).

Now the gripes:

The diplomacy system was supposed to be a big improvement over Civ-2 but it feels like the same system just with new leader portraits. You can request things like access to lands, trade embargos & mutual protection acts... so that IS new. But the system is generally pointless. The CPU players will always make heavy demands, often wanting to make trades heavily in their favor and rejecting anything reasonable. If you play on the easier levels, diplomacy is useless because you will surpass the other civilizations to the point where they have nothing to offer you. And if you play the harder levels diplomacy is STILL useless because the CPU players will surpass you and not want to hear a word you have to say. I also noticed (and this is on all difficulty levels) that nations that you haven't pissed off have no problem giving you their entire treasuries. Every game I played I would contact another civilization every few turns, demand a tribute of all of their gold, and they ALWAYS just hand it over. Maybe it's a bug, but I've yet to be rejected.

On the harder levels, the game will seem more like it's cheating rather than giving you good competition. You'll notice that no matter how quickly you work on that wonder, somebody ALWAYS beats you to it (and always by like 2 friggin' turns!). The computer musters up troops by means totally unknown. In a game as America, I was at war with neighboring Aztecs and they kept sending in hordes of their special unit guys. This wouldn't have seemed strange except for the fact that they had NO gold in treasury (they kept giving it to me when I asked for it) and all of their cities were size 3 and smaller, which means SLOW production. So how in the world do the Aztecs keep raising all these troops? The world my never know.

Combat itself is also a little unbalanced. How in the world a Russian Cossack (a guy on a horse) can slay a German Panzer (a friggin' tank!) is a mystery to me. But all to often you'll see archers beating riflemen or cavalry slaying tanks. I don't care how good of a horseman you are, you're not beating a tank! Not only that, but the special units are unbalanced. Some civs, such as Aztecs and Zulus, get their special units earlier in the game. This gives military dominance to the player who wants to use these civs. But then you have civs like America and Germany who get their guys later in the game, making them the dominant force in the end. So if you wanna play the Zulu, you'll get your little super-warrior guy in the BC times, but that won't do you much good against the American F-15 or the German Panzer later on the game (although it seems as though a Cossack is quite the match!).

Anothet thing, the Civlization characteristics are useless. I saw no difference in the speed of workers with an industrious nation. As for militaristic civs... I was playing as Germany (who is militaristic & scientific). Not only was I behind in technology to non-scientific civs, but non-militaristic civs would whoop my but in battle with the same units. Meaning that if my swordsman fought an American swordsman, I'd lose the battle although Americans aren't militaristic. The only real difference you'll notice is that Religious civs never have anarchy and Scientific civs get a free advance with every new technology age. Other than that, the other characteristics offer no real edge or personality.

All in all, the game is good only because it's the same thing as before. The new additions aren't necessarily good ones (such as not being able to rush Wonders), but I guess they had to make SOMETHING different. A lot of the streamlining takes away from the game (such as getting rid of spys, now you just pay to do espinage activity) but it's still fun. Is it better than Civ-2?It really should be, but in the end it seems as though Civ-3 is just lacking that fire that Civ-2 had. It has the ingredients of a good game, but that's because it's basically just Civ-2 with an extra layer of icing on the cake.

But you'll notice that the game doesn't quite grip you and keep you playing like Civ-2 did. You won't be able to put your finger on it. You might never really understand why this game isn't addictive when it very well should be. But as you play it, you'll never be able to escape the feeling that Civilization III is just missing... something.

I've been playing Civ (in one version or another) since the original came out long ago. I've been looking forward to playing Civ3, well, ever since Civ2 came out. I've been disappointed. Overall, lots of nice new features, but several items make this game unplayable. The killer flaw, to me at least, is the new role that corruption has in the game. No matter what kind of civilization you have, once your society gets big enough, and no matter what improvements you have, you will have overwhelming corruption. Playing a democracy, will all Wonders, and all city improvements, and 50% of the people in the town as entertainers, still have revolts and 98% corruption in dozens of cities. Not fun, and not realistic. I'm hoping that a patch will fix it, but considering they already have a good chunk of my money....

I have followed all the hype surrounding this title long before it was released. I have played every previous Sid Meier title to exhaustion, insatisfied if I had not mastered every trick. So, once Civ3 appeared in Amazon, I readily preordered it and set aside a week of my time for it.

Civ3 is certainly a great game. It is visually beautiful, its AI is impressing, and it is certainly a lot better that Civ2. However, I found several disadvantages:

* the immense corruption forces you to play with a max of 12 cities (unless you start hacking around in the editor, as I did).

