First Impressions

[ElitePersian]

Originally posted by David Floyd
you can't just play passive defense or you will get cut off from your cities...tile improvements will be pillaged, your strategic minerals will be in trouble (and if you lose either your horses OR your iron in the early game, you're pretty ****ed, because you won't have chariots or more importantly swordsmen).

very tough.

This alone makes the game 100X better than Civ2.
AAHHHHH I CANT WAIT MUCH LONGER!!

[Faboba]

Originally posted by Pyrodrew
Sounds like we're getting conflicting reports. hmmm:

I didn't say it wasn't small, I'm just saying it's fat on the main map. Fat people can be small you know.

Aslo spain looks like someones strangled it on the main map. Granted it looks pretty on the mini-map, but frankly I couldn't give a rats ass about that.

[SSBLoveU]

Random Feature

I enjoyed using the random feature. I do not know who I am playing against.
Also, my science advisor has a lot of ideas.

[Master Marcus]

I've just bought it, sooner than expected, and installed. So far after an hour of gameplay it runs perfectly, and meets my expectations no more no less: that means a time consuming game and a tremendous addictivity. I also find the windows interface longer to master than I thought.

[miniloops]

I am soooooooooo gutted tht the Uk release date is the 16th. I was so looking forward to getting it today! However, maybe Foraxis will iron out early bugs before it gets here!

Yeah right!

[CygnusZ]

I got this today, and I've played a few hours (had to do research for a paper most of the day).

I played through the complete Anicent era using the Greeks. The most promient thing about the game is that it is as different from civ2 as civ2 was from civ1. There has been plenty of nay-saying in some of the threads here, but the fact remains, if you liked Civ2, there is about a 99% chance you'll like Civ3. Same core game with some nifty new elements.

The limited Scientific Development is a bummer though.
For that matter, it was hard for me to get enouch research done.
Research work use abosulte values now, so maybe research in later years go a lot faster?

Anyway, back to Civ3

[Green Giant]

It seems to me that Firaxis did a great, and I mean great job on the big things. Its just that they really bungled the very obvious little things. I am still enjoying the game very much but every once in a while I have to ask myself, "What the hell were they thinking!"

[Sparky]

I have it!

Would you believe I have it? The LE tin? And I have not even opened it??? I also got FS2002 professional at EB and it's 3 CDs with 1.8 gigs are taking up my system right now. Ihave to say form a graphical standpoint flight sim 2002 has the most incredible graphcs I have ever seen.

Hope Civ 3 is every bit as good!

[Alexander's Horse]

Sparky? Not Uncle Sparky?

[The Rook]

Just finished my first game. I had my ass throughly handed to me of coutse. I was taking it slowly, learning the ropes, trying out some old tricks. Civ3 is familiar enough to get right into it, but different enough that Old Civ2 players can find new chalenges to overcome.

The biggest changes I found were the resources. They play such a huge part in the game now. It was 500 BC and I couldn't make any swordsmen because I didn't have Iron. I had horses for a little while, but the AI came and took my ability to use them away.

The bad things I found was the animations just take too long. I turned them off after awhile. The game crashed on me once, and the sound started echoing another time causing me to restart.

The interface will take some getting used to.

The AI placed some cities in some strange spots.

I liked the fact all the civs were still going strong when I retired.

Overall, I like it. I am looking forward to my next venture.

[Alexander's Horse]

You play with the sound on?

Interesting, I don't.

[yang27]

Bug!

I am playing the Japanese at the easiest level and am terrorizing all other civilizations. Decided to extort the Chinese by asking for 200000032 gold per turn; to my surprise, Mao actually said yes. And the following turn I have 200000032 extra gold! More then I can ever spend. Anyway, this is ridiculous so I went back to a saved game so I won't have such an advantage.

Hope Firaxis will fix this one in their first enhancement patch.

Also game has crashed on me 3 times in the 7 hours I have been playing it. I am running Windows 2000 but have quite a few programs running in the background too so am not sure if it's totally due to Civ3.

I will try to send screenshot to editor.

yang27

[Travathian]

Had the game crash 3 times, right when an actual map was loading. Then I restarted my computer and now its worked fine for 5 hours straight.

I do have one beef. It seems darn difficult to read some things. I turned on font smoothing like it said, yet some of the text is in red/blue and the background makes it difficult to read, or its down below my monitor. Also, some of the text seems to overlap itself at times, especially when I check my histograph.

Gameplaywise, the interface takes some definite getting used to. A little clunky in some ways, but more just unusual and need to aclimate myself.

Graphics look cool, sound and music pretty good.

AI, better already. Still doing some silly things at times, but for the most part, plays better. The Diplomacy is vastly improved, even over SMAC.

The thing I hoped for most was the rules options like SMAC had to customize each game. Things like removing goodie huts, aggressive enemies, randomization of faction personalities, etc etc. The only options you have are civs to play as and against, whether or not you want the civ specific abilities, and victory conditions (conquest, culture, diplomacy, etc).

Overall, I'd say I'll be hard pressed to play any other game til at least New Year's.

[Bane]

I haven't had any problems w/ sound/ scrolling/ animations. runs very smooth. The interface does take some getting use too. i guess that's what the manual is for...

Overall it's very good..and i still have that just one more turn syndrome...

As a side note..the music is not that bad..perhaps people say so b/c their comps are cutting it up..but it run smooth

no crashes yet..but then again I can play tribes2 w/out any problems

[Tilemacho]

I have this question about the combat system:
Is it possible to stack units like you can in CTP? I mean when you want to conquer a tile that has many enemy units on it what is going to happen?