Civilization III: Conquests

"Utter Waste of Time"

How do I even begin? I was a fan of Civ 2. I bought all the expansions to Civ 3. And yet they still give me this pile of crap.

Let me enlighten you on a brief history course. An alternative title would be: How to suck.

First you have Civ 3, vanilla. I bought that game the day it came out all excited right? Wrong. Bugs everywhere, literally. A useless editor. Basic, fundamental gameplay functions not even implemented.

Fine. Add a few patches, and its playable.

Then introduce Play the World. An expansion. With what? You guessed it. Features that should have been added in the first place. A now reasonably functioning editor, a few gameplay features that still should have been added.

Then introduce Conquests. This is basically Play The World with more basic features that should have been added. I won't even bother listing them. They are enough to make ones blood boil when you consider how much these pieces of crap sell for.

On to the review.

Graphics: 6/10

Nice animated units, nice and simple. Nothing new here.

Gameplay: 2/10

Where did it go wrong? The AI is utter crap. I don't know who the hell programmed it, but it is far worse than Civ 2. All they do now is stick 5000 units in one stack, walk across your territory, and attack the weakest city. Did I mention the AI knows where ALL your units are? And with diplomacy it gets even funnier. You are guaranteed an AI will attack your tanks with spearmen, and with Civ logic, spearmen wins. Go figure.

And believe me, you will have plenty of time. If you even think of ''industrial ages'' you will automatically have to spend about 30 minutes per freaking turn. I am not exaggerating here folks. Civ 3 has made gaming legend here. I spent TWO HOURS WAITING AFTER AIRPORTS WERE BUILT.

Reach the modern age? expect even longer.
Want more than 2 civs? add an extra 20 minutes per civ.

Really.

If you even want to remain vaguely interested in this, I suggest a Cray Supercomputer. Or another computer to play another game.

I have literally eaten meals with friends, went to class, done chores, watched television programs inbetween turns with plenty of time to spare.

Overall: 1/10

Now you have conquests. Supposedly you can play multiplayer. Read the above review to see why that is a joke.

Add a few more civs. Okay.

Add some scenarios. Okay.

It is funny to watch them ''add'' items that should be in the game in the first place. They might as well add ''units'' in the next expansion.

So let's add it all up. What does Conquests offer?

NOTHING WORTH YOUR 40 dollars.

I don't know what the hell went wrong here. Seriously folks. You take a classic and you mess it up, a-la Matrix or Star Wars, but on a worse scale.

And for a side note, in the time it took for me to write this review, the turn is still going on. I am still waiting.

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 04/10/04