Even though many of the greatest critics of Civ 3, such as Libertarian, have moved on to better things and left these forums, we generally have all come to realize the TRUTH of the following points:
1. This was a flawed, buggy, beta game rushed to market at least six months before it should have been. And we got stuck for $50, along with that stupid "Official Strategy Guide".
2. It contains many controversial and dubious concepts that do NOT make the game a true successor to Civ 2. This should have been a new game entitled
"Soren Johnson's Culture". Yes, Culture Flipping is the single stupidest concept in Civ 3 worse than even that annoying and asinine Settler Diarrhea where the AI pewks up settlers all over the board in bad, indefensible locations no one but a retarded person would waste time with.
3. The game is still missing VITAL elements, such as scenario-building, that should have come with the original disk. But Firaxis will surely SELL it to us soon.
4. It is generally less fun and less challenging than Civ 2. I can't have fun when you have an AI that cheats and breaks its own rules; when there is nothing to explore by 500 AD; when naval warfare is very simpleminded; when you have unit values that shows Soren's knowledge of Military History is at the comic book level. You bet it's been dumbed down - fewer techs, fewer units, and if you make real changes in the Editor it often crashes.
5. Slow, slower, slowest.
Lots of other criticisms.
The game had some good ideas: ending stack destruction if one unit is killed outside a city; resources; and bombardment units, to name the top three. But Firaxis even screwed that up with an AI so predictable attacking AI units can always be tricked into a Killing Zone - just go chasing that one worker or resource, dummies. Resources in the game are far too rare. And bombardment is very tedious (should be automated), and until 1.21 bombers couldn't even sink a warship which was inane.
So, the game clearly was not playetested enough, if at all, and Firaxis let Soren run amok with his eccentric concepts, such as Flipping.
Conclusion: everyone knows the game is a disappointment, and that is why we first read discussions about Civ 4 almost six months ago. A major re-working is needed to give Civ 3 even half the legs Civ 2 had.
