Civ 3 fun to play?
Your sence of fun is not what I would call mine.
Well I will give the game this, it does have long term, IE 24 hour addictive play, the fact that the AI can take out 16 tanks with 5 musketmen just ruined the game for me.
Granted there are mods like the power bar and such that help the game emensly, they are poorly supported now, and many do not work since the latest patch.
The game had good AI Political settings. Good looking graphics, but the uneveness of the units just was one major thing I could not overcome. The editor helped though. But that was very time consuming.