New thread. How many people still play civ3

[GeneralMeng]

I find myself playing it again, C3C. I stopped for maybe 1 year and picking up again. Doing emperor atm. I hope I can move up to deity. Demi god was the highest I reached before I stopped.

 

[Jivilov]

Welcome back General. Since I've been stuck at Emperor for years, perhaps you could give me some tips about winning at Demigod.

 

[Quintillus]

I still play Civ3 occasionally. I play either Monarch or Emperor. But I've found I'd rather play variants with self-imposed restraints on Monarch than try to move up to consistently winning Emperor or winning higher. It's just more fun for me that way - after a certain point beating higher difficulties becomes chore-like.

Although I would like to win one Deity game at some point. I've won wars on Diety before, but have never been able to wind up as top dog.

 

[ChileDude]

I have played off and on for years, but only against AI. I wonder what it would be like to play a real opponent ... ;p

 

[GeneralMeng]

i am barely surviving in demigod. what i found helpful was, u need to be able to settle for a losing position for a while. I typically play as german on demi god because i like the free tech, and frequent promotion. you need to take early gamble, make settlers with no defenders and grab key land. expand as big as u can, and later on slowly gap in the space, you want optimum city placement to snatch as much land as u can, but later on fill in more city so u can use every tile. I avoid all wonder except i know i can finish it before ai, usually that will be the great library since ai rarely research literature. as germany my key is to get to industrial age, and small scale war. i would pick one one ai near by and bully him. it is risky but bronze work and warror code with cheap barrack help a lot. you want a target that only has warrior, so they will be weaker than u in army. this target is your farm for tech. u dont want to kill him, u want him to live and research, to get tech for u.

 

[TastelessOne]

I bought a copy at Savers the other night and started playing almost immediately. Still getting kicked around by the AI on the Chieftain level. I'd played Civilization on the 3DO, but this version and its interface on a PC takes a little getting used to.

 

[Quintillus]

Welcome to CFC, TastelessOne! It's almost a tradition to be beat up by the Chieftain AI early on - I certainly did! But you've found the right place to discuss the game with other Civ fans, learn various strategies, etc. Feel free to ask questions!

 

[Jivilov]

I still play Civ3 occasionally. I play either Monarch or Emperor. But I've found I'd rather play variants with self-imposed restraints on Monarch than try to move up to consistently winning Emperor or winning higher. It's just more fun for me that way - after a certain point beating higher difficulties becomes chore-like.

Although I would like to win one Deity game at some point. I've won wars on Diety before, but have never been able to wind up as top dog.

You can say that again! Just looked at a Rise of Rome Conquest succession game played at Sid level. It took them over 66 hours to play 86 turns, and that doesn't include the time spent posting game turns and discussing strategy. The micro-management was mind-boggling. Not sure I'd want to devote so much time to a single game.

Playing at Demigod these days; made it to the Modern Age a coupla times, yet final victory eludes me. Someday though...

 

[Everkane]

I quit Civ 3 for a long time and in December of last year I was back. I know what you mean about having a hard time.

I remember having nuclear wars in higher levels when I used to play, real hardcore games, now it just doesn't happen, either I have a pretty much easy victory or I went into a bad situation in some higher level and forced to quit. There's no mid-term between Demigod and Deity for example, you can make AI looks very silly in one and in another you get your sorry civilization kicked in a blink of an eye.

But looking to the bright side, it's always good to learn how to play again and even improve the gameplay with this articles in this site/forum.

 

[rf9381]

Been playing Civ3 for 7 yrs.+! Still love it. Usually play Emporer or Demi-god.

 

[Fluffybuns]

Been playing off and on for 8+ years and just recently I have gotten a better understanding of the game. Reading the strategies on this site sure has helped. Now I have found the modding tutorials on here and oh boy, I'm scheming now

 

[ratsinfrats]

I have been playing Civ III for about 8 years. I paid $9.95 for my first disc and $9.95 for a backup a few years later. I had a panic attack when it would not play on Windows Vista so had about two years off until I upgraded to Windows 7. The old disc works great on Windows 7 and 8. Just downloaded Civ III Complete from Game Stop. You have to go through Steam but it works great on Windows 7 and 8. I just bought a copy of complete for my 12 year old grandson and we are starting to play on-line together.

Best game ever developed. The 12 year old is hooked as is his 72 year old Poppa.

If anyone has experience with Steam, please comment.

 

[Aabraxan]

It's been a while since I played, as I've had an extremely limited amount of game time the past couple of years. Still loaded and still playing on rare occasion, though.

 

[Gamemaster77]

I used to play ALL the time but slowly faded out to the point of not playing it at all. I was messing around for a week though and was able to make a portable version of CivIII so I can play it anywhere without installing. Now I'll play it about every Friday at school with a friend over their LAN.

 

[Puppeteer]

I was messing around for a week though and was able to make a portable version of CivIII so I can play it anywhere without installing.

Have you posted how you did that? I am interested in what needs to be done.

 

[Quintillus]

I have been playing Civ III for about 8 years. I paid $9.95 for my first disc and $9.95 for a backup a few years later. I had a panic attack when it would not play on Windows Vista so had about two years off until I upgraded to Windows 7. The old disc works great on Windows 7 and 8. Just downloaded Civ III Complete from Game Stop. You have to go through Steam but it works great on Windows 7 and 8. I just bought a copy of complete for my 12 year old grandson and we are starting to play on-line together.

