I'm going to come to poor old Civ III's defence mainly coz everyone seemed to be comparing it to CTP and CTPII which I thought both were complete rubbish (that I still happily spent my cash on thou).
First here's my good points.
1. Its not CTP. I never played the modded Version but I tried to follow the patches for a while. I never found this game hard, even remotely difficult. The hardest bit was bothering to win.
2. Strategic resources. Thats a cool idea and really changes some of the concepts of the city placement and unit building.
3. Culture border thingy. Means I can justify packing my cities in and overlap some squares.
4. Diplomacy and trade seem good. Although I've never seen anyone bribe me for a peace deal (which sux, I don't call off my swordsmen for nothing).
5. AI. Mentioned already but it seems quite good, even whacked me around a bit.Once it even sent in a suicide soldier to pillage a road to my only iron source! (which may have been pure fluke by the way).
6. The little things. They have made heaps of little tweaks to various aspects of the game. No rush building wonders (I can't collect the whole set no more), no have enemy tanks using your transport system against you and getting rid of ZOC for example. I get the feeling that the design team has had a good look at what were all the faults with CIV and CIV II and made a serious effort to eliminate them.
And just coz a I'm a fair boy I'll acknowledge some faults.
1. I have had the game for about 5 days and have hardly slept. I'm staying up to 4am playing (just until my communist government kicks in) and waking up 4 hours later to go to work. Its been hell.
2. Speed. Watching an allied AI move 50 cavalry through your territory, even with animations off, is painfully slow. I think thats the real reason I stay up to 4am.
3. Information. Its a pain working out what cities are rebelling, which one has the high production and I can't seem to find what my allies are researching (all which was much easier in previous Versions).
4. It is pretty much the same. But so was CIV II and I still played that non stop.
5. No multiplayer. What happened there?!
So for the momemnt I give the thumbs up for the game!!!!
Mainly coz of AI.
And just FYI.
Sid had not that much to do with Civ II either. Its was Jeff Briggs (who pretty much did III) and Brian Reynolds (who was the big man an Alpha Centauri).
Brian left Firaxis about 6 months after Alpha Centauri, so I really wonder how much of an effect that had on the end result of CIV III.
Cheers all,
Askan