Civilization III

Sid Meier's Civilization III is a turn-based strategy computer game by Firaxis Games, the sequel to Sid Meier's Civilization II. Also called "Civ 3" for short, the game is the third generation of the original Civilization. The game offers highly evolved gameplay in terms of both mechanics and strategy. Unlike the previous versions of the game, Civ III was not designed by Sid Meier, but by Jeff Briggs and Soren Johnson, another game designer and a programmer at Firaxis respectively.

Overview

Among its enhancements, Civilization III introduced many new victory conditions, including a "diplomatic" option (that is, the victory is achieved by becoming the world leader by constructing the United Nations wonder and being elected as Secretary-General by the other powers), as well as a "cultural" option involving building culturally strong cities with many improvements such as temples and universities. The game also allowed for "domination" victories, where players with two-thirds of both the world's population and landmasses can win, helping gamers skip over "mop up" operations once it became clear that victory was certain.

Two expansion sets have been published for Civilization III: Play the World and Conquests. Play the World adds the ability to play against other human players, and it adds numerous features to the original release. Conquests offers eight historical playable scenarios, ranging from Mesopotamia to WWII in the Pacific. In addition to adding many more features to the game, they also add a total of 15 new playable civilizations.

Magazines, reviewers, and strategy game fans consistently hail Civilization III as one of the best strategy games ever made. The entire Civilization series (including the first two versions) is one of the greatest selling strategy game series of all time.

Civilizations

Every civilization starts with certain special abilities. These include, among other things, a unique unit which only that civilization can construct.

Civilization III

Civilization III: Play the World

Civilization III: Conquests

Changes from Civilization II

Wonders

Like in Civilization II, there are Great Wonders which can each be built by only one civilization. Civilization III also added Small Wonders which can be built once by every civilization. Small Wonders have for the most part a sociological requirement to construct them, as well as a technological requirement. Battlefield Medicine, for example, requires that five of the player's cities have hospitals before building.

Also there are a few name and properties changes in wonders from Civilization II. For example:

• Darwin's Voyage was changed to Theory of Evolution.
• Women's suffrage was changed to Universal Suffrage.
• Sun Tsu War Academy was changed to "Sun Tzu's Art of War."

Citizen ethnic background

Every citizen has a ethnic background that is not changed by conquest. For example, if Persia captures a city from America, its citizens, although under Persian control, are still American, though subsequent citizens are Persian. Also, with time, existing citizens can be naturalized into the culture of the ruling civilization, their ethnic background shifting to represent this.

Foreign citizens become unhappy more readily, especially if their ruling country is at war with their country of birth. This gives recently-captured cities a high potential for rebellion.

Culture

Each city in Civilization III has a cultural rating, which is the city's influence over local terrain. When a city is created it has a culture rating of 1, which allows influence over the closest 8 squares only (a sphere of influence 1 square in radius). As the city's culture rating increases, so does its sphere of influence, bringing more territory under the player's control.

In addition to influencing territorial borders, culture serves two other purposes. One is allowing the peaceful takeover of nearby foreign cities by influencing its citizens through your culture. Conquest through culture is preferable to military conquest due to the fact that it does not lower your reputation in the global community. In addition, there is a cultural victory condition which can be met by either increasing a city's culture rating to 6 (25,000 culture points) or by having a collective societal culture point total of 100,000+ points.

Culture is increased turn-by-turn based on what city improvements and wonders, such as a Temple or the Hanging Gardens, have been built in that city.

Armies

If a Leader has been produced (through a victorious Elite unit) it can be used to form an Army. Once you have had a Leader, and Military Tradition has been researched, a city is able to build the Military Academy. This city can produce more armies without the need for battle. The advantage to having an army is that the army consists of several units (three under ordinary circumstances, four if your civilization has built The Pentagon). The best unit in the army will always be used in battle situations, and this is extremely advantageous because it allows for maximum unit effect. The one drawback of the army is that units in the army no longer receive battle experience; it is advisable to level the units up to elite before forming the army.

(Note: This last point seems to have been changed in Conquests with units in armies now gaining combat experience. It is still however impossible to upgrade units in armies or remove them once added. Also new to Conquests, an Army still uses the movement of its slowest-moving unit, but it adds one to that number. For example, an Army of Legionaries (1 movement point) will have 2 movement points.)

Strategic Resources

These new resources that appear on various terrain types allow a civilization to build units that require a specific material (or a combination of materials). Resources are hidden until the civilisation understands the corresponding technology; for example Iron Working allows Iron to be seen.

The resources are as follows:

• Horses
• Iron
• Saltpeter
• Coal
• Rubber
• Oil
• Aluminum
• Uranium

Luxuries

Luxuries appear from the start of the game on various terrain types. When they are brought into a city via a road or railroad they increase the number of happy citizens in that city. Every time a different luxury is made available to a city it makes an additional citizen within it happy. However, having more than one of the same type of luxury present does not further increase happiness. Building a marketplace in the city increases the effect of luxuries on that city.

