Is there anything GOOD bout civ3?

[The Andy-Man]

My PC wont run Civ3 so i aint played it yet. But after glancing at this forum since the game came out, it looks like its awful, bad implementation of culture, army's virtually useless, colonies pointless, and so on.

what i want to know is, how good is the game (nopt how bad), does it have any good points?

And is Europa universalis better? (I got EU1 and it definatly beast the hell out of what i have read bout civ3)

[Argos65987]

There is alot of good about Civ 3 (don't believe everything you read) and there is bad (again, don't believe everything you read). While I have seen or encountered many of the problems people have complained about, I generally feel that they don't warrant the vehemence that people sometimes post with. I believe they are working on their 3rd patch.

Also, EU2 is an awesome game. Very addictive and deep. It has it's share of problems as well, but is more than worth the money. They are currently working on their 3rd patch, also.

[The Andy-Man]

well, the thing here that gets me is the colonies (they sim pointless), the Culture thing just seems stupid, and how bad is the corruptionm thing.

I mean, to have high civ score you need to be big and involved in the world, but to have low corruption you need to have only 2 cities. (or so it seems). i dont get it

[Rasputin]

The best part of civ 3 is the culture, makes for an easy victory.

To counter corruption I build my citys infrastructure and dont go out conquering the other civs.

[Argos65987]

I seem to remember that the colonies were used more before the most recent patch (something must have changed). I sometimes use them for terrain I don't want a city in (jungle, mountain) but may send a settler there sooner or later.

Corruption is manageable in several ways. The most blatant is to change the optimum number of cities in the editor, or edit the corruption reducing buildings, etc. Corruption effects can be managed, but not everyone likes the way the need to manage now. Further tweaks to corruption might be in the forthcoming patch.

[muppet]

Yup. Good and Bad stuff. It's a $50 game. For 50 bucks:

1. I don't expect it to be a professional simulation program of real world history. Not a big deal if they don't hire graduate students in their respective fields to simulate real life; however,

2. I do expect it to be fun. There are things that could be made to feel less like work.

I don't feel like anything regarding colonies has changed since the patch. I think we use them less now because of the experience that they can be assimilated.

I use them when they are just out of reach of city borders, but I need the resource badly, can afford to expend a worker and expect the city's border to eventually overtake the colony.

[FrantzX]

The AI is a challenge. That alone makes Civ III worth it. No more breezing diety with my brain off.

[Capt Dizle]

Civ2 and SMAC stayed on my hard drive for years. I still have the disks in a safe place. Civ3 stayed on my hard drive for a few weeks and I gave it away.

Civ3 is poorly designed. It is really bad. I am not speaking of bugs, glitches, or stuff like that. It is obviously a professionally made product. But there is no fun in the game. It is tedious to play.

About just about every gameplay concept, the design team did exactly the wrong thing. They have remained consistent in the patches so far.

There is nothing good about it unless you like tedium. The game should be renamed Civ3, the Age of

[Encomium]

The bad far outweighs the good in Civ III.

But it is am improvement that now an enemy AI invasion force shows up en masse instead of too small numbers. Sid got that right, at least.

[DarkCloud]

Well, Andy, I don't know about you- but for me, the basic idea, design, then interface are the most important.

If you liked CTP 2, then you should like Civ III from what I see of the Interface and design. As for the basic idea and gameplay, ask some people who have played both games

Good luck

[Ironikinit]

Some people hate it, I like it.

The colony thing... I use them, but I know that I better get a city up there pronto or the AI will do it and absorb my colony. They're just stopgaps or sometimes useful in very mountainous areas where a city just won't reach.

If you're really worried about whether or not you'll like it or if it'll run, make sure you buy it from a store where you can return it. Better yet, borrow it from a bud. It won't hurt to wait to buy it, same as most any game.

That said, take what the anti-Civ III people say with a grain of salt. Some of them are full of baloney.

[Barnacle Bill]

IMO, Civ3 is a matter of "good news - bad news":

Good news: air units work more realistically than in Civ/Civ2/SMAC, doing missions within an operational radius around their base.
Bad news: air units can't sink ships, and not even ultra-modern units like Aegis Cruisers can shoot back at bombarding aircraft.

