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Steve Clark
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Colorado Springs, CO
Oct 1999
time: 22:15
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I have a gaming colleague who has been playing games for many years and I consider his opinion to be extremely valuable. He picked and played a game of Civ3 yesterday and this is what he had to say (I got his permission to post this since I told him we needed some good news over here)....
Call this my thoughts, not my review. A review is a literary work that requires thought, planning and hours of gameplay. I've played about 5 hours so far.
At one point I jumped up for joy and shouted to Cathy "I love this game!!!"
I do.
I picked up on "how to play" immediatelty. No need for the 234 page manual which some will certainly find invaluable. This is good and bad. I was hoping there would be SO MUCH new stuff that I'd be practically lost. In the end, to me, this game is nothing more than the logical progression of the series --- some new stuff but not enough to warrant the hype I've been seeing.
And still, if Firaxis had JUST taken CivII and updated the graphics and overall presentation for these next generation machines I'd be happy and feel that this game represented an essential ingredient for my game station. CivIII is, admitedly, much more.
The added diplomacy options are certainly the most evident change. But rather than praise how great the diplomacy now is, I would rather just say that the new ability to "trade what you want" is something that should've been there all along, and now that we have it, I could of course never go back to the previous two versions. Wheeling and dealing is both fun and, for a game of this type, all important.
I am told that the battle feature has changed somewhat but aside from the animations I see little difference. Maybe I never paid that much attention to it in the older versions and so can't appreciate it here. Battles are effective.
All in all, CivIII is JUST another Civilization game to me --- but that is actually a very good thing. It feels completely and utterly familiar, and that means memories of long nights being totally immersed in the mini stories that unfold around my growing empires.
To give those who have never played this game an idea just what I mean, here's how my last game went:
I was playing as Rome. Found myself alone on an island, luckily, with a freindly Egypt who I helped along in their quest for technology in exchange for money and general good will. It's pretty cool to see an opponent's leader being "cautious" to you and then, after a gift or two on your part, watching them become game-long allies with you and change their status to "gracious." One new semi-cosmetic (i.e. not all that helpful but INTERESTING) aspect is your foreign advisor who tells you little tidbits about how this opponent sees you, feels about you and so forth. It makes me more confident going into a series of negotiations knowing that Cleopatra's people are impressed with my culture and technology. Sometimes you are given military reports indicating who is more powerful in general, or which unit type you have which "scares" the opponent.
I made contact with the English later on after a brief caravel exploration across the sea. I traded a LOT for information about other civilizations which Queen Elizabeth had, as the English were on the main continent with the other nations. I began trading with all the other nations and soon my technological advancement was the best. My culture also extended further than any other nations. Xerxes of the Persians became jealous of me, I think, and in his arrogance started making demands for tribute. I obliged the first couple times, but when he went to far I declined and he immediately declared war on me. I was in no shape to fight one, having expended so many of my resources on science, but I had an ocean seperating us so I felt somewhat safe. This technological advancement and SOME stores of money enabled me to negotiate allies, so in pure Bush/Bush Jr. fashion (take your pick) I formed a coalition against Persia. Some nations where not really strong enough to join or I couldn't requets military assistance (have to read the manual to see why), but I was able to convince the Egyptians and the English to help.
Low and behold, about ten turns later, after considerable military pressure from my allies, Xerxes contacts me and asks for peace. I told him to stuff it and loaded some riflemen onto a galleon and landed on his shores, first having negotiated a rights of passage agreement with Queen Elizabeth, as moving through her country would've saved me much time. I put some pressure on Persia but not much. In the end we negotiated our way to a peace and it was over.
On this first attempt, playing at the lowest "Chieftan" level, I scored a miserable 77 points and was renowned as "Casear the Worthless". I shall return.
One very VERY cool thing, again cosmetic but adding to the atmosphere, is the way the music flawlessly changes to reflect the passage of ages. We start with a simple tribal beat, move on to the music of antiquity, reach the baroque and I only got as far as classical (17th -18th century). Maybe, had I progressed futher in technology, that might've changed also.
So I score CivIII very high. Am about to play again.
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31-10-2001 20:32
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