Civilization has long been one of the gold standards in strategy gaming lore. Heroes of Might and Magic, Master of Orion, Command and Conquer, and even the relatively new Age of Kings are members of this exclusive club. These are strategy games that other titles want to be when they grow up. Although the Command and Conquer series has grown somewhat stale after all of these years, people keep coming back for more in droves. Heroes of Might and Magic pretty much invented the "gold" edition and is available in about 100 packages and variations, but folks just can't seem to get enough of them. Two Civilization games were published prior to this year. Sid Meier's Civilization is what most "grand" strategy fans lust for and fall over each other to purchase when they show up in stores. Only a few games can get away with publishing "limited" and "standard" editions at the same time and Civilization is one of these titles.
The real problem for any developer trying to improve upon the Civilization series is that (a) the fans are rabid and (b) any deviation too much from Civilization norms results in much gnashing of teeth by hardcore players. If you are Brian Reynolds and already have the Meier seal of approval, you can develop a game like Alpha Centauri that introduces many new twists to the Civilization-like game and not have the faithful want to string you up from the highest tree. The poor folks at Activision introduced all sorts of new ways of conceptualizing a grand strategy game in the Call to Power series only to be laughed at and ridiculed by hardcore Civilization fanatics. "A lawyer unit? You've got to be kidding me!" Missed by folks blinded by Civilization brilliance were some pretty neat tweaks and nuances that were ripe for anybody else developing a Civilization style game to pluck from the vine. Also missing this time around is the Meier/Reynolds team that crafted the series in the first place. OK, Sid Meier is listed in the credits, but his role has been described as "play testing". Can Civilization 3 move the grand strategy genre forward in some meaningful way or is it the same old Civilization with prettier graphics?
The general idea behind Civilization remains the same since 1993's first edition. You choose a leader, a civilization, a map, and a number of different computer opponents and attempt to win the game through a number of different ways. World conquest (domination and military) and space race victory conditions are joined by diplomatic and culture domination ways to win a game. There are a lot of minor improvements to previous additions that are outlined in a very nice 235-page manual that actually has a useful index. This is the first strategy game in a long time that doesn't really require the additional purchase of a third party strategy manual unless you want much more detail for detail's sake. Installing the game was pretty easy, although there are reports of people having difficulty with crashes. Civilization 3 seems to be very sensitive to computers having updated drivers.
The interface is generally improved and easy to use. There are many somewhat counter-intuitive shortcuts that greatly ease tasks. Reading the manual is a must because the list of shortcut keys is long. Much of the micromanagement is decreased compared to Civilization 2, but still could have been improved even more using ideas from other games like Call to Power. Cities can be run completely by governors, although the intelligence of these governors is lacking at times. Engineers are gone and replaced with "workers" whose tasks can be completely automated. This eases the burden somewhat, but I think I still prefer Call to Power's way of modeling terrain development. Cities are managed through screens that let players set production and manage their populations. The advisors that would pop up in Civilization 2 with sage wisdom now have their own screens where they discuss a variety of topics related to their fields. For example, troops in different cities and unit upgrade commands can all be found on the military advisor screen.
The research tree is very similar to Civilization 2, but the presentation is much improved. The bad news is that unless you shell out the bucks for the limited edition, no fold out map is available that diagrams the research tree. The good news is that the map is hardly missed. The science advisor screen provides a very intuitive and easy way not only to designate what needs to be researched, but also to follow research paths to the particular desired technological advance. Clicking on a particular advance reveals how many turns it will take to research the technology (if available to research) and more detailed information about the advance can be read in the civilpedia.
Diplomacy and intelligence operations are very robust this time around. This is not to say that Civilization 2 had a bad diplomacy system, but there are more interesting options available this time around. Trade is negotiated through diplomacy and it reminds me very much of systems used in sports games to negotiate player transactions. Your foreign advisor will give you hints about the probability that the government that's being negotiated with will accept what is being proposed. Trade agreements last 20 turns before they need to be re-negotiated. Those nifty caravans from Civilization 2 are gone. A wide variety of treaties are available and breaking any of them can lead to bad outcomes because other governments won't trust you. They will also feel free to break treaties with your empire at will. One strange thing about the diplomacy screen is that there are fewer slots than all of the governments that can potentially play in a game. The read me file contains information about how to fix this, but it just seems strange that the interface can't handle this without extra tweaking. Intelligence is handled completely through embassies that are setup in the capitals of foreign powers, so there are no more spy units wandering the map.
Computer opponents are now very challenging in Civilization 3. They will very aggressively expand their land, so much so that you must also adopt this as an early game strategy or find yourself boxed in by enemies on every side. When computer opponents attack, they do so in force and in most cases using a combined arms approach. They will also conduct well-coordinated amphibious assaults against unsuspecting shores. This makes the easiest Chieftain setting quite a challenge for newcomers to the series. I've played every version of all the grand strategy games that have been published. I fired up Civilization 3 on Chieftain level and was promptly thrashed by the Persians who caught me napping on one of my borders. Civilizations will team up against you and attack simultaneously. They sign treaties and break them in very cunning ways with you and with their AI allies. I have since been victorious up to the middle difficulty level, but have been beaten soundly at the higher settings. I could easily win a Civilization 2 game at the most difficult level. There doesn't seem to be a great deal of "cheating" going on at the middle difficulty levels, but if there is it is disguised enough to make the games very enjoyable.
