A review of Civ3 by korn469

[korn469]

I absolutely despise internet explorer and the vbulletins because at times when i am editing my post i will hit the backspace button and then it will send me back to the previous page and when i hit forward it always! loses my post. I am an idiot who should have typed this in word first, because this is about the tenth really long post i have lost at apolyton. With that here is a second (probably abreviated) attempt at my review.

Ratings criteria
I will rate civ3 in the following areas

Standard features of the Genre
Gamplay
Game Balance
Interface
Graphics
Multimedia Extras
Major Flaws
Minor Flaws
Innovations

i will use a simple graded rating method

A (+A, A, -A): Defines or redefines the genre.
B (+B, B, -B): A solid contender in the genre.
C (+C, C, -C): A typical game of the genre.
D (+D, D, -D): A game flawed in either concept or execution.
F (+F, F, -F): A game flawed in both concept and execution.

Standard features of the Genre
On the setup side Civ3 was lacking in standard features. First and most importantly it did not include multiplayer, which has been a standard feature since Civnet (and certainly since SMAC and CtP) of just the Civ type game genre, not to mention the strategy genre as a whole. It would be nearly inexcusable for a RTS not to have multiplayer, no matter how good its AI was. Besides the lack of multiplayer, Civ3 also shipped without boxed scenarios. This too is a major oversight, and it is a sign that Civ3 was rushed out the door. After experimenting with the scenario editor some myself it seems that the scenario editor is more of a map editor/mod creator than an actual scenario creation tool. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that the scenario editor is unable to place cities or units. I might not have learned how to create those structures on the map yet, but if it does have that functionality then it is hidden in the interface. Another standard startup feature would be the ability to create flat maps with the map editor but that is unfortunately lacking from civ3 as of now. The one major standard startup feature that makes truly innovative scenarios impossible is the lack of an event trigger (ala starcraft or a more traditional events.txt). Without this feature then scenarios will be little more than glorified mods. Practically speaking scenarios were not included in this release of Civ3.

As far as gameplay goes, Civ3 does seem to feature the full range of standard features. It has a good diplomacy interface. It has a workable combat model. It has covert actions. It has a number of ways of winning the game. It has a unique civ option. Although not having a detailed economics model like imperialism, it has a very nice abstract resource system that could be a glimpse of the wave of the future. One very positive aspect of the economics systems is that you don't have to have a PhD in logistics to make it work. Civ3 has all of the standard features in the gameplay department. Although the extent of its innovation leaves one wanting more. The economics system is spectacular (though it does have a few bugs in it), the culture system is nice, stacked combat is good, but at that point one starts running out of innovative new things to add to the list. There are a number of small gameplay additional features like mobilization, conscription and forced labor; while they are very welcome additions that will add a new aspect to strategy they don't change gameplay in a significant way. Yet, I expect to see them in all future additions of Civ. Some features like atrocities have been somewhat glossed over in civ3, they exist on some level but certainly not on the level of SMAC. Other features like noncombat units from the CtP series have been completely left out, seemingly for the better.

Gameplay
Civ3 builds upon the well established turned based formula Sid created so long ago and it takes it to new heights. Certainly not dizzyingly new heights but in general it has streamlined many of the tedious chores that the player had in civ2 and it makes a good showing in this department. Gameplay in Civ3 is solid and it certainly doesn't let the franchise down. Parts of the game grows somewhat monotonous but that is more of a balance issue than a gameplay issue. Civ3 certainly wont leave you on the edge of your seat, but it maintains the one more turn feeling of the previous Civs

Game Balance
Air units are again the major source of imbalance in Civ3. They went from being horrendously game breakingly overpowered in SMAC to being horrifyingly impotent in Civ3. To date Civ2 provided the best balance for air units, but that isn't saying much. The most frustrating part about this imbalance is that the actual implementation of air units is far superior to the Civ2/SMAC implementation of air units. For their cost, air units don't give the player the bang for their buck they deserve. Bombard units in general are less than stellar buys. While i completely disagree with firaxis's decision to not allow air units to sink naval units, or destroy armored units in open terrain I do think that air units could be fixed by tweaking their stats.