Best game ever developed. The 12 year old is hooked as is his 72 year old Poppa.

If anyone has experience with Steam, please comment.

Huh... when I bought Civ3 on Impulse (which is now GameStop's online store), it didn't require Steam. Though it did require Impulse's software. Perhaps they changed it.

I haven't played Civ3 on Steam, but most of my Steam friends have, and I haven't heard any complaints. Steam itself isn't that bad. The only real issue I have is that sometimes when it's trying to install an update, you can get stuck in a state where Offline Mode doesn't work. But for the most part... it works OK. If I were buying Civ3 online today, I'd rather buy it on Steam than GameStop since GameStop seems to have some issues with either IE8 or XP these days.

I would recommend going in to the settings and disabling both the auto-start with Windows, and the "keep me informed with updates" option, which essentially spams you with news about new games that you probably don't care about. Once those two options are disabled, it's pretty non-bothersome.

Have you posted how you did that? I am interested in what needs to be done.

Me too. I tried to back up my CD copies of Civ3, since they were getting old, loud, and somewhat scratched, but haven't been able to get it so that I can install Civ3 from the .iso and have it playable with either the .iso or the original CD . Which would be nice since I still prefer the CD Vanilla + Conquests version to the Impulse one, since the CDs let me play PTW (and thus PTW GOTMs). Seems like some aspect of the copy protection is preventing making proper backups, which is unfortunate since AFAIK there aren't even any legal problems in making backup copies.

Right now I have a backup of the Conquests CD, and if I change the virtual CD drive letter to the real CD drive's letter, I can start Conquests from the Autoplay. But starting the installed Conquests or PTW executables causes it to complain the CD isn't there, and the originals are 500 miles away at my parents' house. I can still play Conquests with either the Impulse version or the No Raze/513 city versions, but haven't found a way to play PTW without the original CDs yet.

 

[Gamemaster77]

Have you posted how you did that? I am interested in what needs to be done.

Huh... when I bought Civ3 on Impulse (which is now GameStop's online store), it didn't require Steam. Though it did require Impulse's software. Perhaps they changed it.

I haven't played Civ3 on Steam, but most of my Steam friends have, and I haven't heard any complaints. Steam itself isn't that bad. The only real issue I have is that sometimes when it's trying to install an update, you can get stuck in a state where Offline Mode doesn't work. But for the most part... it works OK. If I were buying Civ3 online today, I'd rather buy it on Steam than GameStop since GameStop seems to have some issues with either IE8 or XP these days.

I would recommend going in to the settings and disabling both the auto-start with Windows, and the "keep me informed with updates" option, which essentially spams you with news about new games that you probably don't care about. Once those two options are disabled, it's pretty non-bothersome.



Me too. I tried to back up my CD copies of Civ3, since they were getting old, loud, and somewhat scratched, but haven't been able to get it so that I can install Civ3 from the .iso and have it playable with either the .iso or the original CD . Which would be nice since I still prefer the CD Vanilla + Conquests version to the Impulse one, since the CDs let me play PTW (and thus PTW GOTMs). Seems like some aspect of the copy protection is preventing making proper backups, which is unfortunate since AFAIK there aren't even any legal problems in making backup copies.

Right now I have a backup of the Conquests CD, and if I change the virtual CD drive letter to the real CD drive's letter, I can start Conquests from the Autoplay. But starting the installed Conquests or PTW executables causes it to complain the CD isn't there, and the originals are 500 miles away at my parents' house. I can still play Conquests with either the Impulse version or the No Raze/513 city versions, but haven't found a way to play PTW without the original CDs yet.

Well I used the PortableApps Launcher creator and some searching around to get it to move some files and registry keys and such. I can upload the files I needed to use for you and you could just drop in your civIII installation. I did use a no-CD crack for my version but since I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed to link to that or anything your .iso should work. I might just have to modify a .reg file. I don't want to hijack this thread though so if anyone is interested you could just PM and I could help you out.

 

[Lord Silverkey]

Haven't played in two years but have at least 1 friend who still plays regularly. From a personal taste perspective I find it an awkward cross of Civ 2 and Civ 4, but as I said, it's my personal opinion. I might have another go at it next week as I get a lot of nostalgia when I do play it.

 

[robbus]

I have had it for prob 10 yrs and play it once/year! My last game was 80 hr victory on monarch posted here.

first game was c3 dluxe 80 bucks in 2003. vanilla c3 plus bonus cdrom.

ptw expansion $30

c3c used $10 it got scratched and is a coaster...

I missed the game and someone suggested c3c is better than ptw.

I bought civ 3 and 4 complete on amazon 3 months ago...$30.


I installed it and it runs without a disc on 2 computers. windows xp and 7.

 

[Ataxerxes]

Still playing at times. I play Civ4 more but I like to play Civ3 as a change. I like the Civ series of games more than any others and always prefer turn-based (in case the wife comes in the middle of a war and complains I don't talk).

CivIII was one of the first games I played and probably got more out of it than any other. Still a great game.