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, a game designer, and Soren Johnson, a game programmer.
| Civilization III | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Firaxis Games and Westlake Interactive (Mac OS version) |
| Publisher(s) | Infogrames (now Atari) and MacSoft (Mac OS version) |
| Designer(s) | Jeff Briggs and Soren Johnson |
| Engine | Custom |
| Platform(s) | Windows, Mac OS |
| Release | October 30 2001 |
| Genre(s) | Turn-based strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single player multiplayer (with expansions) |
Civilization III, like the other Civilization games, is based around building an empire, from the ground up, beginning in prehistoric times and continuing through the modern day. Your civilization is centered around a core of cities, which provide the resources necessary to grow your cities, construct city improvements, wonders, and units, and advance your technological development. You must balance a good infrastructure, resources, diplomatic and trading skills, technological advancement, city and empire management, culture, and military power to succeed.
Gameplay
Empire management
The game focuses around a core of cities that provide the necessary prodution to advance your empire. The cities contain a certain number of citizens that draw production from the surrounding land. Shields are used to build improvements, units, and wonders. Food is used to grow your cities. Each citizen requires two food per turn to survive, and excess food is stored in the granaries. Once the granaries fills up, it is emptied and the city gains a citizen. Commerce is used to allocate money to your treasury. You can take a certain percentage of your money and allocate it to scientific research or to the happiness of your citizens. Your citizens have a certain mood (happy, content, unhappy, or resisting). If you have more unhappy than happy citizens, the city falls into civil disorder. All production ceases and no food is stored when a city is in civil disorder, and if a city remains in civil disorder for too long, improvements may be destroyed. Any commerce that does not go into scientific research or your happiness slider is placed in your treasury. The worker unit is used to improve the land. Mines increase shield production, irrigation increases food, and roads increase commerce, in addition to tripling movement speed of nearly all allied land units using them. Later in the game you can build railroads, which provide instantaneous movement for all allied land units.
Scientific research
Another major feature of gameplay is scientific research. The technology tree is divided into four ages (Ancient Age, Middle Ages, Industrial Age, and Modern Age) and each age requires that you research specific technologies to advance to the next age. There are several technologies that are not required to advance to the next age, although they provide useful bonuses that are often essential for good empire management, or may provide different alternatives to empire management. A science slider is used to allocate money away from your treasury and into scientific research, and can be set at 10% intervals. City improvements such as libraries, universities, and research labs also increase scientific advancement, as do some wonders (such as Newton's University).
For a list of available technologies in Civilization III, see List of technologies in Civilization III.
Culture
Culture is a new feature to Civ III that didn't exist in previous versions of Civilization. Each city in Civilization III has a cultural rating, which is the city's influence over local terrain. Essentially, the culture's outer edge, or "border", acts as the boundry of your empire. 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, a civilization can win the game by having a very strong culture total.
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.
Civilizations
Every civilization starts with certain special abilities. Every civilization has two traits that give them bonuses that help in the corresponding area of gameplay. This also determines what two technologies you begin the game with. Also, Civilization qualites determine different abilities that a civ has. For example, a militaristic civ's units gain combat experience faster. Each civ also has a special unit that was specific to that civilization in history.