Nuclear weapons on the other hand are too weak for their cost, and nuclear weapons are unable to destroy a city. Ten ICBMs (cost: 6,000 shields compared to 3,200 shields to build the entire space ship) could not destroy a size one city, and that is wrong. Nuclear weapons need more power if the player ever expects to gain even a slight return on their shields. Nuclear weapons greatest power is the ability to turn the world into a large desert, but it won't come cheap. They are ecological weapons in civ3, not terrifying strategic weapons. As it is now, besides special occasions it is much better to invest shields in ground units than it is to invest in nuclear weapons. Think about this, it would take 4 ICBMs to reduce a size 16 city to size 1. For the price of four ICBMs and The Manhattan Project, a player could build five hospitals, Battlefield medicine, and still have 2,100 shields to build an attack force. That's 9 modern armor and 9 mech infantry with 30 shields left over. Moreover, once a player captures an enemy city they can choose to raze it and then not only is the city destroyed the player gains a few extra workers from it. It appears that Civ3 did include the concept of mutually assured destruction, however they way they implemented it calls for weak nukes. In civ3 it appears that nuclear weapons are not destroyed when a city gets nuked, so a civ will always have the ability to nuke an enemy back as long as their cities survive. This means that in Civ3 if cities die from nuclear weapons that nuclear weapons might unbalance the game. So in order to prevent this civ3 made nukes impractical at best, completely ineffective at worse. Firaxis needs to change this. If you think about SMAC, nuclear weapons had far greater destructive power. Fusion nukes were available mid game and a lucky shot might completely destroy two or three cities. A singularity nuke could easily destroy five cities, all for far fewer shields.

One more unit related comment, and that is, naval units deserve greater movement points pretty much across the board.

Another source of imbalance is the governments. Democracy and Republic is far stronger than Communism and Monarchy, mostly due to the war weariness. Simply put, my people are tolerant of long term campaigns, with ambiguous goals, high casualties, and tremendous cost without a second thought. War weariness never seriously harmed my war effort. Communism and monarchy are so restricted by corruption that it is impossible for them to fight back effectively. Monarchies can't produce anything in their outer cities, and communism would have to force build everything at the cost of lots of population in their outer cities, and both would fall way behind in science.

Those are the most glaring balance flaws in my opinion, and other than that the game seems to have decent balance with the 40 or so hours i have played.

Interface
the interface is an improvement over the interface in Civ2 in terms of both looks and functionality, and it beats the interface in SMAC hands down on looks. It beats both in terms of streamlining. However, there are some problems with the interface. One of the main problems is that the player has to access some functions with hotkeys. Upgrade is one of those functions. Without knowledge of the hotkeys (which i have yet to find a list of hotkeys in the game) then it is impossible to fully play the game, so a player cannot play civ3 with the mouse alone. This seems more a problem of the game being rushed than any conscious choice made by firaxis. I honestly think they forgot to include some of the functions on either the right click menu or the icon buttons. Besides actually implementing all of the hotkeys, a link from the production menu to the civlipedia would be nice. Another helpful feature would be a warning box telling why you can't perform certain actions. Again take upgrade for a moment, it should tell me why my units don't upgrade when i hit the proper hotkey instead of doing nothing. Something like "My lord this unit needs to be in a city with a barracks," would be very nice. The interface takes some getting used to, but once you do it because fairly simple to run your empire, and you can do it with less click than in civ2 or SMAC.

Graphics
Well I doubt that John Carmack is has been caught in Hunt Valley harassing firaxis about the secrets of their graphic prowess, but civ3's graphics get the job done. They certainly aren't state of the art when compared to some RTS games and nearly all FPS; however, they are quite nice for turn based and they do everything they need to. Not only do they get the job done, the artwork is very nice, I really think the art team at firaxis earned their pay on civ3. They are bright, clear, and a single look will convey all of the information you need. Much better than SMAC, and so far ahead of Civ2 that it doesn't even compare.

