This is a fairly good translation (there are probably a few typos and such) of the swedish civ III preview at
http://www10.torget.se/home/spel/for...zation3.shtml:
"Listen up desktop generals!
It is finally time to polish your dusty old medals and start kick some
but again!
The third installment in the strategy series of Civilization has been
under development for almost two years now, and it is being supervised
by the creator himself Sid Meier. Judging by the information that has
already leaked out, it seems as if they have succeed in something I
didn't think possible, to improve perfection.
Before we get into any details, here is a brief description of the game:
Civilization has given the term "epic" a pixelised face. The player
starts as a settler in a fictitious world 4000 BC. Now it is up to the
player to try to change the turn of history and to become the mightiest
civilisation of all time. The ways to world domination are plentiful; it
is possible to be both brutally ruthless, peacefully constructive or
diplomatically warded whit respect- no way is the "right" way to play
civilization. And no, the game isn't played in real-time, nor will the
coming, third installment be played in real-time. The time for
considering a move is unlimited thus you will unfortunately not be able
to blame a bad move on the the fact that you hadn't time to think it through.
The fact that a game is known to be slow usually scares away the masses,
but this is not the case whit civilization - on the contrary, whit four
millions of sold copies one realizes that the first two installments are
amongst the most popular PC games of all time.
The most obvious news is visible at first glance is of course the
improved graphics. The units are now animated in 3D, and the game has an
overall larger collection of sounds, pictures and animations.
Civilizations will be more distinctively different from one another when
it comes to their appearance. It will also be more important to pick a
civilization that fits your stile of playing since their abilities will
differ from one another more than earlier. History has been divided into
four eras, all represented whit their own graphical style.
To be able to advance to another era the player will have to "discover"
all major discoveries from the era he is currently in. In this way the
player will be forced to invent even things that hasn't got the highest
priority, which will give a more correct reflection of how things evolve.
An important improvement is the increased importance of recourses.
The availability of resources as diamonds will make your citizens
happier, while other resources as iron, steel and oil will be necessary
to produce certain types of units. An oil reserve might therefore become
strategically important to control. These resources can then easily be
transferred to all cities connected by roads, making a well developed
infrastructure more important than earlier. All rescorses wont be
visible on the map from the beginning, they will show up on the map as
you make the discoveries needed to exploit them. The developers also
claims that they have tried to create a model where the resources aren't
evenly spread on the map, they will be placed in large "chunks" in
different areas, this will force the player to have a more extensive
relationship whit his neighbors, in the form of trade treaties and such.
Borders will play a more important role now. A distinct border will show
exactly which territories you control, which will make it harder for the
enemy to operate there during peace. Even the borders of individual
cities will shown clearly on the map to aid planning. Overall Firaxis
has tried to create a smother interface where as much as possible will
take place on the same world map, whit out the need to jump between
different menu items.
All wonders from the previous installments are still present in the
game, along with a couple of new ones, the Internet for instance, has
become a wonder, that improves your cvilizations educational level.
One of the areas which has been debated since Civilization II is the way
diplomacy is managed. Despite that Civilization II improved the
diplomacy from the first game, whit the addition of "reputation", many
claim that this wasn't enough.
The goal of Civilization III is to keep a smooth and easy diplomacy
system, but still give the player a lot of new possibilities.
New for instance is the addition of a diplomacy menu (possibly the
bargain table: translators note) where everything will be tradable;
gold, technology, cities, maps and even the contact whit other
civilizations. Peace treaties may be more detailed and include pacts,
trade embargo's against individual civilizations and the right of
passage, to name a few examples.
The fighting system has been thoroughly improved. One of the biggest
improvements is that there will be historical leaders available for
recruitment for your armies. These warlords have a real history whit
names like Patton or Stonewall Jackson and they will affect their armies
in one way or another by giving them some sort of advantage.
There will also be more realistic war conditions where tanks will have
greater strength than earlier, and where some units may fire at
barricades from a distance.
The discovery of nukes will no longer end the game, as it virtually did earlier.
The one to first discover the atomic bomb will be able to use it to
his/her advantage, but when everyone is armed whit nukes it will be
considerably harder to use them whit out incurring the wrath of ones neighbors.
Last of all the most important news: Civilization will finally be
playable multiplayer against other human opponents, both over the
internet and in a network. This is a very eagerly awaited addition, as
the problem was solved in earlier versions whit the making of unofficial
patches whit mixed results.
Exactly how Civilization III will take advantage of the internet is not
yet clear.
Anyway this title has the potential to still our blood thirst and power
hunger, atleast for a while.
Anders Thörnström"