| Civilization | Qualities | Starting Advances | Special Unit | Leader | Capital |
| Arabia | Religious, Expansionist | Pottery, Ceremonial burial | Ansar Warrior | Abu Bakr | Mecca |
| Carthage | Industrious, Commercial (in Conquests, Seafaring) | Alphabet, Masonry | Numidian mercenary | Hannibal Barca | Carthage |
| Celtica | Religious, Militaristic (in Conquests, Agricultural) | Warrior code, Ceremonial burial | Gallic swordsman | Brennus | Entremont |
| Korea | Scientific, Commercial | Alphabet, Bronze working | Hwacha | Wang Kon | Seoul |
| Mongolia | Militaristic, Expansionist | Warrior code, Pottery | Keshik | Temujin | Karakorum |
| Ottoman Empire | Scientific, Industrious | Bronze working, Masonry | Sipahi | Osman I | Istanbul |
| Spain | Religious, Commercial (in Conquests, Seafaring) | Alphabet, Ceremonial burial | Conquistador | Isabella I | Madrid |
| Scandinavia | Militaristic, Expansionist (in Conquests, Seafaring) | Pottery, Warrior code | Berserker | Ragnar Lodbrok | Trondheim |
| Civilization | Qualities | Starting Advances | Special Unit | Leader | Capital |
| Byzantium | Scientific, Seafaring | Bronze working, Alphabet | Dromon | Theodora | Constantinople |
| Netherlands | Agricultural, Seafaring | Pottery, Alphabet | Swiss mercenary | William of Orange | Amsterdam |
| Hatti | Expansionist, Commercial | Pottery, Alphabet | Three-man Chariot | Mursilis I | Hattusas |
| Incans | Expansionist, Agricultural | Pottery, Masonry | Chasqui scout | Pachacuti | Cuzco |
| Mayans | Agricultural, Industrious | Masonry, Pottery | Javelin Thrower | Smoke-Imix | Chichén Itza |
| Portugal | Seafaring, Expansionist | Pottery, Alphabet | Carrack | Henry the Navigator | Lisbon |
| Sumeria | Scientific, Agricultural | Bronze working, Pottery | Enkidu Warrior | Gilgamesh | Ur |
| Austria ("Bonus"-Civ: not included in the standard game) | Militaristic, Commercial | Masonry, Warrior code | Hussar | Charles V | Vienna |
Wonders
As in Civilization II, there are Great Wonders that can each be built only once during the entire game for just one civilization. They usually provide a major benefit to the player's entire empire. 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. With each new technology discovered you gain the opportunity to build wonders. In each different age there are different wonders availible. Below is a list of those wonders sorted by age (Ancient, Middle Ages, Industrial, and Modern).
Ancient Age
Great Wonders
- The Colossus
- The Great Library
- The Great Lighthouse
- The Pyramids
- The Oracle
- The Great Wall
- The Hanging Gardens
Conquests:
Small Wonders
Middle Ages
Great Wonders
- Sistine Chapel
- Smith's Trading Company
- Copernicus' Observatory
- J.S. Bach's Cathedral
- Leonardo's Workshop
- Magellan's Voyage
- Newton's University
- Sun Tzu's Art of War
- Shakespeare's Theater
Conquests:
Small Wonders
Industrial Age
Great Wonders
Small Wonders
Modern Age
Great Wonders
Play The World:
- The Internet
Small Wonders
Ethnicity
Every citizen has a ethnic background that is controlled by the culture system. Each citizen has a cultural 'memory', so that they will consider themselves ethnic members of the previous civilization until they are assimilated into their new occupying civilization.
For example, if Persia captures a city from America, its citizens, although under Persian control, are still American, until they are assimilated into Persia culture, which will take several turns, with their chance of assimilation depending on Persia's government.
Foreign citizens become unhappy if their ruling country is at war with their country of birth. This gives recently-captured cities a high potential for rebellion. Otherwise, however, they are equally productive citizens.
Combat
Combat is an important aspect of the game, and, although not required to win, it is nearly impossible to go through a full game without experiencing warfare at least once. Each unit begins as a "regular", with 3 hit points. A unit can gain experience through battles. Above regular is "veteran", with 4 hit points, then "elite", with 5 hit points. If you have a barracks (or harbor for naval units and airport for air units) in a city, it will produce veterans instead of regulars. Gaining a warrior from a barbarian hut or through the draft will produce a "conscript", which has just 2 hit points. Each unit has an attack and defense value that determines, in theory, how well it will do against another unit, although ultimately a random number generator (RNG) determines the outcome, so it is therefore possible for an Ancient Age unit, such as a spearman, to win against a much more powerful unit, such as a tank. Certain terrain, as well as large cities, defending across a river, and fortifying the unit, provide defensive bonuses. (eg, a mountain has a 100% defensive bonus, so a unit with 3 defense will have 6 when defending on a mountain). Each civilization has their own special unit that replaces and improves on an existing unit.
Another important aspect of combat is bombardment, which can be done by artillery (catapult, cannon, artillery, radar artillery, and, in Conquests, trebuchet), air units, and more advanced naval units (destroyer, battleship, etc). Bombardment will soften a target before you attack it, and, if attacking a city, may kill some of the population or destroy certain city improvements. Despite this, only certain units have the ability to kill other units through bombardment (known as "lethal bombardment").
