First Impressions

[johnpaul_riley]

First Impression

My First impressions... Almost entirely positive...

The three biggest differences that jump out at me..
The quality of the AI, the trade system, culture and the
system of terrain improvements.

1) The AI expands aggressively. The build cities quickly
and early. In Civ2 I could carve out a small empire of
about 10-12 cities and become isolated, focusing on
tech. Doesn't work now! The AI will expand to the point
where you fall behind, even on Warlord level. I got
trounced on a regent game.

2) The AI builds wonders aggressively! How many times
was my wonder JUST nearing completion, when I get the
message that such and such a AI city finished it. GRRRRR
But, makes for a GREAT challenge.

3) The trade and culture systems are FANTASTIC as is the diplomacy.
I can't think of any way to improve either trade or
diplomacy, but I think it would add to the game to have
some culture only buildings. Maybe an art museum or
soemthing with free artistry. The cultural strategy plays
similarly to the tech race strategy. The trade
system forces you to interact with the AI players, nearly
impossible to play a strictly isolationist game anymore. And
embargoes HURT. I got smacked by an embargo alliance
against me, two AI's cut off two luxury trade items, sending
me into massive civil disorder.

4) With all the positive things in mind, I must admit to being
dissapointed by the terrain system. It strikes me as a
throwback to the original Civ. No more airbases, which
really confuses me.... I wish I understood the justification
for their removal. They would be even more useful now that
air missions have changed. Also, no more farming/supermarkets,
which I thought helped provide a need for development into
the late game. Now, it's just railroads do both again, like
Civ. I was hoping for more terrain improvements, such
as radar stations and other things. Though I am
dissapointed with the terrain improvement options, I like
that workers are very cheap, and it's easy to maintain and
support large numbers of them.

-JP

[Döbeln_2001]

This AI kicks butt! In short: Having built a nice empire, whupping some Aztec and English rear in the process, the Germans declare war on me in approx 1500 AD. As I have no land contact with the Germans, I don't give it much thought. Thus, I'm pretty surprised when several German ships show up on my coast and start unloading Knights, that capture one of my size 12 cities. Luckily, my Neighbours, the Iroquis are already at war with the Germans, so getting them onboard is a cakewalk - Iroquis units enter my territory and start dishing it out to the Krauts... Gotta love this game... No crashes so far, my only gripe is with the sluggish loading of the Civilopedia, could be my nVidia drivers and Win XP causing a problem.

/Döbeln 2001

[Döbeln_2001]

Crap, the Germans keep advancing, and another pop 12 city falls, I'm struggling to rush in reinforcements...

/Döbeln 2001

PS.
This is on regent, btw...
DS.

[StrategicKing2]

Ok instead of blowing these programers genitils, lets all ask the real question.."why the hell no multi-player"? It makes no sense at all. The real fun of civ is comparing yourself with the rest of the civ players and outwitting others.

[LarryM]

Originally posted by StrategicKing2
Ok instead of blowing these programers genitils, lets all ask the real question.."why the hell no multi-player"? It makes no sense at all. The real fun of civ is comparing yourself with the rest of the civ players and outwitting others.

Well, some people happen to like single player, and some people for various reasons don't play multi-player. As a single player game, its very successful. I agree that some people are going a bit overboard in their praise; the game does have its problems, and let's be honest, it was rushed out a bit.

That being said, the level of trashing that some people are giving the game is odd to say the least. If you live for multi-play, then don't buy the game. Reasonable minds my differ as to how good the single player game is, but I know this - its going to be on my hard drive for quite a while, and I anticipate many hours of enjoyable play.

[ASHBERY76]

I've been playing the game for 5 hours and i'm very satisfied it's a great game well worth buying.
WELL DONE FIRAXIS.

[Master Marcus]

Originally posted by LarryM
(1) I gave up on two games at monarch (King) level; I'm now well into the industrial age playing the English at regent (prince) level. I'm doing okay - I have a nice compact, efficient civ of 12 cities. I'm think I'm headed for victory, but I'm nowhere near first place yet (the Aztecs are way ahead), and I was as low as 5th or 6th at one point.

I'm still playing my first game ( Regent ) and I was also 5th and sometimes 6th in the ancient era. Now around 1000 AD I'm 3rd, close to 2nd, but the leading Japanese is solid top. Enjoyable game, again Civ III meets my expectations and is etremly addictive. The AI is very good, and I can't wait for some thoughts by yin26 about it.....

