And for all the lazy people
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THE REVIEW FROM IGN.COM -PART ONE
Civilization III
We've got the exclusive first review of Sid Meier's latest empire building game.
October 29, 2001
I'll forego the basic introduction. You know the one -- where I talk all about how the original Civilization and its eventual sequel, Civilization II, have occupied more of my gaming hours than any other game. There's enough of that stuff in the preview. Still, since it would be unfair to assume that everyone who's reading this is intimately familiar with the game, we probably should at least outline the point of it all.
Civilization III follows the basic pattern of the previous games. Starting just with a single group of settlers in the year 4000 BC, you'll have to explore your world, establish new cities, build civic improvements and great wonders, negotiate with rivals for limited space and resources, wage war against your enemies, research new technologies and generally try to do all you can to stay competitive with the other civilizations while making sure things don't fall apart at home. Civ III perfectly captures the epic sweep of the previous games but adds a few new features that make the game much more convenient and much more balanced.
This time around a whole new impulse has been added that dramatically affects the way the game is played. The establishment and growth of your culture should be a top priority for any aspiring ruler. Civ III uses a modified (and improved) version of the zones of influence rules from Alpha Centauri. As you build more cultural improvements (temples, libraries, wonders of the world, etc.) your borders expand bringing even more territory under you control.
Apart from denying your opponents the same territory, the expansion of your borders are important for several reasons. First off, you'll automatically get access to each resource within your empire's borders. Luxuries like silk or gems add to your people's happiness while wheat or cattle increase your food output. The inclusion of special strategic resources within your borders allows you to produce the various military units in the game. Iron is required for swordsmen, saltpeter for musketeers and uranium for nuclear submarines. Any city that builds a unit must be connected to the resource by a road (or to a harbor or airport that has access to the resource).
From time to time you'll find that you've been shortchanged on a key resource (like horses for chariots and cavalry, for instance). In that case, you'll need to trade with one of your rivals (who have probably also been shortchanged on something). To trade with a rival, your cities must be connected by a road (or, again, via a harbor or airport).
You're also able to see any activity within your own borders. Since every unit within your territory is visible to you, you can respond to threats as soon as they cross into your empire. And since rivals can't take advantage of roads within your empire, they move much more slowly than your own forces. Culture is also important in gaining sympathy and devotion from other civs and their cities. If your own borders are close enough to a rival with a much lower culture rating, the rival city may just defect and join your empire. This works both ways, however, so be mindful of plopping down a small city next to your biggest cultural rival.
The overall trading and diplomacy setup is drastically different than it was in previous games. And by different, I mean better. There are no spies, no diplomats and no caravans. Instead all of the functionality of these units is built into your foreign advisor's screen. Once you've established contact with a rival you can start negotiations. During the negotiations you can ask for and offer a very wide range of specific treaties. You and your rival can trade cities, diplomatic states, resources, money, knowledge and access to other civilizations. The tool for creating these deals is very straightforward but I was disappointed to see that the rivals are pretty passive. They tend not to suggest their own trades (opting instead to threaten you when you get a powerful advance or trade world maps with you). Opponents who take a more active role in trade would be nice.
The interface is much better implemented this time around. First and most importantly the main game map lets you see which cities are growing, how long until they add another population point, what they're currently building and how long it will take to complete it. Seeing all this info on the main map makes playing the game incredibly convenient. And you can change production orders and buy improvements right from the main map. The advisor screens are laid out fairly well. The science advisor is particularly useful (although he doesn't always pick the right paths for your civilization).
But there are some basic interface problems that should have been fixed before the game was released. Most importantly, the populations of your cities are hard to read. In the previous game you could clearly see which of your citizens were happy, which were content and which were unhappy. This time around the different heads look much more alike and are harder to read at a glance. Since the happiness of your citizens is so important to maintaining order, this similarity is kind of a pain. And while the game automatically prompts you to adjust city production at key moments (like when you need an aqueduct for instance) it doesn't prompt you to add entertainers to cities in civil disorder.
Another irritating bug is that the list-sorting feature on the domestic advisor screen doesn't stick. If you're interested in seeing your cities rated based on scientific research, or production, or food output, you can click the corresponding icon in the menu bar. But when you move the mouse off of the icon (say, to scroll the list) you lose the sort and go back to the default city list. It's not as big a pain as the indistinct city heads but it's still sloppy.
The game also has some shortcomings in the area of sound. While I've never thought that sound or visuals are necessarily the point of the game, a little more could have been done here, especially in the area of sound. The basic soundtracks are nice and unobtrusive (an mp3 player in the game would be nice) and the sound effects are pretty average. Unfortunately the sound loops every time a unit moves. When you've got units that move a long way and make a lot of noise, you just get these short bursts of noise rather than one continuous sound.
And for some reason, someone thought it would be cool to add the sound of birds chirping to the game. This is honestly probably the most irritating aspect of the game. It's bad enough to hear real birds chirping outside my window because I've been up for 10 hours playing this game. When the game makes chirping sounds it triggers a Pavlovian response in me that makes me feel more tired than I am. It sounds stupid, but it's true.
While the game isn't going to win any graphics awards it does have a tight artistic style. Cities, units, and the world itself are rendered in a very believable fashion that evokes a very well produced tabletop feel. I liked all of the animations on the units. Apart from the aesthetic appeal of the graphics, I was more impressed that everything is much more comprehensible this time around. The map itself is much easier to read (although the borders might have been more discernable at a distance).
The Civilopedia has been also been reworked quite a bit to improve navigation. Everything's laid out in a traditional browser where you can flip back and forth from one topic to the next with almost no trouble at all. Every entry has links within it that direct you to other entries. Apart from covering the basic improvements and units in the game, the Civilopedia also includes lots of historical information (which you can digest or ignore at your leisure) as well as some really awesome sections on game concepts. If you need to know how corruption works or what to do to maximize city growth, then the Civilopedia will really spell it all out for you.
You can use the Civilopedia to check out the various civilizations in the game as well. The sixteen individual civilizations have been given characteristics and unique units this time around. The civ strengths give you certain bonuses in certain areas of the game (happiness, military, commerce, research, etc.) and allow you to either capitalize on your own playing strength or minimize your weaknesses. The traits also allow you to predict a given civ's reaction to a particular situation. We're covering the strategy of the civs in a series of diaries written by the game's designers. (These are running all week so be sure to check in to read the rest of these.)
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