Amazon.com: Civilization 3: PC: Video Games

515 Reviews

5 star:		(175)
4 star:		(100)
3 star:		(80)
2 star:		(66)
1 star:		(94)

Average Customer Review

3.4 out of 5 stars (515 customer reviews)

Share your thoughts with other customers:

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Put your coffeemaker into overdrive - you'll be up late, December 11, 2001

By	Greg Seupaul (Denver, CO USA) - See all my reviews

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.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

245 of 279 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Much new features!!, June 7, 2001

By A Customer

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.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Five stars if it wasn't so ADDICTIVE, January 22, 2002

By	Jeremiah J. Timmins (Laconia, NH USA!) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.