When an elite unit wins a battle against an enemy unit, there is a chance that it will produce a Great Leader. A Great Leader then has the ability to create an Army. An Army has the ability to "load" up to three units (four if you've built The Pentagon). An Army fights as one unit, combining hit points. Once you have garrisoned the units in the Army, however, you can not remove or upgrade them, and they do not gain battle experience. (However, this was changed in Conquests; each seperate unit now gains battle experience).
Resources
In Civilization III, there are three types of resources. Each type of resource can be found only on certain types of terrain and can provide a bonus to shields, food, or commerce if found within the city radius and worked by a citizen. Bonus resources exist specifically for this purpose, while luxury and strategic resources provide other benefits as well. Luxuries and strategic resources may be traded, while bonus resources may not.
| Resource | Terrain | Bonus |
| Cattle | grasslands, plains | 2 food, 1 shield |
| Fish | coast | 2 food, 1 commerce |
| Game | forests, tundra | 2 food |
| Gold | hills, mountains | 4 commerce |
| Whales | sea | 1 food, 1 shield, 2 commerce |
| Wheat | flood plains, grasslands, plains | 2 food |
Luxury resources make your people happier when they are brought into a city via a road or railroad. Each luxury makes at least one content citizen happy. The effects of luxuries do not stack. For example, if you have two wines connected, only one will provide a bonus; the other would be available for trading. Building a marketplace greatly increases the effect of luxuries on that city beyond the second luxury. Keeping citizens happy is important lest the city fall into civil disorder.
| Resource | Terrain | Bonus |
| Dyes | forests, jungles | 1 commerce |
| Ivory | forests, plains | 2 commerce |
| Gems | jungles, mountains | 4 commerce |
| Incense | deserts, hills | 1 commerce |
| Furs | forests, tundra | 1 shield, 1 commerce |
| Silk | forests, jungles | 3 commerce |
| Spice | forests, jungles | 2 commerce |
| Wine | hills, grasslands, plains | 1 food, 1 commerce |
Strategic resources are resources required to train certain units, or construct certain city improvements or wonders. A certain technology is required to unlock these resources, and are often necessary for good empire management. Perhaps the most important resource is iron, which is useful from the moment it first appears on the map until the end, as it is a prerequisite for constructing railroads along with coal. Like luxuries, strategic resources do not stack.
| Resource | Tech | Terrain | Bonus |
| Aluminum | Rocketry | hills, tundra | 2 shields |
| Coal | Steam Power | jungles, hills, mountains | 2 shields, 1 commerce |
| Horses | The Wheel | grasslands, hills, plains | 1 commerce |
| Iron | Iron Working | hills, mountains | 1 shield |
| Oil | Refining | deserts, tundra | 1 shield, 2 commerce |
| Rubber | Replaceable Parts | forests, jungles | 2 commerce |
| Saltpeter | Gunpowder | deserts, hills | 1 commerce |
| Uranium | Fission | forests, mountains | 2 shields, 3 commerce |
Corruption
Though corruption existed in Civilization I and II, it has been made much more severe in Civilization III. In addition to the commerce-decreasing corruption, Civilization III includes waste, which decreases a city's productivity. The productivity of a city is measured in 'shields'. Shields are converted into units or structures, with each unit or structure costing a certain number of shields. Shields can have two colors: blue or red. The blue shields represent actual production, while red ones represent production lost to waste. In general, the farther a city is from the capital, the greater the waste will be. It is not uncommon for far-flung cities to have red shields that far outnumber the blue. The levels of corruption and waste are also dependent on the system of government of a civilization. Uniquely, in the communist system, corruption and waste are spread 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 (e.g. roads, a harbor 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 virtually all of the 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 corruption in every city. Corruption will never reduce shield production to zero, but one shield per turn is virtually useless.
Victory Conditions
There are several basic ways to win the game, some of which recur from the previous Civilization games. A player needs to meet only one of the victory conditions to win a game. They can each be enabled or disabled when setting the Game Rules at the beginning of a new game. In Conquests, a Victory Status screen was added to allow a player to see how much more is needed to achieve each of the victory conditions, as well as the progress of the closest rival in regards to each particular victory path. Play the World and Conquests each introduced short game modes, which allow for more faster paced games, and specific scenarios each have their own victory requirements. The victory conditions for the base game, however, are as follows:
Conquest
One of the most straightforward of the victory conditions, a Conquest victory is achieved when no civilizations besides the player's exist, a civilization being eliminated when its last city is captured or destroyed. Despite the simplicity of concept, Conquest can be difficult to achieve as other civilizations will, naturally, resist and act against the player's endeavor's towards this goal.