Multimedia Extras
Civ3 contains very few multimedia extras. A total of three movies (intro, the 10 second security briefing, and the spaceship launch), and a handful of animated screens. Part of the reason I bought Diablo2 was the ingame movies between each act. However the quality of all three movies is very good, the space ship launch is excellent, and I only wish that firaxis had of had the time to make implement more multimedia perks in the game. One possible reason for not including more ingame movies and animations, besides a lack of time and money, is that the intro and the spaceship launch were 32mb and 26mb respectively. Civ3 takes up 583mb of disk space out of a possible 650 for the average cd rom. So 67mb of disk space wouldn't allow for each great and small wonder to get a quality CGI movie (around 30 wonders at about 20mb per wonders is 600mb), civ3 would have needed a second disk and this would have cut into the bottom line for both firaxis to create the movies and infogrames to include 2 cds in each box.

Major Flaws
Well the one major flaw i encountered on my computer (p2 400, 128mb ram) is that civ3 took about 2 minutes between each turn on a huge map with 16 civs. That is simply unplayable. However, on a small map with 4 civs, the game ran fine. In forty hours of playing i have yet to encounter a single crash, lockup, or freeze. There have been no major technical bugs. Gameplay wise civ3 is fine except for the lack of multiplayer and a real scenario creation tool.

Minor Flaws
The music stuttered and had a crackling sound to it, so i cut it off. Other than that, I have yet to encounter any other minor technical flaws. Gameplay wise, the AI is much better than the AI in Civ2 or SMAC, yet since barbarians can't destroy or capture cities the AI can be fooled into attacking a defenseless city in their path when they have more than enough power to march into the capital only two squares away. If the barbarians had even a 5% chance to destroy a size one city when they pillaged it then this would cease to be a problem. Other than that it was mostly balance issues (see above), with the modern era being fairly devoid of interesting city improvements to build.

Innovations
Well Civ3 has included a number of innovations, however most of them are small. The one part of civ3 that is clearly better than all previous incarnations is that the AI finally has a fair grasp on the strategic side of things. It still doesn't really have a clue tactically, but it can now win the game. Civ3 doesn't really revolutionize the genre, but it does include a bunch of things that certainly out perform the old ways of doing things. Air missions, trade, and strategic resources add greatly to the overall experience of the game. Culture is nice, but it doesn't change the game that much, and it has been over-hyped in my opinion. Civ3 contains a number of small innovations that one quickly loses sight of, but each adds to the game and would be missed if they were taken away.

Conclusion
Well I like Civ3. It is a good game, but it certainly didn't astound me. I know that I had sky high expectations for civ3, but i realized about a year ago that it would be virtually impossible for civ3 to meet my expectations unless i became a trillionair and bought firaxis then gave them an unlimited budget so they could hire all of the programmers and artist they needed with the provision that i could tell them to redesign any part of the game if i didn't like it. I tried to be as fair as possible in this review, and i hope it doesn't seem like i am biased. However, all of those who have been screaming that civ3 is the greatest game now or ever are sadly mistaken. Civ3 is no slouch, but it could have been better. It needed some more work, mainly on implementing a working scenario editor and multiplayer, but certain areas of the game could have seen some improvement.

Final Score
+B
The overall best Civ game to date, and a serious contender for the crown in the turn based strategy game genre.

PS
i hope markos will let accept this an article

[yin26]

First reply!

I have to say: 1) Very fair. 2) Now you have put the pressure on me to get my review going.

Question: Do you feel more or less enthused to run the patch effort?

[player1]

second!

[Grumbold]

Thanks Korn. An invaluable read for those of us who won't be seeing the game until the 16th.

