world builder

Hopefully this piece will be everything that Black and White wasn't.

As a Civilization fan, I desperately wanted the third edition to live up to it's predecessors' reputation. I was in for a disappointment. There are many good points to be made but unfortunately these are shadowed by the bad. For fans of the Civilization series (and of Alpha Centauri and Call to Power) here is a general summary of the game:

Negatives:

1) The AI is a disaster (my main criticism): illogical diplomacy and ridiculous opposition city building - The opposition civs totally saturate the map with their own cities.
2) Two many civs slows the game down dramatically (even with a P4 1.8, 256MB RAM I was waiting nearly a minute between years as the game progressed).
3) No wonder videos - just a picture: this was disappointing too.
4) The game progresses too fast that even at Chieftain level it is difficult to build the spaceship in time before your retirement.

Positives:

1) The concept of culture (great move: a city with a high culture rating may force other nearby civilisation cities to change nationality)
2) More opposition civilizations (up to 16)
3) Better graphics (although this is to be expected
4) Concept of different leader personalities (not that this is really evident as you play the game)
5) More endings to the game (diplomatic, cultural, scientific/space, land domination or points victories)
6) Better technological progress
7) A game editor
8) Importance of raw materials (e.g. without uranium you can't build a nuke)
9) Concept of leaders and armies.
10) Experience levels of units (much like in Aplha Centauri)
11) Better advisor info and advise (although they don't talk to you!)
12) "View city" is back and better than before

With a decent patch (that would sort out the AI problems) my rating could perhaps go up to 5 stars. But right now the game is quite frustrating and despite all the positives it is outweighed by lack of playability. My advise is to wait for a decent patch (if one ever turns up?!?)...then get playing otherwise prepare to be frustrated.

It is a great game. You finally have the power to conquer all! What a great game!