Good news: strategic resources create more meaningful reasons for trade & conflict than in Civ/Civ2/SMAC.
Bad news: strategic resources are modelled so one source is all you need, and there is no substitute or work-around if you ain't got (unlike real life or previous resource-games like the Imperialism series). Plus, this poor execution of resources is offered up as an excuse for combat system keeping hopelessly obsolete units viable ("so you won't be too hosed if you lack a vital resource") - but the real problem is that the AI places very low priority on upgrading units (and lots of units don't upgrade).

Good news: unit maintenance is now in gold, eliminating all that rot in Civ/Civ2/SMAC about what city supported what unit, etc...
Bad news: maintenance costs are flat regardless of time period or unit cost, creating way more units in late-game than in previous games, which in turn prompts all this silly & distracting hoopla about stacked movement (the right fix is reduce the number of units to the Civ2 level by making maintenance costs proportional to unit construction shield cost)

Good news: you now have borders.
Bad news: the AI routinely ingores your borders and there's not much you can do about it except full-scale war, and the border between you and another civ moves not only because they founded a new city near the border (which plagued SMAC) but because of culture.

Good news: the editor lets you add new governments, unlike Civ2.
Bad news: most of the stuff you could mod in Civ2 can't be modded in Civ3 (yet, anyway). No event scripting language, no user-defined units, can't even specify starting locations for a scenario that plays from 4000 BC, much less create the sort of scenarios we had in Civ2 with cities and units already in place and techs known, etc...

There are other examples - mostly a matter of "good idea - lame execution".

[horgel]

I bought Civ3 when it hit the shelves and got slightly dissapointed after a week.

Then i bought EU2 and since that time CIV3 just collects dust and has been removed from my hard disk.

Personally i like EU2 *A LOT* more than Civ3 as the CIV-slogan 'rewrite the history...' fits a thousand time better to EU2...

Playing those games consumes time, and i like to spend my time having fun with a good game instead of beeing somewhat bored by a mediocre game, even if Sid meyer is written in its cover...

[macaskil]

I don't have EU2. From what I have read it is an excellent game, but it only covers the Middle Ages. Equally Age of Empires is good but doesn't attempt to model a whole planet, and again it stops in Medieval times.

Civ3 could be improved a lot, however it does only cost $50. I can easily spend that on a meal out or a trip to a sports event, which occupies me for a couple of hours. For my $50 I have already had 100 hours+ of enjoyment and expect to get thousands of hours before I get tired of it.

[Zoid]

I like the culture thing and the revamped trading system (but NOT the dip), I also absolutely adore the new unit support system and to an lesser extent the AI. However, if you´re in doubt wether to buy or not I´d say: Save your money and buy something else! The game has such an extent of serious flaws it´s no fun to play in the long run.

[Spec]

I have one thing to say. Civ3 is a great game, of course it has flaws but what game doesn't. Try it for your self, dont beleive everything ppl say. If u do, it's a prejudice.

[RedFred]

Come back to SMAC!

People, can't you just hear the call of Planet?

[Dale]

I never thought I'd be saying this, but my opinion is CTP2 modded, is better than Civ3.

[Dis]

civ3 is the greatest game ever created by man with the excpetion of the Nokia cell phone game snake.

[The Andy-Man]

i already got civ3, and will play it when i get a new PC anyway, but the flaws and problems talk about sound like they are REAL annoying flaws, and i hated CTP1 (never got 2) so if Civ3 is like that then i may have to use the CD as a Frisby.


Does anyone know if they are gonna do a proper patch (one that makes it a fun game) - and wasn't one of the patches ment to make it possible to sink ships with planes?

Also, can you turn off the culture thing all together (the bordrs in SMAC werent that bad, i kinda liked that game, if only they had set it on earth so i didnt have all this nerdy SUPER MAN SUCKING STEEL crap)

And i heard about the AI cheating, well in Civ2 i was fine with it all except these, and i wanna know if they gone:

In ALL Civ 2 games (even ToT) the AI new the location of EVERY unit, even subs which are supposed to be hidden. (once i had a FULLY LADEN (32 stealth) on a carrier, there was literally no enemy unit (i later used cheat mode to look) or city for about 30 space, yet about 50 cruise missiles appeared out of know, which brings me to my next point:

Does the AI get increadibly high amounts of highly sophisticated weapon even though there is no realistic way they coulda built them (i spied on a jap city once in civ2, 100 cruise missiles, litrely).

there is a couple of others, but thwese pissed me off more then ANYTHING.

