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by mark 04/24/2003, 3:31pm PDT

My rebuttal to Chairman Mao's Review of Civilization 3. I wrote this a while ago and decided to let it get some air now before I forget about it entirely. It's not really a full review.

mark
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Thanks to a bizarre deal brokered so that I could actually write this, I am not actually allowed to see his review ahead of time. For many rebutters this obstacle would prove insurmountable, but then many of them fail to truly understand the rebuttaling process altogether. The first step was to get some dirt on Mao: thanks to some clandestine connections, I have found out that he has a friend that works for Firaxis: the very company that made the game. I could stop right here because I have empirically just defeated his review, but, in the interest of typing, I shall continue.

Since my opponent is on the take, he might not mention that this game is a drastic step back from previous versions. Remember how Civ 2 was better than Civ 1? Remember how you didn't play Civ 1 every again after Civ 2 was released? Well, basically every improvement made in Civ 2 was removed in Civ 3. In many ways, this game is a freakish amalgamation of the original Civilization and the worst aspects of Alpha Centari. The only defense I have read of this retrograde motion is that the editor is so good, you can correct the many factors that make this game horrible. The editor is indeed well made and simple to use. The part that is not mentioned is that using an editor to a game is not in itself fun. To drive this point home: I study geometry and I still find using the editor dull.

The first example of a real need to edit the game is due to unit movement. Sailing ships move at such a slow rate you're better off waiting for an ice-age and walking across the ocean. In Sid Meier's vision of history, Columbus would have arrived barely in time for the American Revolution.

In Civ 3 there is no longer firepower. For those that didn't read the Civ 2 manual front to back, firepower was the addition to the combat algorithm that stopped modern units, like tanks, from being destroyed by primitive units, like men with sticks. Now if my marines attack a group of spearmen, it is about 50-50 that they walk out. Combat is just generally skewed so that you need approximately 4-6 times more men if you are attacking which, while supposedly realistic, isn't exciting. The opposition can go from being untrained to Super Contra-esque commandos in a single turn, so when you start losing, expect to continue losing.

They also brought in the artillery from Alpha Centauri. While these units don't suck as much as they did in that game, they still aren't fun to use. The special ability of artillery is that it can attack from a distance and never run the risk of killing enemy units. It also can destroy improvements, which does nothing. I think Colonization was the only one of Sid's games where building cannons didn't seem like a waste of time and money. This is because cannons were good at killing Aztecs, an activity more satisfying than any that are included here.

Since my basic strategy (and, in fact, goal) in these games is fucking the entire world over, I planned for my nation to embrace radical fundamentalism as soon as possible. Of course, that government type was removed from the game. I can only guess because it either offended the corrupt sultans who fund terrorist organizations such as Firaxis (and, by extension, Chairman Mao) or because fundamentalism is a bad word after 9-11. What makes me more suspicious of the later are these blurbs from the manual:

Government based on religious fanaticism is no longer an option.

and more tellingly:

Democracies no longer have those pesky Senators refusing to let you go to war and forcing you into unwanted treaties.

Although it's the best video game based social commentary since Horkheimer and Adorno's 'Escape from the Enlightenment,' it would be nice if the have added government types to the game. Or any good content.

The AI is as broken as it ever was. In the higher difficulty levels the AI civilizations get massive production bonuses and trade technology freely. This leaves winning them via conquest as the only viable option. As such the much touted cultural and diplomatic victories are unattainable unless you have already subjugated the entire globe. It's certainly doable but, as established above, they sucked the fun out of combat so it's really just a chore. The AI apparently also has the ability to know where resources will eventually appear. This would give it an advantage if it weren't so stupid. If IBM had harnessed these AI techniques, Deep Blue would've randomly moved any 3 pieces a turn. And have kept a supply of extra queens, should there have been an emergency shortage on the board.

The interface is broken in the weirdest places, the most obvious being the lack of a button next to 'end turn' which opens the editor. One of the more interesting design choices was to only show a handful of the opposing nations in the diplomacy menu. I'm not sure anyone actually played this game with 16 nations prior to the game shipping.

If you never want to waste time on the Civilization games again, Civ 3 is a good purchase. Due to some amazing programming and art direction, it renders Civ 2 so obsolete and ugly that it is utterly unplayable. Simultaneously, Civ 3 is so unenjoyable and wrong that you won't want to play it either. If your true passion is editing broken games you are in luck: here, Firaxis has become the Id Software of turn-based strategy.