"most of us will not play higher than Monarch for quite a while": I agree. The AI is stronger, the game's harder than the prequel, and even when I'll have hundreds of gameplay hours I don't see how yet I can reach Emperor/Deity if there's a significant difference between the highest levels.

So far the ++++: the AI ( yep !), the units design ( superb ) and sounds; the overall balancing .
The - - -: technical omissions like wonder movies and NO VOICEOVERS? ( Come on, even if you hate SMAC, you can hear at least a superb voiceover encoding for each of the 85 techs, each of the 50+ facilities, each of the 36 SPs ( wonders), +the anouncer every turn .) Perhaps to avoid a second disc since Civ III - without voiceovers and movies - is hardly compressed within the single one.

[Xeovar]

A few words on bugs ...

Well, we all know it's great, so I won't be repeating all good words

But after two days (and nights) I can say I found some bugs and some things that are definitively not good enough for a Civ.

1) Conceptually
a) I really hate workers :| 75% of time spent playing you move those morons around And I don't like setting them on auto. This is only thing I liked better in CTP.
b) diplomacy is a lot better, however it should be possible to "invite" more than one other civ to talks - for example you could build an alliance of three countries against other two. That would be cool.
c) AI does not respect borders - they keep walking on your territory regardless you gave them right of passage or not. That really sucks, especially when they settle just beyond border in a middle of your territory.

2) Bugs
a) I started huge map game with 16 civs and surprise - foreign advisor shows only first eight of them
b) In domestic advisor screen you can sort by different columns, but: you can't sort by what city produce (!) and after a few secs order gets back to usorted without even clicking anything

3) Glitches
a) advisors do not carry necessary information for real strategic management: it lacks some summaries, some tools for changing production for several cities at once, you can't get a right-click menu on unit in military advisor screen when sorted by city (if sorted by type you can (!)), no good summary for trade (who, what, for what), no good summary for diplomacy (foreig advisor suck, and there's no simple way of browsing diplomatic agreements)

I think that's all. It looks like a lot, but even with all this Civ3 rocks. However it could have been better.
I hope a dev will read this post, and get some ideas for patch.

Regards,

Xeovar

[Spatzimaus]

There's one thing I don't like, but only because it makes no sense.

In a 16-way game, you should be more than willing to trade fairly with your neighbors, because you both gain relative to the other 14 players. Playing the science broker was always entertaining in other games; trade 2 mediocre techs for one good one, then trade the same 2 for another good one to another race, and so on around the table.

With Civ 3 and its luxuries and strategic resources I was expecting to be able to do something similar. But, the AI players all want outrageous deals, and not just for techs. World Maps? They want my World Map, 600 gold, and a technology just for their map. Luxuries? They're not even happy trading 2 for 1.

I started with 3 silks and 3 incense in my territory, and I CAN'T TRADE THEM AWAY. No one wants it, even when the Foreign Advisor says things like "Babylon wants incense, maybe we should trade them some". I'm going to lose this game simply because there were no Horses in my territory and no one will trade me them (even a friendly civ that has 3). I'm about to start a very unfavorable war just to grab a city with horses, because if I don't I'll be crushed by the first civ to attack me.

This is on Regent level, BTW. And I know the AI players are trading with each other, so why are they so against trading with me?

[Provost Harrison]

I feel your pain Spatzimaus and agree with you. If an AI opponent has luxuries just laying around unused and so do you, it makes perfect sense to trade them. Both sides benefit. It doesn't make sense why they would be so belligerent...

[Comrade Tribune]

Just got the game!

As yet no comment, except: It did funny things with my graphics settings; shouldn´t change any settings on my system without asking me for permission!

Evaluation of the manual: Very soon!

Evaluation of gameplay: Not so soon. (I am planning to write a lenghty review that will stand the test of time!)

[gsunderl]

So far, I'd say it's definately civ, but with the difficulty ratched up some. I used to play civ2 about 40 hrs a week, though I haven't really played it in 3 or 4 years. Needless to say, I was quite excited about civ3. Civ2 was fairly easy to beat on diety, if you played a lot (you were in practice), expanded quickly, and was willing to micro manage EVERY part of the game (and was willing to endure the very long game of taking over every single city, moving countless howitzers around). My play style in civ2 was fairly xenophobic for most of the game, building up a strong economy and science advantage, leading off with spys to buy off most of the enemy citys (avoiding destruction of the city) and mopping up with howitzers and using the UN to prevent retaliation. That should give you enough of an idea of what type of strategies I used, which I assume was fairly common.