[Altuar]

Good points, but ...

a) Unit/Tech/Improvement balancing: It is much better. It makes sense to go to war in every age, where I always seem to have some surplus production which would be wasted on wealth alone. In Civ II, it never made sense to go to war in middle game until one got Tanks/Bombers at the minimum.

b) Interface: it is really good, except for some obscure hotkeys like the upgrade you mentioned. It is so transparent that you almost never leave the main map which, apart from ease of use, adds to the atmoshpere of the game.

[korn469]

yin

actually i feel more enthused about running the patch effort, just because i have the review off of me

the thing is i see a great deal of potential in civ3, and i hope that one day it all comes out

[Schnitzelnator]

Originally posted by korn469 While i completely disagree with firaxis's decision to not allow air units to sink naval units, or destroy armored units in open terrain

Heh, finally someone who agrees with me.

[Schnitzelnator]

Originally posted by player1
second!

RETARD

[player1]

Originally posted by Schnitzelnator
RETARD

Anyway, good review Korn!
I hope they'll fix some things in a next patch.

[korn469]

Altuar

the interface is streamlined, and if it actually contained all of the orders then it would be great

player1

thanks for the compliment

[Schnitzelnator]

Originally posted by player1

You do not understand.

Making a post just to state that you have the "second!" post is a clear sign that you've been walking around in the scorching sun for to long.

Thus my statement still stands.

RETARD

[player1]

MarkG, please delete mine and that Sw. posts!
They corrupt this excillent article.
And, this isn't a place for flame war.

[Grumbold]

Please don't turn this very good review thread into a spamfight. Thank you.

[MidKnight Lament]

Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, enough of that.
Nicely balanced review, korn469. When I eventually get the game (you'd have to try harder to talk me out of getting it) I'll have well-grounded expectations.

[player1]

The main question is HOW will Firaxis do the patchwork.
Ideal would be to have patches as often as the Startcraft.
It had at lest a 4 balance patches (8 total), and game is 3 years old.

But, since this game doesn't have a MP, I don't think it will be the case.

[tleilaxu]

what about mines all over grasslands? does ANYone else think this is stupid?

[LaRusso]

Originally posted by Schnitzelnator


RETARD

chill...

korn, a great review. i must admit that i never designed any mod or scenario - for me a game is a random world carnage with as many computer civs as possible. civ3 delivers beautifully there and i cannot complain
combat is now really fun in all ages. although i am sure that in one year you people will take ai apart and expose its dumbness, this ai is really impressive (given the fact that we do not have neural nets yet).
a minor thing that can be fixed:
DIPLOMACY - AI places same value on certain negotiables although it received it in the same negotiating session. Example. I ask him for one invention. He asks for an invention of mine plus world map. Okay, so I give that to him. Then I ask for something else and again AI asks for something plus the world map. It does not recognize that he just got an up to date world map. This is not a 'bug' but I hope it can be tweaked, so that AI getting a territorial map or a world map will be completely disinterested for the same thing in the same negotiating session or one or two turns later (one might presume that I did not discover much in the meantime).

[player1]

Something about that bonus for workers of Democracy:
This bonus is more appropriate for Communism, since most of Communsit countries have been industralised very quickly, compared to other countries wich need much more time.

Still, that way communsim would be to powerfull compared to monarchy.
But if you boost Monarchy, Despotism would be totoaly useless.
I don't like having Despotism useless. There were many Despotic countries in last 50 years. In civ games none would use them.
I would: Increasce M. Police in desp to 3, and lower in maonarchy to 2.
Increase even more a number of free units:
town: 4
city: 8
metropolis: 12
This way Despotism would be used in later game by those, little survivalist civs, wich don't have chace to win, but wan't to survivie with their 2-3 cities. In other governments they just won't have enought money to supprot military.

Anyway, modern Despotism was only used in "Bannana Republic" type of ststes.

[korn469]

Something about that bonus for workers of Democracy:
This bonus is more appropriate for Communism, since most of Communsit countries have been industralised very quickly, compared to other countries wich need much more time.

how about this, under communism it would be cool to have an option that would make a worker double their work rate, but have a 50% chance of being destroyed every time they use it

[player1]

Hmm, that way there is no gain.
But with a 10% of dying, why not!

[Leonid]

I think it is too bad that the governments are always imbalanced in these Sid Meir civ games. He favors the democratic govts over dictatorship SO BAD..he is very biased. Real bad game balance on govts. This has been my one biggest gripe since Sid'd very first Civ game.

Democracy is always the way to go. Communism always sucks. I like the idea of running a police state and ruling with an iron fist...kinda fun roleplaying. But you can't do that in Sid's Civ games..its always republic then democracy. That's too bad that it is so unblanced. The totalitarion governments really get the shaft and have absolutely no upside AT ALL. I mean the production should be great and war fighting should be awesome for the totalitarian govts, then so-so science and money. For Democratic govts they should get good science and money and crappy war waging and production. Instead the way it stands is in Democracy you get good war fighting, awesome money, awesome production, awesome science. VS communism: great war fighting, crappy money, crappy production, crappy science. Now wtf?

Where is the balance? Why is monarchy and communism even included? , since they stink so bad as govt options (they have in all sids games except SMAC).

What was cool about SMAC is that you could play that chinese dude..I forgot what his name was..Yin or something (the dude who had the communist police state bonuses) and that Police state, totalitarian combo RAWKED. One thing about SMAC is you could play a ruthless dictator and it paid. Also, communism was doable in the CTP games.

These police states whould HANDS DOWN have better production than th edemocratic governments for gameplay balance. as a trade off for bad science and money.

[Adm.Naismith]

First my tanks to Korn and its clear review. It helps me to better understand the game, while I'm evaluating to buy it or not.

Just to explain some of my obstacle to buy Civ III:

• I live in Italy, and I haven't sure note about release date here.
• I would prefer to buy a more stable, DVD edition, patched and completed with scenario etc.
• I need to change my notebook, but my preferred choice (Dell Inspiron 8100 with MS XP) seems to have compatibility trouble with Civ III so far.

Now, considering the game from this review and others posts around in this forum I have the feeling that the game needs a couple of robust, main patches to clean up at the expected brightness.
So far my vote would stay more on the range between -B to C, still with hope that patchs and steady support can raise it to +B.

The missing of a more detailed choice between government, the reducing of Great People scientific/religious/artistic to only Great General (scarcely) borned from battle seems a great opportunity missed.

Many half promise missing, as wonders that graphically show on the main map, as Great Wall and Great Canal.

The disappearence of some dark side of the war (viable nuclear MAD menace, wet missions like "prominent research assassination" and partisan/terroristic attack) already used for years in many games, Civ II and SMAC included, seems the kind of false selfcensorship we are putting everywhere like it really was a show of respect for the last thousands of victims.
Where that match with centuries of poor people died in many sad/horrible events in history, still testified in movies, books, songs, games, is something I can't understand.

The graphics (and related options, like limited zooming, no rotation of the map, flat map out of square tiles) seems really sub standard looking at many games available on market for the last couple of years. I can't properly judge the sounds effects, if not for some sample I hear of the game, but some players are already reporting of turning off. It doesn't sound well considering all the otehers game trend for adding feeling to every sense, force feedback included everywhere possible.

Some news are good, of course, and I feel that really saved the game from beeing a waste of money, hopes and efforts.

So far, I'll probably buy the game (again, I don't judge a game patched to a B level as a bad buy) but I really consider that most of "pessimism" and "realism" that where bashed in this forum for the last months well quite well founded.

[LaRusso]

admiral, IMHO you can just as well go and buy it right now. it is very addictive and a lot of fun. plays really well. best civ game so far.

[player1]

I think that governments in Civ1 where very well balanced.
There ONLY DESPOTISM has martial law (it was unlimited),
and ONLY IT had free shields (=number of pop of that city),
but is still did have that production penality & corruption was very big.
Still, some veteran Civ1 used only Despotism (through all the game)
& waged wars very early.

