CIVILIZATION III
March 24, 1999 - May 25, 1999
RANDOM EVENTS?
(May 25, 1999) Sould Civ3 have random events? Vote!
Other poll ideas are welcome.
BRIAN ON BORDERS
(May 25, 1999) The topic of borders came up on the civ3 forum and Brian Reynolds posted
"My guess is Civ3 will have borders, but their extent and effect will vary with your government type and
technological progress. Clearly a Bronze Age city state would resolve borders in a different way from a modern
nation state, and you'll see an evolution from one to the other in the game.
In SMAC we found that borders not only made the game more fun, they made the AI smarter.
As with Alpha Centauri, you'll probably be able to reduce the effect of borders by editing the rules file, if for some
reason (?!?!) you don't like them."
SID INTERVIEWED
(May 19, 1999) Sid Meier was interviewed by
Gaming Entertainment Monthly a few days ago on, what else, CivIII! Certainly interesting to listen, it's in MP3 format and you can listen to it from
our server (right click & select "Save To Disk" if left click doesn't work) or GEM's.
To listen to the interview, you need to have an application on your computer that supports the MP3 file format. We
recommend you download and install WinAmp which is a most
versatile media player available free of charge.
200 POSTS/DAY
(May 19, 1999) Since Sunday, when we opened our civ3 section and transformed the
"Suggestions for Civ3" forum to the first civ3 forum on the web after the official announcement, more than 1000 messages
were posted! This average of 200 posts/day forced us to make a new civ3 forum, specifically for the needs of the List,
the project to collect the civers' ideas and send them to Firaxis.
Speaking of the List, it is right to give credit to the "Thread Masters" the team who collects this info on the forums:
Yin, Mindlace, Ming, Redleg, Pythagoras, Jeje, evil-conquerer, Frank Moore, Shining1, don Don, tfs99, DanS, Bell,
Octopus, JT and EnochF. Don't be fooled with the big number of people, help is needed. If you're interested,
contact Yin.
OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE
(May 18, 1999) The official press release
was passed along to us by a representative of Firaxis today; it is the "official notification" that CivIII
will soon be under development. We reproduce it, entitled "Hasbro Interactive and FIRAXIS Games Announce
Partnership to Create 'Sid Meier's Civilization III' CD-ROM Game; Original Civilization Team is Reunited to
Develop New Strategy Game".
THE LIST
(May 17, 1999) The CivIII suggestions have started to fall like rain
with Yin26, along with Pythagoras, JT and Jeje2 gathering a list of suggestions to produce. The list will be
sent to Firaxis, a company which has proven it is always open to ideas from fans. More people are needed to
make this project a success, so if you can and want to help out in the creation of the list or simply give your
CivIII ideas, we'd love to hear from you! Just head over to our CivIII forum and let your
wishes be known!
WE'RE OPEN!
(May 16, 1999) We're happy to announce a dream come true, a civ3 section!
We know it may seem a bit early, but we think there is a need for something like that, hoping to help a little
in making the civ game of our dreams. You might want to check out the "About" page, as
well as our "transformed" Civilization 3 Forum.
CIVILIZATION III!!!
(May 15, 1999) It's finally true! Hasbro announced yesterday an agreement with Firaxis to work on Sid Meier's
Civilization III! CivIII will be designed by Firaxis and published by Hasbro. The development will begin in the
next few months.
Hasbro Interactive's president, Tom Dusenberry made the announcement today, grandly calling the upcoming Sid Meier's
Civilization III "the most significant game of all time". Dusenberry then introduced fellow HI employee Tony Parks,
a man little known to most gamers but who worked with the "Firaxis Three" when they were all back at MicroProse. He's
the man given the credit for making Civ III a reality, and was nothing short of beaming as he introduced the first of
the Firaxis Three, Jeff Briggs. He states that EA was willing to let Firaxis work with Hasbro on Civ III.
Briggs, in turn, gives the floor to Brian Reynolds, who was the talent behind Civilization II and Alpha
Centauri. He addresses the question, why Civ III? His answers basically boil down to one, the fans want
it and two, there are things in the first two games that they feel they can flesh out. Then Sid Meier takes the
podium and this is where you learn that the wheels have just started to roll!
It soon became apparent that Civ III isn't the only announcement of the day, for Meier discusses their idea for
something they are calling the Sweep of Time Trilogy. This set of three games will include SMAC, Civ
III, and a third as-yet unannounced title, all covering the entirety of human history (and future). What's more,
while each is a stand alone title (and of course SMAC is already out), when combined into the trilogy you'll
be able to carry over from one game to another!!
While they won't talk about it, a source within EA hints that they will be publishing whatever this title is, and
says that Meier will be designing this new title while Reynolds will be in charge of Civ III. So, when can
we expand this grand trio? Reynolds only committed to saying "sometime early in the third millennium." Hopefully
they will narrow it down a bit in the coming weeks.
For more information, you can check our source articles at Gamespot
and Computer Games Online.
We told you E3 was going to be exciting for all of us Civ fans, didn't we? 
As we wait for more news, stop by our now more important than ever "Suggestions for Civ3" Forum. Many
thanks to Jimgo & Kevin Yang for the note.
FIRAXIS & HASBRO TEAM UP!
(May 6, 1999) Seems like dreams come true. According to CGO, Firaxis and Hasbro(owner of Microprose) are joining forces for
a new title! Nothing else is yet known, but suddenly the name "Civilization III", came to our mind for an unexplained reason . From
the article the agreement seems definite but nothing is being said officially yet. Our big thanks
to Jimbo for the news tip.
LOUIE, LOUIE: WHAT OF CivIII?
(March 24, 1999) GameCenter's Mark Asher had a talk with Gilman Louie, Chief Creative Officer (if you don't know what this means, you're not the only one) of MicroProse -- as a point of reference, he was MPS' CEO until it was bought by Hasbro Interactive last summer. In the interview, posted today, Asher asked Louie if any ambitions were stirring within his company to produce a
new Civilization title. "There's been a lot of discussion and design work done," he said. "It needs to be more than an evolution of Civ II. We don't want a new formula, but we want it to feel like a Civ III and not a Civ II with enhancements".
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