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And it was a success: It took even me in for a few weeks 
, and it certainly did take in the reviewers. 
But in fact, and this is my final conclusion, everything the pessimists said was an understatement: CivIII, imo, is one of the worst 4xgames ever made.
Why, you ask? Well, the main reason is, everything in the game -not just the leader faces- is a caricature. Take government systems, for example: Instead of giving us a lot of governments, but making the differences between them subtle, they opted for just 5, but ridiculously overdid their effects. Because of forced labour, Despotism and Communism, in the hands of a human player, are unbeatable. Take forced labour away, however, and Democracy/Republic will be unbeatable. Instead of real life shades of grey, we get a small number of clownish caricature-governments, and not even those are well balanced.
Exactly the same with units: The obvious thing would have been either a stone/scissors/paper approach or stacked combat, or both. There should have been a large number of slightly different units to reward the master tactician, who finds exactly the right thing for the job. Instead, we get caricatures again: Enjoy moving enormous amounts of one-and-the-same overpowered attack unit (Horsemen/Knights/Cavalry) individually through the landscape, but only if you are a masochist, because it´s equally cumbersome and unrewarding.
I could go on and on, but it all comes up to this: They wanted to create a simplistic Mickey-Mouse style Civgame, that appeals to Command-and Conquer players, because that is where the mass market is (and where most reviewers are), and, to add insult to injury, they didn´t even have the decency to test it well!
My advice (to myself
and others): Never again buy a game that has Sid Meier´s name on it! These days, that´s a guarantee for shoddyness. 
, and it certainly did take in the reviewers. But in fact, and this is my final conclusion, everything the pessimists said was an understatement: CivIII, imo, is one of the worst 4xgames ever made.
Why, you ask? Well, the main reason is, everything in the game -not just the leader faces- is a caricature. Take government systems, for example: Instead of giving us a lot of governments, but making the differences between them subtle, they opted for just 5, but ridiculously overdid their effects. Because of forced labour, Despotism and Communism, in the hands of a human player, are unbeatable. Take forced labour away, however, and Democracy/Republic will be unbeatable. Instead of real life shades of grey, we get a small number of clownish caricature-governments, and not even those are well balanced.
Exactly the same with units: The obvious thing would have been either a stone/scissors/paper approach or stacked combat, or both. There should have been a large number of slightly different units to reward the master tactician, who finds exactly the right thing for the job. Instead, we get caricatures again: Enjoy moving enormous amounts of one-and-the-same overpowered attack unit (Horsemen/Knights/Cavalry) individually through the landscape, but only if you are a masochist, because it´s equally cumbersome and unrewarding.
I could go on and on, but it all comes up to this: They wanted to create a simplistic Mickey-Mouse style Civgame, that appeals to Command-and Conquer players, because that is where the mass market is (and where most reviewers are), and, to add insult to injury, they didn´t even have the decency to test it well!
My advice (to myself
and others): Never again buy a game that has Sid Meier´s name on it! These days, that´s a guarantee for shoddyness.
Apart from something as unimportant 
as realism, how do you want to balance immortality?
Would have been 1 day except damn work and life got in the way.
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