06-11-2001 02:25									#1
	My Two Cents Got spare money?

Well, I've been playing Civ3 for about five days now, and I thought I'd post my opinions of it. Overall, I think it's pretty terrific. The AI, IMHO, is vastly improved over Civ2. In Civ2, when you where playing against 5 or 6 Civs, usually 1 or 2 of them would roll over and die (you know, build 1 or 2 cities and then basically quit). Not the case with Civ3. Right now I'm playing at warlord level (2nd easiest) against 7 other Civs, on a huge map, and, as of late medieval times, we all have 20-30 towns and cities and all are about equal in terms of tech. Also, any wars you get into, you have to carefully plan your moves, not just rush pell-mell into things with everything you've got. Tried that once and Alexander promptly sent me home with my tail between my legs.

I like the idea of introducing strategic resources into your planning. But, the one thing this game needs is either a button or hotkey combo to allow you to locate those resources on the map in areas you've explored. Even with the map "cleaned up", at 1024 x 768, my eyesight isn't what it used to be, and you can have a devil of a time finding them sometimes. Had a devil of a time finding saltpeter deposits and then had an even worse time trying to convince the English to trade me some (lol). Had to give up a couple of techs and some dyes for that one.

A word of warning, though, to anyone considering getting this one. Make sure your video card/driver supports OpenGL. Game requires it. The game CD has some generic Win95 OpenGL drivers on it, but I wouldn't recommend then especially if you're running Win98 or Win2k/XP.

All in all, I consider this to be a must have. Kudo's and well-done to the entire Firaxis team. Now to go back and see if I can pound the Greeks into submission.