[TheHobbit]

Its a great game and I recommend buying it unless your one of those people who looks for every little flaw and wants to ***** about it. Don't believe anything anyone here says positive or not, everyone is biased. I enjoy the game myself and I suppose it will only get better as they fix all the problems.(none of which I myself have encountered but others argue that hey exist)

[planetfall]

I have not played other games but after extensive playing civ3, offer this eval for new players of civ type games.



The Good

1. Cool animated graphics
   
2. culture win idea
   
3. development by era's
   
4. able to see relative score of other civs
   
5. editor to change preferences difference than game developers
   
6. world mini map
   
7. other civs have personalities
   
8. playback game option
   

The Bad

1. 430 turns makes for a horribly long game
   
2. few speed up options without wrecking play
   
3. have graph of "power" and "culture" of other civs but not numbers behind graph
   
4. AI knows where all strategic resources are before they are discovered
   
5. AI civs work together as a team of players against you and not as individual players with individual goals
   
6. pre patch corruption is too high
   
7. Windows has to be restarted when end as Windows error generated on exit
   
8. no record playback of last game to file
   
9. no ability to play previous games if use editor
   
10. no undo move when move to wrong tile
    

The Ugly

1. "year date" change at end of turn varies from 50 years to 2 years
   
2. if play for high culture win, may never complete modern age
   
3. can't govern worker automation
   
4. AI workers do not respect boundaries
   
5. AI can wipe out colonies by placing a city next to them with any war or cost to AI
   
6. AI area of influence seems much too high
   
7. No option to disband one of your cities.
   

Most fun

1. Edit designers preferences
   
   
   
   1. corruption starts after 7 happy people
      
   2. optimal civ size 40-60 cities, depending on style
      
   3. submarine unit, attack +1
      
   4. increase slightly strategic resources appearance and decrease slightly disappearance ratios
      
   5. bomber, increase range to 8 {B17 range}
      
   6. catheral--evidently designers only saw catherals as musical entertainment. Real purpose is teaching morality. If teaching morality, it follows that corruption would be lowered.
      It also reduces war wearinesss, so check that box also.
      
   7. police station-- check reduces corruption {even simcity recognized that}
      
   8. manhattan project-- uncheck all civs get nuclear power. The last time I checked mexico and brazil and Iran don't have nukes.
      
   
   
2. Freeze units acting as police in cities
   
3. automate workers, and they are misbehaving reselect and move them for a few turns,
   
4. plan to only play one era at a play session
   
5. reduce other civs to 2 or 3 until get the hang of the game
   
6. read the bulletin boards for strategy and play ideas
   
7. remember if it is fun for you, it is a good game. If not fun, freely use the editor until you get the type of game you want.
   
8. finally, save your game at least at the end of each Era and preferably every 100 years. I use a unique name for Era saves and use default for every 100 year saves. That way I can go back. I also like named saved before major events,i.e., starting war, introduction of pacts with AI civs so can play other alternatives. After game is finished, put any saves in folder same level as Save folder so won't see on menu. Remove all default named game saves as you don't need them anymore.
   
   

Finally, make agreements with those you are sharing living space with. Games will take a long time.



How long will the game take?

1. manual- micro managed game
   
   430 turns x 20 minutes each turn == game time
   
2. automated workers && frozen units game
   
   430 turns x 5 minutes each turn == game time
   

You do the math.



enjoy

[Dobian02]

The list of problems with this game is as long as my arm. They've all been stated ad nauseum so I don't need to repeat them. But I still like this game, and continue to play it. I like the culture, I like the strategic resources, I like the improved AI. It gets frustrating sometimes, but I never get bored. I'll keep this one.

[Barnacle Bill]

[SIZE=1]

430 turns makes for a horribly long game

Actually, I'd like a longer game. I'd be happy with one in which you had annual turns 4000 BC to 20xx AD. Of course, a lot of things would have to be adjusted so I'm not just talking about a 6000 turn Civ3. However, nothing wrong with a game it takes me months to finish. Quarterly turns would be OK as well. I've seen board TBS games where you move units & have combat every turn but do economic things every 4th turn, for example. That method could be used as well, to pace the game right.