Civ3 keeps the over all feel, adds some new stuff, has better micro-management lessening features, and better ai. I started out on the 2nd easiest setting and got beat pretty hard when every single country in the world declared war on me. I started over at the easy level, since I believe winning gives the greatest insights on how to win over all. I ended up winning a cultural victory quite easily in about 1980 or so. I played on a huge map. I noticed a couple of things (which may be wrong, since it was only after my 2nd game):

--be very good friends 2nd closest country -- you don't want to fight multiple computer players.
--once the computer starts sending any troops in your territory, start building a military. War is inevitible.
--hitting hard and fast, taking a few cities, going for peace after taking 3 or 4 seemed to keep the internal riots down. Man, under democracy, the people are weenies.
--Make sure you can rush build a temple and courthouse on the cities you take. If you take a city over, the locals get very angry if you're at war against their native country.
--Coal is very rare. Make friends by getting them up to the steam engine so you can trade for coal to build rail roads.
--pollution is a major pain. You used to be able to get mass transit pretty quickly, now it takes a while. Have lots of workers to clean up the mess.
--Watch for rioting cities closely, it's easy to miss them.
--Trade low end techs for cash per turn. The computer loves getting tech, and will pay lots of cash for it. You make friends at the same time.
--Trade. You need friends. Give the computer a deal.
--Make good friends with all of the computer players that are far away, being popular may scare your neighbors. This may be wrong, but they may fear a 2 front war.

Like I said, some of the above may be wrong since it's only my 2nd game, but it's what I learned after playing one through the ages, and may help others figure out some strategies (which will inturn help me...)

Anyway, it's what I was looking for. It works under windows 2000 (big plus there, since I couldn't play civ2 under win2k, and I was jonesing for a civ fix). They added culture, which I really like, especially since I find major military takeovers to be tedious. And they made it so that I won't have to play at the hardest difficulty level (there's always a level that I can't beat, I assume anyway). And yes, I'm quite drunk right now, so that's why I'm rambling so much.

BTW, I really don't see how multi-player is going to work very well, since Civ is such a long game. The only way I can see would be for people to do peer to peer games (lan or net) that were pre-arranged amongst themselves. Please, if you have an idea, please mention it, because a good way to do multiplayer would be very cool.

[silverdrgn]

You don't want anyone to listen to anyone that HAS the game????

Well I have CivI and II, loved them. We still play the multiplayer version of 2. Guess what, I've got some work ahead of me returning CivIII. I didn't like it.

But since you want to waste your money before talking to people that HAVE played it, I'll let you continue in blissful ignorance.

Originally posted by BigBear
Damn my stupid ways and my ordering from Amazon.com. I want this game so BAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I dreamed that this day would come as soon as completed my first game of Civ2. And now its finally hear, and all I can do is read what other people think about it!!

On another note, I would not listen to the majority of people on these forums about the game. So many people here are pessimists. They are gonna find everything they can that is wrong with the game before they say one thing about the good stuff.

[silverdrgn]

Thats where you are wrong it. It is like Civ2. Some things are improved, others are not!

I liked what they added. Can't stand the interface, we are sticking with civ2 multiplayer..

oh don't forget no multi-player in this version. Are they waiting to stick us with another version (and another $50) for that???

Originally posted by faded glory
What GP is forgetting is that Civ3 is nothing like Civ2.

nothing.....

[Thoth]

My overall first impression is pretty good. I'm still working on my first game, but a few things struck me.

Overall feel is more like Civ 1 than Civ 2. (fewer improvements, railroads increase production and food, the combat system, and the overall feel is somewhere between Civ 1 on steroids and SMAC).

I'd rate it a definite buy, but there are a few things I'm willing to quibble over. Mostly interface stuff.

Civ 2 had a lot more information available to the player. I miss being able to look at the happiness analysis and know why a city was unhappy. There's no "Zoom to City" option for civil unrest.....it's way too easy to miss a city that has gone into disorder.

I haven't found a way to look at an enemy's stats (tech levels, city list ect) even with an embassy. I'm not sure if it's the game or the player.

The build queue is a nice addition to the Civ experience, but rather awkward to change on the fly.

I miss being able to zoom in and out incrementally, really close and really far out seem to be the only options.

Not being able to rush wonders at all (unless you have a leader).
I found myself looking for a fight anytime I wanted to build a wonder, just so I could try for a leader.

There were a couple of other things, but I was playing until 6:30 this morning.....which I think is the most telling factor.....the fun is there.

(off to soak up more coffee, and back to Civ III)