Is there anything GOOD bout civ3?

[The Andy-Man]

My PC wont run Civ3 so i aint played it yet. But after glancing at this forum since the game came out, it looks like its awful, bad implementation of culture, army's virtually useless, colonies pointless, and so on.

what i want to know is, how good is the game (nopt how bad), does it have any good points?

And is Europa universalis better? (I got EU1 and it definatly beast the hell out of what i have read bout civ3)

[Argos65987]

There is alot of good about Civ 3 (don't believe everything you read) and there is bad (again, don't believe everything you read). While I have seen or encountered many of the problems people have complained about, I generally feel that they don't warrant the vehemence that people sometimes post with. I believe they are working on their 3rd patch.

Also, EU2 is an awesome game. Very addictive and deep. It has it's share of problems as well, but is more than worth the money. They are currently working on their 3rd patch, also.

[The Andy-Man]

well, the thing here that gets me is the colonies (they sim pointless), the Culture thing just seems stupid, and how bad is the corruptionm thing.

I mean, to have high civ score you need to be big and involved in the world, but to have low corruption you need to have only 2 cities. (or so it seems). i dont get it

[Rasputin]

The best part of civ 3 is the culture, makes for an easy victory.

To counter corruption I build my citys infrastructure and dont go out conquering the other civs.

[Argos65987]

I seem to remember that the colonies were used more before the most recent patch (something must have changed). I sometimes use them for terrain I don't want a city in (jungle, mountain) but may send a settler there sooner or later.

Corruption is manageable in several ways. The most blatant is to change the optimum number of cities in the editor, or edit the corruption reducing buildings, etc. Corruption effects can be managed, but not everyone likes the way the need to manage now. Further tweaks to corruption might be in the forthcoming patch.

[muppet]

Yup. Good and Bad stuff. It's a $50 game. For 50 bucks:

1. I don't expect it to be a professional simulation program of real world history. Not a big deal if they don't hire graduate students in their respective fields to simulate real life; however,

2. I do expect it to be fun. There are things that could be made to feel less like work.

I don't feel like anything regarding colonies has changed since the patch. I think we use them less now because of the experience that they can be assimilated.

I use them when they are just out of reach of city borders, but I need the resource badly, can afford to expend a worker and expect the city's border to eventually overtake the colony.

[FrantzX]

The AI is a challenge. That alone makes Civ III worth it. No more breezing diety with my brain off.

[Capt Dizle]

Civ2 and SMAC stayed on my hard drive for years. I still have the disks in a safe place. Civ3 stayed on my hard drive for a few weeks and I gave it away.

Civ3 is poorly designed. It is really bad. I am not speaking of bugs, glitches, or stuff like that. It is obviously a professionally made product. But there is no fun in the game. It is tedious to play.

About just about every gameplay concept, the design team did exactly the wrong thing. They have remained consistent in the patches so far.

There is nothing good about it unless you like tedium. The game should be renamed Civ3, the Age of

[Encomium]

The bad far outweighs the good in Civ III.

But it is am improvement that now an enemy AI invasion force shows up en masse instead of too small numbers. Sid got that right, at least.

[DarkCloud]

Well, Andy, I don't know about you- but for me, the basic idea, design, then interface are the most important.

If you liked CTP 2, then you should like Civ III from what I see of the Interface and design. As for the basic idea and gameplay, ask some people who have played both games

Good luck

[Ironikinit]

Some people hate it, I like it.

The colony thing... I use them, but I know that I better get a city up there pronto or the AI will do it and absorb my colony. They're just stopgaps or sometimes useful in very mountainous areas where a city just won't reach.

If you're really worried about whether or not you'll like it or if it'll run, make sure you buy it from a store where you can return it. Better yet, borrow it from a bud. It won't hurt to wait to buy it, same as most any game.

That said, take what the anti-Civ III people say with a grain of salt. Some of them are full of baloney.

[Barnacle Bill]

IMO, Civ3 is a matter of "good news - bad news":

Good news: air units work more realistically than in Civ/Civ2/SMAC, doing missions within an operational radius around their base.
Bad news: air units can't sink ships, and not even ultra-modern units like Aegis Cruisers can shoot back at bombarding aircraft.

Good news: strategic resources create more meaningful reasons for trade & conflict than in Civ/Civ2/SMAC.
Bad news: strategic resources are modelled so one source is all you need, and there is no substitute or work-around if you ain't got (unlike real life or previous resource-games like the Imperialism series). Plus, this poor execution of resources is offered up as an excuse for combat system keeping hopelessly obsolete units viable ("so you won't be too hosed if you lack a vital resource") - but the real problem is that the AI places very low priority on upgrading units (and lots of units don't upgrade).

Good news: unit maintenance is now in gold, eliminating all that rot in Civ/Civ2/SMAC about what city supported what unit, etc...
Bad news: maintenance costs are flat regardless of time period or unit cost, creating way more units in late-game than in previous games, which in turn prompts all this silly & distracting hoopla about stacked movement (the right fix is reduce the number of units to the Civ2 level by making maintenance costs proportional to unit construction shield cost)

Good news: you now have borders.
Bad news: the AI routinely ingores your borders and there's not much you can do about it except full-scale war, and the border between you and another civ moves not only because they founded a new city near the border (which plagued SMAC) but because of culture.

Good news: the editor lets you add new governments, unlike Civ2.
Bad news: most of the stuff you could mod in Civ2 can't be modded in Civ3 (yet, anyway). No event scripting language, no user-defined units, can't even specify starting locations for a scenario that plays from 4000 BC, much less create the sort of scenarios we had in Civ2 with cities and units already in place and techs known, etc...

There are other examples - mostly a matter of "good idea - lame execution".

[horgel]

I bought Civ3 when it hit the shelves and got slightly dissapointed after a week.

Then i bought EU2 and since that time CIV3 just collects dust and has been removed from my hard disk.

Personally i like EU2 *A LOT* more than Civ3 as the CIV-slogan 'rewrite the history...' fits a thousand time better to EU2...

Playing those games consumes time, and i like to spend my time having fun with a good game instead of beeing somewhat bored by a mediocre game, even if Sid meyer is written in its cover...

[macaskil]

I don't have EU2. From what I have read it is an excellent game, but it only covers the Middle Ages. Equally Age of Empires is good but doesn't attempt to model a whole planet, and again it stops in Medieval times.

Civ3 could be improved a lot, however it does only cost $50. I can easily spend that on a meal out or a trip to a sports event, which occupies me for a couple of hours. For my $50 I have already had 100 hours+ of enjoyment and expect to get thousands of hours before I get tired of it.

[Zoid]

I like the culture thing and the revamped trading system (but NOT the dip), I also absolutely adore the new unit support system and to an lesser extent the AI. However, if you´re in doubt wether to buy or not I´d say: Save your money and buy something else! The game has such an extent of serious flaws it´s no fun to play in the long run.