[planetfall]

Actually even better would be play options.

0- lightning play, load standard scenarios, or your created scenarios, and play, ERA in 1 hr, game in 4 hrs

1- quick play, expected ERA time to complete 2 hrs, game in 8 hrs

2- normal play, ERA time 8 hrs each, 32 for game

3- extended play, ERA time 32 hrs ea with
additional functionality for fine tuning scenarios available.


More options than that means missing other games.

[The Andy-Man]

yay, i got me a new PC

thoughts so far (not to far into it yet though, still just got currency).


how do you select the other nations in the foreign advisor screen? (sum,thin like ctrl+alt)

the AI seems to have loadsa cities even though in civ3 this wasnt ment to be possible, but then i saw they all ther 20 cities (each) only have a pop of 1, whereas mine have like 6. and i got alotta culture already (i knew listening to bach had benefits).


erm, the corruption thing hasnt come about for me yet, but can some one tell me what the latest patch fixes in relation to original game? its fun though... so far.

[Raion]

Civ III takes some effort to play. Some people will think that is fun.
I do.
Now, though, because of drivers for my video card, I bought a GeForce MX200/400 PCI card for my computer. Simply the ATI drivers do not work, and corrupt a couple of files after playing the game, gdi32.dll and one other something like mspn32.dll.
The GeForce type card with Nvidia drivers updated at their site and all drivers mainly work with all cards (one driver for the video card mainly), the game works fine.
The only thing is one has to restart his/her computer after playing as if (my opinion), the copy protection did not let the game quite install all of the way. (I have had the same problem with a couple other programs -- hopefully a patch will fix that -- that is not normal.)

The game takes effort, to some may seem boring, but it was always a long game. Simple, yet hard to beat especially at higher levels of play.
Once you get into the game, and play it a while, more than a couple months, and continue to play, one gets use to it and knows what to expect.
However, you may still not beat the computer, and that will take effort to win in some ways, or you can always play total war type game. The way you play Civ III is up to you, some only play to win, others just play to compete against themselves and better their score, or to try different methods of winning.
That usually ends up taking about 3 years, especially if the editor is patched to include starting positions for units and cities, and text like Civ II had. But Civ II only added that stuff later, and still a lot of people will support Civ III.
Its been a computer game, mainly the same, for about the last 12 years.
Officially the first version in DOS was hard and needed fixing. When CIV I came out 10 year ago, it was raised to a game put in the Hall of Fame, and it still was just released in its third version.

CIV III is longer to play, and one needs a fast computer to make it go faster, but still all that ocurred also with all of the Civilization Versions.
I never played EU or EU2, and CTP and also bought CTP2, but I di d not like the interface, where I always missed messages, and afterall, if something is building, one wants to know when it is finished.
I always missed the messages, because I had to look for it.
Harder to keep trackk of.

But CIV III is basically the same, and has been expanded to include Culture and Strategic Resources.
But then in the Editor the rules can be changed, if you prefer.



But it will take effort and your life to play this game because it can be addicting.

[Raion]

Also I think some people are miss reading this game. Cultural borders are not the same as National Border, that I know of.
The Culture may spread, but still the Borders will be mainly left up to the cities borders of your empire. Anyway that is how I play it.

[Raion]

Also, since I have Windows 98SE and upgrades on Internet Explorer up to version 5.5, I guess Microsoft included parts of Windows 2000 or Windows ME or something so, that in order to have sound in the game, I had to use the bink file for Windows 2000. Apparently Microsoft does not really tell anyone what they are doing also.
Since that the sound and the graphic card work fine with the game.
Everything else, withstanding, (the sound is always not all that good with the game), that is also the real part of any game especially Civ III. It extends out into the real world.

Wear a business suit when playing and act like a President!
Maybe Bush, Jr.!

We will defeat the evil!


Or don't forget your emporer's hat, bugle, and confetti, and pop corn or snacks when playing the game.
It may take some effort, but to me, its always been that way for this game!

[The Andy-Man]

if i am gonna dress up as a wprld leader, a homer simpson type guy would do best. so yeah, goerge W and he man choking, head bashing pretzels