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Giant_Squid
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Fun Guy from Yuggoth
Jan 1970
time: 00:16
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Got the game this afternoon, played for about five hours. I'm usually a king-level player, but I started on Chieftain so I could just play around with the new features. I played the Greeks, who are now in the year 1500. We share a continent with the Romans to the north, and across the sea there's another big continent with the Russians, Germans, and English. We're all at about the same tech level, which is middle ages. I have a slight advantage.
First things first...technical difficulties. I tried to start Civ3 on my main computer. I don't know its specs (really bad with technical stuff), but ToT, SMAC, etc. worked very well on it. Civ3 froze, crashed, had sound skips, etc. I loaded it onto my other computer, and it worked fine. However, this second computer had a broken sound thing, so I can't comment on the sounds.
The graphics are so-so. Obviously better than the dated Civ2 graphics in just being more technically advanced, but I liked the Civ2 style better. These are all way too bright (although thank you for the effort to listen to our complaints about SMAC and ToT being too dark, Firaxis...) and all the units sort of look alike. The cities seem to bear an uncanny resemblance to those of CTP, and the Aerial View screen really looks about the way it did in Civ1 (although much better than the ugly Civ2 version)
The terrain is a strong point. The map generator is great! No more random ribbon blotch thingies! Now the maps look sort of Earthlike (except, ironically, the map of Earth). There are real regions...I ran into a huge jungle that took up probably a hundred squares, there are gently winding rivers through wide grasslands, and a few special touches, like polar ice caps, really look nice.
Mixed feelings about the strategic resources. I'm not very militaristic, so I didn't end up using too many. I ran into a few problems for a few, and I did without them. The setting up of trade routes with rivals was difficult, and I only tried it once.
The new barbarian system is good. Barbarians are now a major danger, because your Settlers and Workers can't defend themselves. In Civ2, I usually counted on the fact that since the barbarians had pathetic units and I usually had a combat bonus, I could leave the settlers unprotected and risk maybe losing two or three the whole game. Now it's more difficult. Not to mention there are more barbarians and they don't give you warning of their arrival.
AI is OK. I like that they seem to respect treaties now and not be randomly aggressive. I've shared my continent with the Romans for 5500 years now and we've gotten along perfectly the whole time despite being about equal size. That would not have happened in Civ2. They seem not to like accepting equal deals, though, and if they start one themselves it's wildly biased toward their side.
The biggest change, IMHO, is the new Settler system. When you have to pay 2 pop points for a Settler, you can't just churn them out ad infinitum to make ten new cities in as many turns. Now I'm actually choosing my city sites...which is good. The differentiation between Settler and Worker is definitely going to affect my strategy...although I'm not sure how yet. But the end result seems to be less uncontrolled expansion and more empire-building (at least on my side...the AI still seems to like the uncontrolled expansion)
Culture...well, it's interesting, but so far it hasn't had much of an effect in my game. I'm about three times as cultural as everyone else and it seems not to have done me an inch of good. It might be because it's mainly in my capital, though. The expanding borders will take some getting used to.
All in all, I'm not really impressed. I couldn't tell too much difference between this and Civ2. A good scenario designer could've made most of the graphical and superficial changes like the few new techs and units in a month or two, and the real programming differences, like culture, resources, and trade tend to seem more like extras than vital parts of the experience like tech or industry. If I had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a 7...it's got what it has nicely done and well-balanced without incredibly glaring flaws, but what it has isn't much. Once the novelty appeal wears off I may go back to Civ2 so I can work with scenarios.
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06-11-2001 11:52
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