I like everything about Civilization III except playing it

[Bossy Monkey]

I mean it eliminates most of the frustrations from Civ II (or at least the Test of Time iteration that I waste all my time on). I especially love "Withdraw your troops or DECLARE WAR," because there's little more tedious than having to tell a neighbor every turn for centuries that you don't appreciate them sending their settlers into your territory. Similarly, it's nice to be able to tell a worker where you'd like them to build a road to rather than having to give them directions square by square, and it's neat to be able to right click on a town or unit and have every conceivable option that you might want to contemplate turn up.

However, the actual gameplay is always a drag, and it never gets better. I guess I miss most being able to eliminate corruption. As silly as it is to be able to do so by establishing a democracy, it's still less random than being forced to play as France to have any chance of having a reasonably smooth-running empire. Generally not being able to irrigate for a gazillion years isn't a lot of fun either.

Sid's games generally need multiple sliders for setting variable difficulty levels in a number of areas like Tropico did, instead of the old Ridiculously easy, Quite easy, Annoyingly Difficult, Impossible, Impossibler, etc approach. Just my opinion, of course, and I'm hoping Civilization IV will either hearken back to the earlier games or offer vastly more adaptability. The Firaxis site crows about mods that will be available, which sort of indicates the latter, but I still wind up thinking: Come back Brian Reynolds!

[lazarus]

1. Amen

I'm back to Civ2, probably permanently. Waste of 50 bucks.

One poster here said it perfectly: Civ3 proved how perfect Civ2 was.

BTW, I've done nothing but play One City Challenge for the past month.

[Enraged_Ape]

2. WAY too much micromanagement for me

I think this is a chronic problem with a lot of games. When a new edition comes out, they add a whole bunch of doodads that are supposed to enhance the detail and flexibility of the game, when really all they do is make you spend all your time taking care of little bitty emergencies here and there that you never had to before. After a few days of hopping from place to place putting out fires, you wonder why you ever thought the game was fun in the first place.

I still play Civilization II and Age of Empires, and they are still among the greatest games ever made for the computer.

[kick-ass-bob]

3. You can set the governors to watch the

happiness, food, and shield production and cities act all nice - and usually work they way you want them to.

[Terran]

4. At first I wasn't too sure about Civ3, but...

I've long since become a convert. To address your particular concerns:

1. Corruption: okay, so you can never become corruption free, but as you point out, the model in Civ2 (and Civ1) of democracy wiping out all corruption is pretty silly. I see now that dealing with corruption is a challenge in its own right within the game.

You do know that, with the addition of Civ Conquests, the final expansion, there are new ways to deal with corruption, right? You have the challenge of placing your Forbidden Palace in such a way to as reduce corruption, which it does massively if built in the right place. You also now have specialized city inhabitants who are police, they reduce corruption; in a really big city with lots of surplus people, several police will significantly affect the problem.

You also have the Courthouse and Police Station to reduce corruption. And finally, I've found that if you have a big empire to run, Communism is superior to Democracy. You still have corruption, but it's spread around. Even cities on your far borders will still be highly productive. And under Communism only, you can build the Secret Police HQ to function as a third Forbidden Palace.

Playing France: "forced" to play France? Why, because of less corruption? Pshaw. You can do just fine with any civ.

Irrigation: um, I don't think this is any different in Civ3 than Civ2; If you don't have access to fresh water, you have to wait until electricity is invented. Seems reasonable to me. It's another game challenge, sometimes, finding a land route to bring fresh water into your civilization.

Generally, I think Civ3 is superior to Civ2 in most ways: graphics, sound, maps (they actually look like real planets, not random agglomerations of tiles), customization, and yes, playability. I actually like the fact that war is difficult to wage in the game because of several factors. In Civ2 you can stomp on who you like, sometimes with absurd ease, and never pay a price for it. The only thing I *really* really miss is the Wonder Movies, which I thought were great.

[denverbill]

5. Personally I think it's the best one yet.

And I've played all three.

Resource management, luxuries, trade, Great Leaders, specialized units, civ traits, and even corruption (though I think it's a bit TOO high still) make it a very tough but fun game.

There are things I miss (wonder movies, the civ breaking in two if you capture their capital, barbarians capturing cities) but all in all I think it's a great game.