Civ3 More than A Graphical Upgrade to Civ2 (Civilization III (PS))

Member Name: Meshek

Product:	Civilization III (PS)
Date:	15/01/02 (231 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: New Graphics and Interface, Culture, Resources

Disadvantages: No Scenareos, No Multiplayer

For those who have never played any civ game before a will give a brief summation although the majority of the opinion assumes a basic knowelge of civ games and concentrates on the games new aspects. The game starts in 4000BC you are the leader of a civilation and start with a worker and seteler. With the seteler you build you first town. With this town you can build more units including more settelers with which you can build more towns. You towns as well as production (for building units and city improvements) also generate revenue which can be used for tax (money for the treasury) luxury (makes people happy) or science which improve your science and allows you to build more units.

Many peoples' first reaction when they see this game (me included) was that it is simply Civ 2 with better graphics. However if one continues to play after about half an hour one begins to realise the deep significance and improvement to gameplay that the subtle (and some not so subtle) differences have made.

The three biggest differences to the game are the graphics and interface, culture, resources. Firstly the graphics and interface have been vastly improved with many things much more accesable than they used to be most notably the civolopedia (civ encyclopedia). The graphics now are still in 2D for the most part however there are now unit animations, both while moving and in fighting as opposed to civ 2 purely moving sprites. There has also been changes to how cities and units. The town now have a governor that can micromange the town for you. The governor is very customisable and to save time the same govenor settings can be set to other cities. Workers (workers are now completely seperate from govenors) have many new options such as road to ... irragate to... build road network etc. Also if they are automated and come near a city the city governor will control them in the way he is told i.e. if he has been told to emphasis food then they will build farms et
c. The biggest change to other units is with the airplanes. These now carry out missions as opposed to having to be phisically moved. I.e bombing, air reconascence, air superiority (attack aircrafts when they come into its defensive range) etc.

The next big change is the concept of culture. Certain buildings now generate culture. The more culture a city has the greater its city boundaries and if another city comes to close to a city with high culture will cpature it. Overall civilization culture will effect how other civilizations react to you the more culture you have in relation to them the better deals you can get. Also captured cities which had high culture may revert back to the nationality the people in the city are. I.e. french people allways remember they are french even when conquered by the english. etc.

The last of the big changes is resoures. They are split into two types strategic and luxury. For every type of luxury good that falls within your borders and is connected to your capital (by road, harbor, or air) one citizen in every city is made one notch higher (content to happy or unhappy to content.) Strategic resources are things like oil and iron. I.e. you can not build tanks or planes without oil and you cannot build iron sordsman without iron. This adds an interest aspect of the games as it can be worth going to war to get resources like oil without which other civilizations can not build any modern units.

These are just an outline of a few of the changes in the game other changes include 5 victory conditions (space, conquest, domination(landmass), cultural ,diblomatic) and a complete revision of the deplomacy system. You can no offer anything for anything be means of a table were you drop things you want in exchange for other things which you drop which you want to give.

This game is definately a vast improvement on civ 2 with several different player styles tolerated as opposed to militaristic or scientific
of civ 2. This is a great game both for the amateur or for the hard core gamer. A great buy.

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