Civilization III

"Did they playtest? At all?"

Okay, so that synopsis sounds rather negative. The game is quite good. Veterans of the Civ franchise will most likely be delighted with the new additions, and newcomers won't mind the few glaring holes in the game play. First, what's Good:

*Just about every new feature is executed well. Culture, for instance, adds a lot to the game without adding a lot of bookkeeping to the game. Culture is almost a background thing--you were going to build that Cathedral anyway, but now you get Culture points for it. Culture mainly does two things: it expands your borders (Borders! Yay!) and may eventually cause other cities owned by rivals to convert to your civ. This is *very* nice, so when those irritating Expansionists build a city right where you were going to, you'll know that it will covert to you eventually, if you play your cards right. Resources (of all three types) are nice, since now you may have to fight for Saltpeter or Oil...very nice addition.

*Civ-specific abilities are nice, if not particularly useful. The new ''unit'' for each civ is only a slight improvement over the existing unit (i.e., an attack 4 instead of an attack 3). Still, it gives the game flavor. The two ''types'' of civs (scientific, expansionist, etc.) are also nice. The only complaint about this is that they didn't make enough of them--not that I really wanted more, but if they ever want to add some new civs in an expansion pack, they'll probably have to repeat some combinations or create new ones. We'll see.

*Lots of cleaned-up mechanics. No home-base units are cool. The you-might-miss-some-techs is actually nice, because it gives a bit more use out of trading techs with civs and the Great Library. Not allowing units to be supported by production, and using money instead, is a subtle change I like. I always thought it kind of silly that under a Republic or Democracy, you may find some of your cities making no production at all. Now, that's changed.

*The trade table! A little-played game called Political Tycoon released about a year ago had a similar (and somewhat superior) trade table concept, and I wondered ho long other games would adopt it. Well, Civ's trade table is a reasonably realistic and much, much less frustrating trading mechanism. Gone are those Caravans.

Okay, so they've taken the new stuff and pumped it up real good. What are the bad things? Uh-oh...

*Science. It LAGS. It's SLOW. And the patch? It made it EVEN SLOWER. A mid-size Democracy (say, a fifth of the total territory) with Universities in all cities, Science cranked up to 80%, and you're chugging out techs every...11 turns or so. Meanwhile, ALL the other civs are specializing and trading techs, and they catch up to you very, very quickly. I understand that there has to be some sort of balance, but I have yet to finish a game researching all the techs.

*Combat. The actual Combat process is cleaner and nicer, but one painful item makes it difficult. In Civ 2, they thoughtfully added a era-specific modifier for units, so a Phalanx vs. a Tank would give the Tank a pretty big multiplier to win pretty much all of the time. Modern units got more hit points and a greater success rate, so unrealistic combat results were rare, though not eliminated. In Civ 3, though, this concept is GONE. You're still having Battleships slaughtered by Spearmen.

*Wonders. I like wonders. I actually like it that the Wonders are largely toned down, since missing one isn't a game-restarter. But there are three new things concerning wonders: you can only build one specific wonder in one city; you cannot rush Wonders; and you are not warned when a wonder is about to be completed. I actually like these rules in theory, since it's much more realistic. And as much as I hated the stock-up-on-caravans strategy in Civs 1 and 2, I still used it. However, from a gameplay point of view, it's boring. Since tech research is SO SLOW, you'll be three turns from finishing a Wonder when a rival completes it, and you have no new wonders to switch it to, so you lose 150 resources or whatever. In addition, I LIKE wonders, and I want MORE Wonders. Why cut out the Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, etc.? I mean, it's fine if you want to streamline the game and all. It's just a minor complaint. Another minor complaint: one concept from the original civ that I'm glad got out of Civ 2 was continent-specific wonders (i.e., the Hoover Dam in Civ 1 gave a Hydro bonus to all cities on the same continent as itself; Civ 2 just gave it to all of them.) Naturally, in Civ 3, they regressed, and now it's back to continent-specific wonders. I assume this is used to tone them down, but it discourages conquest and expansion.

*Corruption and Waste! I HATE HATE HATE this! The levels of corruption and waste in this game are MUCH MUCH higher than in previous games. I've had cities under a democracy ten squares away from my palace with a courthouse, and still losing over half of their shields to waste. New cities are hardly worth building if they normally produce 6 shields but produce only 2 due to waste.

So what's the final verdict? What they's added has been perfected. Culture, trading, and abilities have all been balanced and playtested. But the items from previous civ games--tech, corruption, wonders--are worse. Why didn't they playtest a whole game to see how the endgame drags, when cities can't produce due to waste and tech still takes forever to achieve? Oh, I'm sure they did. They just didn't do a very good job of it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/30/01, Updated 12/30/01