Marketplaces affect luxuries as follows:

• One luxury = One happy citizen
• Two luxuries = Two happy citizens
• Three luxuries = Four happy citizens
• Four luxuries = Six happy citizens

Luxuries certainly help keep the city moving forward because if there are too many unhappy citizens the city will fall into civil disorder, halting production. Luxuries can reach a city through any viable trade route.

The luxuries are as follows:

• Spice
• Silk
• Ivory
• Gems
• Incense
• Furs
• Wine
• Dyes

Corruption

The concept of corruption was introduced in Civilization II; however, it has been considerably expanded in Civilization III. Corruption limits the utility of both shields and gold in the city that it affects. It is exacerbated by numerous factors, including the distance of the city from the capital and the type of government that the civilization is currently using. The Communist government system is unique in that it spreads corruption "communally", that is, equally amongst all cities.

There are a number of ways to combat corruption. These include building city improvements such as the Courthouse and the Police station. Connecting a city to the capital through a valid trade route (eg. roads, a harbour or an airport) also helps to reduce corruption to a certain degree. There are also two small wonders that can be built that reduce corruption. They are the Forbidden palace and the Secret police. They eliminate all corruption in their host city. Originally these wonders functioned as second palaces in the cities in which they were built, but subsequent patches removed their function as a second pole for corruption, and merely made them reduce overall corrupion in every city. Corruption will never reduce shield production to zero, but one shield per turn is virtually useless.

Reception

With the popular success of Civilization II fans had high expectations. Borrowing features from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and the Civilization: Call To Power series, it had other innovative features such as strategic resources that could be monopolized, adding another twist to gameplay. The game is subject to a never-ending series of changes, leading users to be very demanding. The developers have publicly mentioned that fan input plays a strong role in development of new features.

The initial release of the game had some bugs and glitches. Some players complained that gameplay was poor for various reasons. Some criticized Civilization III for its lack of features found in other Civilization-like games, most notably Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC). Some of the features that SMAC had but were not carried forward included elevation, a working UN system, a social engineering system and a 'group movement' command to simplify managing units on the map. Others were upset by underpowered features, such as the game editor, which could not be used to create customized* scenarios, something that was possible in Civ II. Another serious concern regarded the new corruption system, which rendered cities far away from the capital almost useless. Many players who were used to dominating the game by creating massive empires called the corruption penalties too harsh. Others saw them as a good way to increase the game's difficulty, to make the game both more challenging, and realistic for players with far-flung empires.

The first patch came very soon after its initial release and other patches were released subsequently, improving gameplay significantly. The patches also managed to add in certain features, such as the aforementioned group movement command.

The Play the World expansion included many features fans wished to have included in the original game, including multiplayer gaming and new gaming scenarios. The multiplayer mode had significant problems and most users were never able to get it to work without the later patch released for it. Most complaints about features that were added later, however, are countered by the fact that including all the bug fixes and features that were included later would mean the game's release would be delayed by months, if not years. Civ III, like many games, exemplifies the dilemma of game developers who must balance an early release of the game with a more polished product.

The Conquests expansion contains everything found in Play the World, but adds a few more new civilizations, gameplay elements, units, editor functions and scenarios.

Overall, the reaction to Civilization III has been positive. It has won many "Game of the Year" and "Strategy Game of the Year" awards and continues to win new fans.

Mods

Some fans turned to so-called "mods" ("modifications" of the original game), to add features they would have liked to see in the original release. A popular one is the Double Your Pleasure mod (DYP), which doubles nearly all elements of the original game in quantity: technologies, civilizations, units. Several themed mods have sprung up, focussing on one period of time or fiction, such as The Ancient Mediterranean mod (TAM). Since the Play the World expansion, mods can be installed without actually modifying the original game. Fan websites such as Civfanatics, Apolyton, Civ3 Maps and Mods*, or CDGroup offer the platform for developing and distributing mods in a way that few games have seen to date.

• Civ 3 maps and mods also has a "units" section which lets you submit or download units you or other people have created.

External links

• Official Civilization III website
• MobyGame's entry on CivIII
• Civilization Fanatics' Center
• The Gogf Civilization Forums
• Apolyton Civilization Site
• CDG Civ3 Site
• Strategic Command Center

Modpacks

• Double Your Pleasure mod
• The Ancient Mediterranean mod
• Rhyes of Civilization Expanded
• Warhammer Fantasy Mod
• Master of Myrror Fantasy Mod
• Pentagenesis Modpack

Terrain Graphics

• Snoopy's Terrain Graphics
• Warpstorm Watercolor Terrain
• Rhye's Terrain Graphics
• Womoks Terrain Graphics