Monarchy, had no prod. penal., but didn't have those NICE desp. abilities.

Repubilc, had that trade bous & war unhappines, but there were no such things like Police stations.

Democracy, had bigger war unhappines & lower corruption. Still I never used it in Civ1, war unhappines was to much for me in those days.

Communism, was exactly same like monarchy, but corruption was devided between all cities.

And most interesting: Advisors chaged outfit depending of government style.


Anyway (in civ2 & civ3) despotism was weekned by giving other governments same abilities.

In fact in civ2 & civ3 it was all in "rush to monarchy".

I DON'T LIKE "government upgrading".

[Earthling7]

Great review. I generally agree with you. It is a good game, but the flaws are glaring. It screams RUSHED in your face.

About the Multimedia. I think this is the most obvious example of the rush. The official line is that the movies take you out of the game environment. Bollocks. What is more satisfying than seeing your great wonder come alive? You are "treated" to a pic of it anyway, and unlike the Civ2 wondermovies, you can not switch it off. The double CD issue is laughable. Civ3 has the potential to be a massive seller. Producing an extra CD is peanuts. I have a great game called Jagged Alliance 2, which probably sold 5% of what Civ3 will. It is on two CDs, one is an Installation CD, the other a Play CD. You only use the installation CD once. I think, given the departures of Brian etc, that they siomply had no time to do it.

I think most of the problems will be fixed in a couple of patches, but my hope is that they will use the next six months to finish the game and release an extensive extention pack with more movies, scenarios and the ability to create them, maps amd multiplayer.

[Libertarian]

A fairly good review, if a bit rushed. With respect to upgrade, you can upgrade a unit by right-clicking on it in the city screen and selecting "Upgrade to [unit]" from the popup menu.

[Earthling7]

Originally posted by Libertarian
A fairly good review, if a bit rushed. With respect to upgrade, you can upgrade a unit by right-clicking on it in the city screen and selecting "Upgrade to [unit]" from the popup menu.

And also, if the unit is active (in a city (with Barracks)) a button with a lightning appears. This will upgrade the unit.

You can also go into the Military Advisor screen and do it from there. Handy if you want to upgrade all the Musketmen to Riflemen without going through all the city screens.

[Libertarian]

Earthling, thanks for that info. What's the procedure for upgrading all units?

[Altuar]

Originally posted by Leonid
Where is the balance? Why is monarchy and communism even included? , since they stink so bad as govt options (they have in all sids games except SMAC).

In my last game (standard world map as Persians, Monarch diff.) I went with monarchy in the middle ages. Choosing republic, while good for growth, makes war prohibitively expensive because:

a) Military units ask for a gold apiece: if you have a medium sized empire, this is too much when you're building up for war. Besides at such size, corruption is not a major issue, and most of the cities are busy with improvements while your early cities concentrate on building up the army.

b)Once war starts, republic cannot handle war weariness with having to pay for entertainers with no police stations around yet, with no military police and having to pay for upkeep of the troops at the frontline.

So for at least 400 years, my little empire was a Monarchy. If the war with China had not gone so well (thanks to Immortals) I would have remained in Monarchy until I was sure that China was not a threat anymore. It is hard to do nowadays with the AI being so aggressive...

Of course, after the war and with China crushed, I switched to Republic then to Democracy as soon as I could. In the modern era, I still feel that communism should be given a bit more strenght in comparison to Democracy - but then I never had a small or even medium power in the late game in my 3 games so far. Perhaps for such civs seeking to expand, Communism would be preferable as it is.

[Earthling7]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Earthling, thanks for that info. What's the procedure for upgrading all units?

I was looking for a single point of upgrade, but found none. The easiest I found was the Advisor screen where the units are sorted by type. Right-click for the Upgrade option.

A single point upgrade and activate would be nice.