* There is no unit workshop.

* As the focus of the game is now much less combat and much more empire management, you may play several games that are boringly peaceful all up to the modern age - and perhaps to the very end.

* The tech tree has a few modifications, but nothing original here. No original unit abilities, either. Apart from the culture idea, no significant changes to the old successful formula.

Now, I am not saying the game is bad. It simply does not have this extra little something that made Civ2 an excellent game and Alpha Centauri an excellent sequel. I expected more - what, I cannot really say. But I know I didn't find it in Civ3.

Civ III is a much more challenging game to play than Civ II (although that may be because I don't know the tricks of Civ III yet). I like some of the changes, like trade and territories. However, there are some serious problems with game-play in the "modern" era.

Ancient combat is much better in Civ III. It basically wasn't worth it in Civ II, but in Civ III you have to capture a few cities in the ancient world or you're left in the dust.

However modern combat has some serious problems. For starters, the air units can only bomb, which means they can't destroy enemy units. Which is unrealistic, given that the battleship became obsolete once the aircraft carrier was invented. In Civ III, you can't sink a battleship with a bomber. Gimme a break.

Another very serious problem with the air units is that their range is limited to 8 or so, and never goes up. This means that the effective range of a Battleship for a Civ that has Magellen's Expedition is 9 (7 moves + 2 bombard), where a Stealth Bomber is 8 spaces. Completely unrealistic and unplayable. I had enemies harrassing my shores when I had complete air superiority. They need to fix this. We now have real stealth bombers that travel half-way around the world to bomb Cavalry in Afghanistan. (Which I used to do in Civ II...)

Submarines are also useless. I couldn't even sink a defenseless cargo carrier with one. Their only use is acting as scouts so you can see more than 2 squares from your territory (yet another gripe - the fog of war isn't very realistic given modern sonar arrays, satellites, and "trawlers").

I think they're going to need a major playability fix for the modern era. If they do that, it will be a great game.

Sid Meier and his crew have done it again. I played it three-hours straight the first time I booted it up. It runs flawlessly and has enough tweeks that it is like a whole new game, but with familiar ghosts from past versions scattered here and there. I'd like to write more, but I've got to go play Civ III.

The games is good, a lot of bugs, but still a good game. Limited Edition, is only a tinbox with a poster inside, the rest you'll get with the standard package. [$] for a lunchbox is a bit over the top.

When Civ 2 came out it caused me to lose track of time. I have seen the same thing happening now. Civ 3 is a great game which offers many hours of entertainment which will make you wish there was more time in the day. For either the new Civ player, or a returning Civ addict, this game will not dissapoint. While it is an incredible game, there are some flaws (...). In some cases it is a metter of pushing the 'i believe button' (tanks vs. archers) because it allows balance in the game to a degree. Other flaws such as corruption can be fixed with patches (if you decide to take an easy way) available at Civ 3 fan sites by doing a simple search on the internet.
Overall it is an excellent game which shows that you don't need mindblowing AI to enjoy yourself on a lazy weekend.

I couldn't wait to get my copy of CIV III. To listen to the hype I was sure this was gonig to be a great game. I loved CIV II and surely this was going to be even better.

What a disappointment. The ONLY thing neat about the game is the diplomacy and even that drives me nuts sometimes. We're back to individual units in combat so there's no real benefit in having a large force. Don't even think about being peaceful in the begining of the game. The only way I do well is to attack attack attack. The combat system doesn't seem balance either. (see all the other negative reviews for why, my comments would just be a repeat of theirs.)

I wish I could get my money back. Definately a game that will collect dust soon as I (strangely enough) go back to playing CIV II. They may have fooled us into thinking this was going to be a great upgrade/next version but I hope when CIV IV comes out, we have learned our lesson from CIV III and just walk away. (...)

After winning this game (Civ3) I come to realize this game will challenge your thinking skills even more. For one, unlike the other previous Civilization versions...you must obtain strategic resources in order to upgrade city improvements and military units. That's right...just because you discovered "Ecology" does not automatically entitle you to build a mass transit system. Second, the art of negotiation comes into play with the newly designed diplomacy. If other nations have the resources you need...you can trade goods or even cities! There are lots more to talk about...but its up to you to decide. If I were you, GO BUY IT!!! This game is just that great :)

You get the nice box, sure, but the added stuff is not worth the extra $$$.

Buy the game in a "normal" box, I wish I had.