Domination
A player wins a Domination victory by controlling two thirds of the world's land and population. 66% of the world must be within the civilization's cultural borders, and 66% of the world's people must be within the civilization's cities. Exactly how the player acheives these two conditions is irrelevant and largely open-ended; A civilization could build a strong culture to gain land peaceably, conquer other civilizations' cities, launch nuclear attacks to annihilate opponents' populations, or any combination of the three and more.
Cultural
By having a culture so powerful that its civilization controls the world through others' longing to be a part of it, a player can win a Cultural victory. The Cultural victory is achieved when either one city the player controls has 20,000 or more culture points, or if the entire civilization meets a certain threshold (100,000 on a Standard map.)
Diplomatic
By building the United Nations wonder, a civilization opens the possibility of a Diplomatic victory. The civilization that built it will be periodically offered the opportunity to hold elections for U.N. Secretary General. To be eligible for election, a civilization must control either 25% of the world's population or territory, although the civ that actually built the UN is always automatically a candidate. If there are no qualified candidates other than the one who built the UN, the civilization with the next highest population is put on the ballot. The most votes wins the election, and therefore game. Because the player's reputation matters a great deal to voting AI civilizations, it is of paramount importance to a player seeking a Diplomatic victory to maintain a trustworthy status throughout the game.
Spaceship
Just as in the previous two games, a civilization not seeking domination through world conquest can build and send a colony spaceship to Alpha Centauri to win the game. Unlike the previous two games, however, the player does not decide how many of several different types of components to build, but rather, builds ten specific spaceship parts ranging from Thrusters to the Stasis Chamber to the Interplanetary Party Lounge. The parts may be built in any order the player desires.
Furthermore, while the previous games had incorporated elements of speed and survival chance (a player could build fewer parts and thus launch sooner, although at increased risk of it not making it to Alpha Centauri), the game is won immediately once the colony ship is launched, the ultimate success of the colony either being assumed or irrelevant.
Histograph
The histograph provides a relative indicator of each civilization's score, power, and culture at any given time. When the game timer runs out (at the year 2050 AD by default, although this can be changed in Play The World) if no civilization has met any of the other victory conditions, each civilization's score at the end of each of the time periods (Ancient, Middle, Industrial, and Modern) is summed and then averaged. The highest final score wins the game.
Reception
Magazines, reviewers, and strategy game fans consistently hail Civilization III as one of the best strategy games ever made. Rich in accurate historical, diplomatic, military and socioeconomic elements, Civilization III is as educational as it is entertaining. It features an in-game encyclopedia (the 'Civilopedia'), and is often utilized as a supplemental learning tool in high school and college history classes. The entire Civilization series (including the first two versions) is one of the best-selling strategy game series of all time.
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.
Expansions
Two expansion sets have been published for Civilization III. These are Play the World and Conquests. Play the World adds multiplayer capabilities, and it adds eight new civilizations and some new units to the original release. Conquests offers eight historical playable scenarios, ranging from Mesopotamia to WWII in the Pacific. Many of these scenarios have resources, improvements, wonders, music, and even government types that are specific to the scenario, especially the Mesoamerican and Sengoku Japan campaigns.
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 have a "units" section which lets you submit or download units you or other people have created.
Trivia
- The menu screen is based on the Tower of Babel.
- A city in the Viking city list, 'Thunderfall', is actually the username of the administrator of the Civilization Fanatics Center. 'Mingapulco' in the Aztec city list is a tribute to an important moderator and member of the Apolyton Civilization Site. Similarly, 'Apolyton' in the list of Greek cities is a reference to the Apolyton site itself.
See Also
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
- Evolution Games
Modpacks
- Double Your Pleasure mod
- The Ancient Mediterranean mod
- Rhyes of Civilization Expanded
- Warhammer Fantasy Mod
- Master of Myrror Fantasy Mod
- Pentagenesis Modpack
- Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire