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I was going to make such a post in the Civ 3 forums, but then I saw Markos screaming all over the forums he needs some columns for future weeks, and decided to submit this for the column, as I don’t want to read his musings :).

As we approach the release date of Civ 3, more information is being released, and I must say I really feel very excited about the game, and can’t wait the moment it gets available here. As enough information is available, it’s time to write a little (p) review of the game.

But before, let me thank Sid Meier, Jeff Morris, Jeff Briggs, Dan Magaha, Chris Pine and all the others good folks over there at Firaxis for making my favorite game of all time, and trust the sequel will be something groundbreaking.

As you might have understood, I’m pretty optimistic about the game, though I try to remain realistic. I still remember how excited was I about CtP 2’s new options, and how it’s horrible AI completely screwed up the whole picture.

Diplomacy:

I am not a warmonger, so diplomacy has a great importance to me in civ games, and I truly enjoy making diplomatic proposals. The original civ games didn’t have this quite well. In Civ 1, you weren’t even able to initiate negotiations, while Civ 2 had improvements over this, but not too much. SMAC and CtP 2 offer the best diplomacy systems I’ve seen up to now, but those don’t exactly belong to the “Original Civ” branch, especially CtP 2.

In Civ 3, there’s a great deal of new options. First, the bargaining table looks very promising, as you no longer need to have equal proposals (like only one demand per offer, or that for your map you can only get his map). And I’m also happy to hear that for newer players, the easy conversational interface is kept. As civ newbies play their first games, they will probably switch to the most advanced interface soon thereafter.

The diplomatic negotiation screen also provides some useful information, like how does the other nation treat you, and you have the advisor telling how high the odds of proposal being accepted are. It’s also good news that you can choose the tone of your voice, thus appearing either friendly, or you can let the other nation see that they must either accept your proposal, or it’s more than likely it will be war.

Reply strings of other nations are also different, and that should make the diplomatic negotiations that much more fun.

Finally, the United Nations is here as well - SMAC players will like this, as the Council is a much loved feature in SMAC.

Trade:

I always though the trade model existent in Civ 1/2 is a very bad one. Caravans created the routes, but you didn’t need to do anything in order to maintain it. Also, sending another Caravan to the same city gave you close to no benefit.

In Civ 3, the trade system is closely associated with the new resource system. Resources are now placed on map, divided among luxuries and resources. Luxuries make your people happy, while resources let you build things, for instance, you can’t get knight units before you get Horses. Some resources aren’t visible on the map before you research something; for instance, iron resources only become visible as you research Iron Working. Claiming a resource isn’t that easy either, as you must connect it to your city with a road, but you can only build roads inside own borders. Outside borders, you can build a colony, but that will consume your Worker unit, making it rather hard to achieve many resources. This is what makes trade vital - you’ll need many resources, but they’re divided all over the map, so it’s obvious that some things needed by you will be owned by other civs. You’re then forced to either get them by diplomacy, or conquer their land.

I think that the new resource system is a great addition to the game - and while it might not completely change everything, it certainly dramatically changes game style, as it’s now crucial how big your land is, and building roads is something more than just a movement bonus.

Unique Units and Abilities:

This is a much debated thing, but I do also see these positively. Unlike its predecessors, Civ 3 will be having a difference between different civs. These are some units, like the German Panzer, and improved version of the Tank and Indian Elephants, a cheaper version of the Knight. At the same time, Civilizations have some free technologies at the start of the game, and also their abilities, boosting certain areas, like Researcher civs having better science.

In other civ games, your civ choice didn’t matter, it was just what ruler will you feel being. And while you can turn this off in Civ 3, I certainly won’t, for it adds a degree of interest.

Culture:

Together with the new resource system, this is probably the largest improvement to the game. Each city generates some culture, and that impacts your borders. You can pursue a high culture strategy, which will lead to expanding your borders quickly, at the cost of weaker military, or you can care less about culture, and have little culture buildings, but then you’re endangered.

You can gain land of your enemy if you’re adjacent, and your culture is slightly higher. This is a brand new thing for players to worry about, and here you have to make the right decision at the right time.

Culture has an influence over how will other nations treat you, often. This probably is the single most exciting feature of Civ 3.

AI:

Noone knows about how this will be, but I trust Firaxis that it’s improved. Question is how much is the AI improved. What I want is an AI that would launch attack from different directions, not just one linear attack, would also have a nice economy, but not easy to conquer. Also, I hope there will be no stupid flaws of AI, like it sometimes making proposals that obviously don’t do him well.

Border trespassing:

I wonder how the Firaxians are going to fix the old problem from SMAC - if you have big borders, another nation might be forced to cross your land in order to get where they need, but as this is a hostile act, it eventually leads to a war. However, they say it’s not a problem, so let’s hope so.

Graphics:

Unlike some people on Apolyton, I’m not much concerned about this issue. I think that what we have seen so far is a slight improvement over Civ 2 graphics, and that’s what I demand. It’s better than it previously was, so OK. I don’t want superb graphics that would require a 700 MHz processor with 256 MB RAM, to run quickly. Firaxis have made the right choice of balancing graphics quality and keeping the memory requirements low enough for everybody. I don’t second those who say that Firaxis should have another try at the Graphics. Animations of leaders and units in Civ 3 seem to be good enough as well, so I’m completely satisfied here. System Requirements:

CPU clock and memory requirements are really low. You can run this game having 32 megabytes of RAM, while I think that almost everybody now has 64 and more. On 128, what’s popular as well, the game should run very good. Hard drive space isn’t much asked either - 400 MB are owned by most people. Generally, when people start having less than 1 Gigabyte free space, they consider a new hard drive, anyway. And 400 MB can be freed easily, often. Video requirements - this is where I damn Firaxis. They require 16 bit color (fine by me), and resolution of at least 1024x768. I’ve made several threads on this, but got no response from Firaxis. No support for 800x600 resolutions seems to be provided. Some people don’t want or can not run 1024x768 resolutions, and I among one of them. I’ll try editing the game settings file to make it 800x600, but there are high odds the game will reject. If this is the case, I’ll not play the game, and my rants will be very loud - the only chance to shut me up would be releasing a patch with 800x600 support.

Overall, I am very pleased with the game we have in perspective, and will get it ASAP. I trust Civ 3 to be the best civ experience ever, and think that even our pessimists will enjoy the game very much.