I was very interested in the arrival of Civ III and a lot of this was based upon the fond memories of past Micropose Games. I remembered the classics of Colonization, Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, Pirates, Master of Magic, Moo and MooII, they were great days in high school and the start of my University days. However, Civ III is closer to a modified Civ II with some fancier graphics, and some watered down images than it is a successor to the Call to Power. Now maybe it is unfair to compare Civ to Call to Power, but that it what happened. Civ III is a poor contender in comparison to CTP. Politically correctness is the bane of Civ. III and is the source of this games inability to have developed itself beyond the boundaries established by CTP. CTP's main failings were in its diplomatic interchanges and the lack of race particulars watered CTP down to the point that only the names of the places mattered. These are minor problems, in general, CTP offered more than Civ II and disappointingly more than Civ III, for instance the governments in CTP included Fascism and Theocracy, while because of the 9/11 attacks Civ pulled fundamentalism…as an American I feel the tragedy deeply, but is that any reason to eliminate it …in a computer GAME? That also applies to CTP interesting though relatively ineffective later in the game slavery. In CTP Trade was far more improved, and there were trade lines to be cut and so piracy could be a real deal and have an impact! Also, there were new and exciting technologies.

CivIII came out swinging but and with all the hopes and cheers struck out three times, just like the Casey at Bat, had the faith of his fans and let everybody down. Maybe the fans expected too much, maybe the producers decided to play it safe and not experiment too much. Whatever the cause, Civ III is a disappointing sequel. Civ III's graphics are seriously improved over Civ II, but they have to be after so many years of computer development, so they get no bonus points there. The diplomatic scenes are better, but there really is no more diplomacy than in CIV II. The resources are a nice add on, but they are often too limited across the board to make the game challenging, there should be more iron and coal spread around or don't tie it into unit production. However, it does give a "race for the oil" approach to the politics of the game bymaking areas of the map critical and other less vital. I guess part of my dissatisfaction with Civ III this derives from my love of CTP's trade system. Like all the Civ games the problems with war relate to the slow and sluggish way the game progresses in time. That's not the games forte so maybe if you are really looking for a historical combat simulator…play EU or EUII. However, something could be done about the time to slow it down…makes the game longer but wars are shorter and more realistic…also tech levels take too long for the ancients and are too fast later on.

Another failure is the combat system. After the time, we are still frozen with Civ II with only minor revisions. At least they fixed the elimination of the stack if one of them is killed. Again the entire army system of CPT is better and less cumbersome. The Army unit is worthless in that you cannot modernize it or take units out of it. Plus it is not as useful as 5-10 units that are attacking individually. The combat makes the entire game some WWI style slug fest. Bombard with catapults, then assault…repeat and rinse until the city is occupied. Though they have modernized the nukes…they are not nearly as effective as they should be and because of political correctness biological attack, genocide (a favorite of MOO2) are ruled out. At least I can destroy the cities after I conquer it.

The limited number of nations though not 100% disappointing is made worse by the fact that some nations, English, Zulu's and American's have relatively worthless units. The Indians are little more imaginative with their knight/elephant. Nevertheless, this fact is an expansion on the second and should not be overlooked. Also, nice is the culture fact, something that CPT did not have. I like how you can expand the culture capturing or losing cities. I also like how a city can revolt back to its former owner if near its cultural sphere.

The lack of a world map, soon to be corrected takes some away from it. I miss the Mongols of Civ II and the unrelenting hordes it threw on top of me. Some of my fondest memories of that game was holding Roman frontiers of a unified Roman Europe against the wave attacks of a Mongol power house from the East and the Zulus from the heart of Africa. I thank CivII for not putting ICBM's into its more potent nukes….noticed that one anybody…nuke strength has diminished.

What seems to matter for the designer is if I will buy the expansion…and honestly, I am not sure.

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About the author: An avid computer game since the early days of ZORK