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Dominate the world through diplomatic finesse, cultural domination, and military prowess. New technologies, wonders of the world, and great people expand the scope of the game. Improved combat options provide finer levels of control for enhanced war-making capabilities. More interactions, alliances, and realistic AI responses put players in the middle of negotiations, trade systems, and diplomatic actions.
There's an advanced trade system to manage resources, trade routes, and spread of technology. New elements of culture, nationality, and the arts help players plan and focus empire-building efforts. An active world generator creates more realistic maps and organic terrain features. Complete game editor screens allow for advanced customization.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
49 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Good ideas. Poor execution,
By Nullus "N" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Sid Meier's Civilization III (CD-ROM)
This sequel enhances both the good and the bad of Civ II. The graphics and sound are both far superior toCiv II, as would be expected. And the new concepts, suchas allowing cultural domination, diplomatic victory (taken from Alpha Centauri, no doubt) are good touches. Making trade a high level decision is, pehaps, ahistorical, in that rulers rarely became involved in the details of trade until AFTER a particular item was proven critical, but I won't quibble over this particular interpretation of economic history. New minor wonders, a few new inmprovements, all good. BUT......There are several flaws that make the game frustrating to the point of being unplayable. The most significant is the rampant, uncontrollable corruption and waste in the cities. As with the earlier version, the further you are from the capital, the worse the corruption and waste. But this version takes this to an unworkable extreme. "Distant" cities on the same continent waste almost all product and steal almost all trade -- and forget cities off continent. The court and police improvements do next to nothing to stop it, even under Democracy. No historical society could have survived the levels of corruption and waste that regularly exist in the game. Trade is another problem. It quickly becomes apparent that the AI will accept nothing less that 1/3 of your income in return for next to nothing. Don't even bother trying after you get into the A.D period. Speaking of the AI! The A stands for artificial , NOT AMORAL. The cheating was often bad in Civ II, but it's stunningly disappointing in Civ III. AI Warriors consistently knocking off tanks!?! Yes low-tech may triumph occassionally in the real world, but not nearly as often as in Civ III. The Mac version shipped without a terrain editor, but one has been promised by the MacSoft website. I hope it is as versitile as the Civ II editor, and that, unlike the Alpha Centauri editor, we'll be able to score the maps that are user made. The Alpha Centauri editor didn't allow this: I guess the developers thought too many users might be "cheating." Which brings me to my last point. I get a very strong feeling that the makers of this game think there is a "right" way to enjoy the game. PLEASE! It's a game, a toy. Some days gamers want a challenge, on others we just want to kick (...). Given the quotes from Kant and Keirkegaard in Alpha Centauri, I wil assume that there are at least some philosphy readers on Meier's team, so I implore you to remember your semiotics. Linguistic utterances that are closed and allow few interpretations are like technical manuals, those that offer multiple interpretations are like poetry. Civ II was, for the most part, poetry. Civ III feels like a big, slow technical manual. And how often do you re-read technical manuals?
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great game, even better,
By A Customer
This review is from: Sid Meier's Civilization III (CD-ROM)
As a game, Civilization 3 is a much more sophisticated game than its predecessors. Rather than trying to provide a detailed discussion and evaluation of each change, I'll just note that the most improvements have taken place in the real of diplomacy and economics. Specific changes worth noting include: much more sophisticated diplomatic interaction; three different categories of resources exist (bonus, luxury, and strategic), each with its own purpose; national boundaries (like exist in Alpha Centauri); national identity of citizens (i.e. if the French conquer a Chinese city, the population remains Chinese and may still have strong ties to the Chinese empire); trade routes/networks that are based on the existence of roads and navigable waterways rather than caravan units; historical resource discovery (i.e. you don't see where strategic iron resources are until you discover Iron Working; you don't see where oil sesources are until you discover Refining); etc. Also new-- and quite crucial to CIV3 is the idea of *culture*. Temples, libraries, cathedrals, universities and cultural wonders (like Shakespeare's Theatre) give 'culture' points to your civilization. If you have a high culture, cities from rival civilizations may voluntarily and peacefully choose to join your civilization.... or if you don't have a respectable culture, your cities might revolt and join another civ! It is also possible to win the game by having a 'cultural' victory, in addition to the traditional 'military conquest' and 'space race' victories. There are of course plenty of other changes I could mention, but hopefully this will be enough to show those familiar with the previous versions of the game that Civ3 is a major leap forward.So much for CIV3 qua game-- let's talk about CIV3 qua software product. I've heard a lot of complaints from folks about how *slow* this game is on the Mac-- but I haven't seen this at all on my G3 (running 8.6) at all. Perhaps those folks who are complaining about long delays are running this on System X? Or maybe they're playing this on the *max* level, with a "huge" world (rather than the normal standard size one) and with all 16 possible civilizations at play (rather than just the normal 7)? I just haven't seen any problems like this at all. Complaints about the relative unhelpfulness of the manual and of certain aspects of the user interface, however, are dead on. The manual is awkwardly written with crucial information hidden away in appendices. The online 'Civilpedia' is a much more reliable guide than the manual... although even it falls short in some ways. Some things, like the establishment of embassies and the conduct of espionage require very specific-- and rather unusual user actions to activate... and it's almost impossible to figure out how to do them etiher from the manual or the civilpedia. (Thank goodness for fan sites telling how to do these things!) One other thing I should mention is the extraordinary degree to which this game is really being *supported* on the Mac. The company is putting out regular patches to fine tune errors, and even to make minor revisions in the game due to fan suggestions. As a Mac gamer, I have to say I really appreciate that. Anyway, all in all-- excellent game, if you like empire-building strategy cames that have both military and economic development to them (e.g. previous versions of Civ, Alpha Centauri, Masters of Orion). I don't know if this would appeal to folks, however, whose main gaming activity is to play first-person shooters like Quake and Doom. I'd give it a solid 5 as a game, although I was tempted to lower it to a 4 due to the weak manual and clunky user interface. But the game itself is so good, that I think it more than makes up for those problems-- so a solid 5 it is!
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great fun, but with two HUGE flaws,
By
This review is from: Sid Meier's Civilization III (CD-ROM)
This game is, of course, an evolutionary step above Civilization II. It provides basically the same gameplay, but with the addition of nifty features like resource-dependent production, negotiable deals, and spheres of culutral influence. Also, the largest maps really are HUGE now, making it unlikely that you will ever reveal the whole thing without lots of map trades or the deployment of satellites. Lastly, the terrain generation algorithm has been refined to the point where the "random" geography finally resembles what you see in the real world, with distinguishable jungles, deserts, and mountain ranges.However, there are two massive, glaring flaws here. First, the user interface and subsequent documentation is attrocious. Only the most basic commands are available on screen; everything else must be done through command keys, and those are given only in a tiny appendix in the back of the manual. Furthermore, there is no consistency in what is and is not clickable on any of the city or advisor screens. A real step back from Civ 2. Second, the AI is a real jerk. In diplomacy, it often makes irrational demands, and in combat its units regularly win impossible battles. Also, I simply do not understand how the various AI nations can make these huge technological leaps and maintain these massive standing armies, all without doing any landscaping or building any improvements. In a word, the AI cheats, so plan accordingly. (I used to have an additional paragraph here, describing how much of a dog the Mac port is. Slow and buggy. However, with the 1.21g patch, most of the outstanding performance issues have been resolved, so I've edited this review to remove the complaint and add a star.) 2115|R2BIISI5LDHYF9;2115|R2FVZDTDPHM4MI;2115|R30Q36QU8J0PGJ;
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