Can any1 inform me what civ 3 online is like??

[Apex Reborne]

I am a long time civ 2 player and desperately desire to play it over the net. Due to the lack of and difficulty in playing players over the net, I am interested in finding out how civ 3s multiplay is easier to find players and to set up games? If you can convice me that I can find players to verse on civ 3 then I will go and purchase a copy....!

 

[Blackbird_SR-71]

you can find many players online for Civilization 3. most of the people though setup games in the forum and schedule times to play. go to myleague.com or in the Multiplayer forum in CivFanatics.com

hope this helps and you should try to get Conquest because you get access to many things on the site and Conquest has multiplayer while the regular Civ3 doesn't.

 

[LouLong]

What you need ?
- to play MP you need both Civ3 and PTW or C3C (Conquests). Conquests is better since it already includes PTW so by all means buy C3C (or complete as I think it has both Civ3 and C3C). Anyway Civ3 by itself is not enough.

Civ 3 MP ?
- PTW was buggy, C3C is a little better but not great yet.
Civ 3 is not the best online game.

Finding opponents and games ?
- You can use the Gamespy lobby to find games. Now it is rare to find a game that will last and with dedicated players. The best is to have a group of friends and meet at regular times or join myleague.com as then you can find serious players.
Nevertheless these games are not epic-like. Usually they rely on special set of rules, early combat and therefore civs with early UUs and most last about a hundred turns.
If you want to play a normal epic till modern age, better find a few friends and play at regular times (you can quit, save then reload at a later date). Possible but difficult.

- An alternative ?
A good alternative if you or the others cannot commit for say playing two hours every other night, is to try PBEMs. PBEMs allow you more time to plan your action, you can play epic-like or scenarios to the end, if someone drops you can get a replacement and you can play at the time you prefer even if your fellow players are in a totally diferent timezone.
Now of course, especially for epics, these can last a very long (7 months to finish a Rise of Rome scenario) time but you can play different ones at the same time.

Edit : PBEM thread (as you can see it is much more active than th general MP thread) : http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=90

 

[Oddible]

Online games are great fun but typically are limited endeavors (due to the fact that games are typically unusually long). So you will find some limitations to the standard epic game - most last about 2 hours. Most are ancient age (few make it far into Middle ages). Though some folks play Future Start games.

If you want to see how easy it is to find games, get a Gamespy.com account and go to the Civ3 room - you'll almost always find plenty of folks in there and plenty of games to play.

Best bet is to join a ladder. www.myleague.com/civ3players is a great group to play with. There are almost always ladder folks on so you can see how you stack up. Also, ladder folks are typically a more committed lot than the average so you'll get people who will finish their games even tho they are losing, etc.

Definitely get Conquests - PTW was buggy and C3C has resolved most of the issues.

 

[Ramza]

How's a dial-up connection fare on Civ III Multiplayer?
I just got the original CivIII from a friend who no longer plays it a week ago, and I've been considering buying the expansions for it to play online, but I'm on dial-up.