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Civilization 3 Complete Review (continued)
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Manufacturer: 2K Games
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ESRB Rating: Everyone
Platform(s): Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP
Release Date: July 29, 2005
Average Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
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Retail Price: $19.99
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More User Submitted Civilization 3 Complete Reviews
Date: 2007-03-05
alright, but not without its issues
I can't beleive i blew that much money on the Civ3 collection, thinking i would save more money, only to find that if I got Civ3 and Conquests, I'd be good. Also, the computer's AI is insane. It makes more illegal moves than I do on a boring session. Since I couldn't take Civ3 back or sell it, I gave it away in excahnge for some books. I still love my Civ2:Test of Time edition. That I don't mind so much. Even tho Civ3 does come away with major improvements, the game should not be that difficult. Also, I miss my sci-fi and fantasy elements... I am not planning on buying Civ4 or any other title afterwards given what's being presented now... Also, I just can't run those games on my Windows98 machine (tho it does have pentium3 processor and 128 of ram, it's just too slow).
Date: 2007-02-17
Good Choice for the Civ Fan
I haven't yet tried Civ4 but I've loved Civ3 for years. I had a new computer and wanted to get up and running on Civ3 as soon as possible, and Civ3 Complete let me do that without having to worry about installing a lot of patches, etc.
Date: 2007-02-07
How I have come to hate this game
It was not engaging and I often lost -confused and frustrated!
Date: 2007-02-03
One of the best staregy games of all time!
Great game, I have been playing Civ 3 for about 3 years, around the time when it first came out. Fun game, while u can't just swamp your enemies, the game takes actual strategic skill.
Pros:
Great game overall
decent graphics
realistic
fun to play
Conquests scenarios are awesome, espicially, WWII and the Napoleonic war
Cons:
May sometimes run slow
the computer is tough (but you don't see me whining)
Not very many units
Date: 2007-01-22
Seriously terrible
First things first:
First, as Mr. Dusel pointed out, this is just Civ III plus Civ III: Conquests. Conquests includes Play The World, so in a sense there is only one expansion. I myself posess Conquests and the Civ III Game of the Year edition or some such nonsense, which has a few extra maps and the map editor.
Second, as someone else pointed out, the computer cheats to a ridiculous degree on even the moderate difficulty levels, and it is the worst kind of cheating, because the computer will turn away numerically and statistically superior units in preposterous streaks of wins while your own units infuriatingly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time after time. This is the game's single biggest flaw, and it is, in my mind, unforgivable. In short, the Civilization I problem of phalanxes turning away battleships is back, (although as ships can no longer attack land units in the normal fashion, that's not literally true).
Pros versus Civilization II:
More units (slightly)
More logical tech tree
Settlers auto-management improved (though still annoying in that the computer has a particular way of management which isn't always the most efficient)
Unit animation is cute the first time you play
Bombardment was a good idea, though it's been implemented in too many units and is a time-consuming process with large numbers of units, and is too hard to do effectively
Easier to move unit groups, pathfinding improved somewhat
Resources are a smart idea
More sophisticated diplomacy options
Civilization-specific units
Cultural value a good metric and asset
Detailed scenarios
Cons:
Flagrant computer combat cheating to the point of ruining the game
Geographically large states still almost invariably win (personal issue, but I think this should not always be the case)
Unit animation quickly becomes annoying and useless
Time consuming end-game armies
Corruption plagues all states regardless of government. While some corruption is understandable there is no reason for a state to become unmanageably large in the late game
Bombardment wastes time and does nearly nothing (cheating computer again?)- on a related note the single most aggravating bug is the non-functional coastal fortresses, which only attack during the player who owns the fortress's turn; the computer consistently circumvents this by bombarding and retreating, acknowledging the bug and rendering the fortresses useless.
As mentioned by others, resource placements often screw the player over from the get-go. Furthermore there is little motivation to trade an opponent strategic resources like iron and oil, so the unfortunate player is doomed to defending against battleships with arrows because there is no iron or oil on his entire continent.
Computer sees resources (indeed, the entire map before it is explored) before it gets the tech to do so, further tipping the scales against the player
Diplomatic AI is miserable
No way to force the computer to respect borders (computer players will build pointless, obstructive cities in isolated places within your territory and constantly cross over your borders and will declare war if you ask them to remove their units, yet regard your units crossing into their territory as cause for war.)
Do not listen to the cheerleaders writing reviews here. The computer DOES cheat (and I don't understand how anybody could not see this), the odds are frequently stacked overwhelmingly one way or the other, and the computer cannot negotiate in anything like a rational way. This is a truly awful game, because it can suck you in for hours only to crush you when you realize that you had no chance to begin with. Deeply flawed and pointless. Civilization II is much better.
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