The new features that will have the biggest impact on your Civilization 2 strategies are corruption and culture. Corruption is modeled after the concept that the further you are from an empire's capital the more likely there are to be more people with sticky fingers and less than the highest moral standards. This is sort of the Civilization equivalent to the wild wild west were outlaws and thieves get a substantial cut unless you build necessary city improvements and garrison troops. The type of government you choose also influences corruption. Communists have a little bit of corruption everywhere whereas democracies are supposed to have less corruption, in theory. There is a lot to like about the corruption model conceptually, but as implemented it leaves a bit to be desired. The manual states that certain improvements (like the courthouse) are supposed to decrease corruption at the outer edges of your empire. It does do this, but only reduces the level by one and is thus pretty useless when corruption levels can reach quite a few shields and commerce amounts. It also makes huge empires very difficult to manage, especially if you are trying to colonize far off lands.
Another game feature that limits your ability to expand at will is culture. This is an interesting concept where the overpowering culture of your empire can make people envy your citizens so much that they eventually switch sides. Culture is improved through building various city improvements and wonders. The idea is that if you build a coliseum, for example, people will flock to your city from all parts. It takes a few turns for culture to have an effect, but slowly and surely you will assimilate cities Borg-style. One problem with the way that this is modeled is that the empire that gains the city gets no penalty for doing so. Cities switch and there is no anarchy and even a new military unit is gained to garrison the city. While this is a great strategy for those playing on maps that are complete landmasses, trying to manage colonies on maps that have continents becomes very problematic if the empire on that continent has a comparable culture rating. Culture's influence is graphically depicted as borders on the map and this replaces zones of control in previous Civilization editions.
What should be evident at this point is that Civilization 3 no longer makes it easy for players to use a land grab strategy under representative governments (republic and democracy) without suffering consequences. An additional burden on this type of strategy is that warfare is best fought in limited campaigns. War weariness is another addition that can lead to serious consequences for the land grab strategy. The effect of war weariness is government specific, but it generally means that the longer you are at war, the less happy your citizens will be and the more likely they will throw your cities into anarchy. This essentially means that your empire will have to become communist (and accept the efficiency trade off) in order to sustain long campaigns. A new resource system means that part of any strategy will be to
seize and defend key resources on the map. Empires need salt peter for gunpowder and horses for
cavalry, so if they are not present then trade agreements must be worked out or raise an army to take the resource from another empire.
The combat system is probably the area that I would criticize the most. It is essentially the same system as that found in Civilization 2 except that there are armies that can be formed under "great leaders". The leader concept is interesting because your elite units have a chance of producing a great leader while in combat. Great leaders can then form powerful armies. The problem with the combat system in Civilization 3 is that in an attempt to balance the effects of technology and game play the developers allow the game to produce some ridiculous results. In one game I attacked a town occupied by a warrior unit (the weakest and first military unit in ancient times) with two infantry units. The warrior unit wiped out my infantry. I consistently questioned throughout the game why I should upgrade my units at all when I know that a swordsman will mount an effective attack on just about any military unit in any era. There are additional questions about the upgrade paths available. Swordsmen are dead end units, but spearmen can be upgraded throughout the game. Why swordsmen can't be trained as infantry but spearmen can is beyond me, but these types of inconsistencies plague the military model in the game.
Great wonders, once the key to quick victories, are a bit toned down in Civilization 3. No longer can caravans be used to quicken the build pace, but sending a leader in will speed things up. Of course, the presence of a leader is required in order for this strategy to work. Wonders-junior are called "small" wonders. These are improvements that any empire can build, while "great" wonders can only be obtained by one empire. Every empire can build The Hanging Gardens, for example, but only one gets The Great Library.
The audio and graphics are very nice with some major exceptions. I was playing a game and my brother walked into the room and he noted that Civilization 3 provides pretty nice background music while your playing the game. One weird problem is with volume levels of certain effects. Ships are extremely loud at times. Otherwise, the sounds were pretty good. New animations were welcome and empires seemed a bit more alive than in previous Civilization games. One major problem with the graphics is how scrolling is accomplished. It simply cannot be done in any smooth manner and there is too much of a delay in scrolling speed when trying to navigate large maps. Another graphics problem is that you have to sit there and watch every single unit move before the next turn. The AI likes to send out large military patrols, so a sometimes comical set of unit moves occur, as many units seem to be going back and forth for no apparent reason.
There is an "editor" included with the package that is useless. Civilization 3 shipped without any scenarios and the editor doesn't allow the creation of trigger events. This doesn't matter because the editor also doesn't allow designers to place cities or units. Essentially it is a glorified map-modifying program. Firaxis has promised to fix this through a patch and provide a real editor so that fans can develop scenarios for Civilization 3. Another glaring omission is the lack of multiplayer of any kind. While the decision not to include multiplayer is very questionable, I will be happy if it is added as a patch. I will be quite angry if the decision is made to make fans spend $29 for an add-on pack that includes multiplayer functions.
I had a lukewarm reaction to Civilization 3 the first time I played it. In many ways there are things in Alpha Centauri and Call to Power that are simply done better than in Civilization 3. This is not to say that Civilization 3 is a bad game, but I just feel it could have done more to try and innovate a genre it helped create. The biggest game play changes (culture and corruption), decreased micromanagement, and a lot of minor tweaks make Civilization 3 a must buy for strategy gaming fans. Civilization 3 seems to be more of an upgrade to Civilization 2 than it was to Civilization, but many of the "new" features we've played in other titles that came out before Civilization 3. So a couple of innovations and some borrowing from other titles make Civilization 3 an enjoyable experience that is an incremental instead of a revolutionary gaming experience.
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