My First 4X Game: Civilization III

Perhaps it says something more telling about me personally, but when I found myself heading towards the year 2050, my coffers filled to the very brim with gold, I felt fairly confident of hitting a WIN screen. So when the ending screen showed up in what was my first playthrough of Sid Meier’s Civilization III (indeed my first playthrough of any Civ game), I was rather upset to find all the other leaders laughing and pointing at my puny nation and our feeble efforts. Here was me, Queen Elizabeth I of England, conqueror of the Spanish Armada and ruler over our nation’s golden age, smugly watching the gold pour in and the universities and libraries spring up across our lands, fully expecting the rest of the world to fawn over me in awe when really I was nothing more than a laughing stock. Suffice to say, my delusions of grandeur were quickly shot down as I found myself and my country relegated to rock bottom in pretty much every league table of note. No, I was not part of the old-hat money or culturally venerated elite, I was just another Liam Gallagher moving into a prestigious west London suburb and chucking a TV out the top floor stained glass window. The title of my saved game, “England the Glorious” would seem almost amusingly self-deprecating had it not been meant in all earnestness at the time.

There are two things to take away from this cautionary tale. One is perhaps that it might prove useful to read the game manual before beginning a new game in a genre with which you have zero experience. The second is that, in Sid Meier’s Civilization series, just as in the real world, money may bring power, but it does not guarantee success. You see, this is the thing I did not realise. In Civ III, the goal is not to stockpile money, but to, as the title of the game suggests, civilise the globe.

What exactly defines the term “civilising” can vary depending on your approach, but I have now found that in subsequent playthroughs (and redos) my style is to build a cultural hub and to then colonise uninhabited, resource rich lands in fits and spurts with a heavy leaning towards the sceinces. As I now enter into the middle ages with my oracles close to sussing out the ways of Physics and Invention, I feel quietly confident that these humble shores of England will produce the world’s first astronaut before celebrate the dawn of the 1600s. And Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth I of England, choses to do this and the other things, not because they are easy, but because I have set the game to Chieftain and AI aggression to low and therefore face little in the way of opposition. Only time will tell whether I will hit the stars in time for the great bard Billy Shakes to be one of the first passengers on board, but I’ve got to think I’m in with a shot. (Did I learn nothing from my previous brush with unbridled arrogant self-belief?)

This engagement with Civlization III has been part of my recent on-going attempt to familiarise myself with games and genres that I had, in years gone-by, given short shrift to. In my defence, this dismissal of the 4X genre was mainly down to me simply not having a PC capable of running games (at least that’s what I thought), but if I’m honest it was at least in part also down to the perhaps misguided perception that these games were overly-complicated and for people with unlimited time to sink into them. While it is certainly true that this game is a HUGE time-sink (did I really just spend my entire evening playing that??), the idea that it is too complex to be easily understood is clearly wrong. Sure, I recognise that I am probably still getting a lot of the game’s fundamentals wrong and that there are clearly levels of depth that I haven’t even touched yet, but I think I am basically there when it comes to understanding the game’s appeal and flow. I doubt I would have got there without the help of a couple of my work-colleagues pointing out where I was going wrong, but once that initial hurdle was overcome it was all relatively plain-sailing. I even learned to love menu-browsing and learning about all the different technology paths open to you (hence my desire to achieve space travel).

This is a game that I am truly glad I chose to spend the time getting to know. Whether this will lead on to me trying many of the other highly-regarded series in the 4X genre, I cannot say for sure, but I am certainly not scared of at least trying them anymore. In fact, my only fear would be that I get drawn in too-deeply. I have a house to fix-up, blogs to write and a mortgage to pay, and so the idea of losing myself in a game such as Civ III is just a little too appealing. A rogue-lite-like (my other recent genre of choice) at least allows me to put down my device at the end of a run, but the problem with Civilization III is that I become too invested in what I have built. I simply cannot bear the idea of not seeing out the path that fate has dealt my brave and bold nation.

So will my new science-led focus bring me the fawning adulation that I so desperately desire from my global friends and foes? Probably not, but I bet you I will learn another valuable lesson in how to play this game. And that is perhaps what I love about it the most. It is not a game that holds your hand. It is a game that gives you the freedom to experiment and to learn from your mistakes. And if that’s not a lesson for adult-hood and life, then what is?

When the sun finally does set on my empire (because inevitably it always does), I will hopefully be just a little bit wiser than I am now and hopefully more prepared to deal with my next challenge in the getting-to-know PC games thing that I have suddenly decided to make into a series of blog posts… Cities: Skylines. If I can build a nation and an empire, then surely a city will be child’s play, right?

Civ 3, now that game was a weird time for the series

Oh wow it's been forever since I've seen Civ 3. I remember not liking it much back when it came out, and mostly just stuck with 2 til 4 came out. If you like it, I recommend trying 4 and 5. Both are better versions of the series in my opinion. Always good to see someone trying out Civ for the first time. It's quite the learning experience.

@mezza: I guess that is what @belegorm's wonderfully pithy comment was referring to? Like I said, I'm new to the series and genre and so I do not really know which of the games is considered good/bad. Is there a specific reason why people did not like it so much?

I just started installing Civ 3 for the first time in 14 years right after reading this piece and the two comments about it not perhaps being a high-point in the series. I'd like to take a poke at the game so I could compare it more accurately with the fourth and fifth installments (both with both expansions), not merely relying on my memory of enjoying the third one a lot as a soon-to-be highschooler. I'm a bit apprehensive about this because I only just recently started playing Civ 5, beating it three times already within two weeks and having that 'one more turn' -demon on my shoulder constantly. Between the second and third playthroughs of 5 I went back and installed and played a bit of Civ 4, a game I thought stood firmly in my top 10 favorite games of all time -list as the apex of the Civ-series and turn-based strategy games, for a similar comparison. Some of my memories were shattered. The game did look and especially sound very familiar but I had trouble getting into the flow of the game and some of its designs; the infamous 'stacks of doom' being on the forefront. Now, Civ 4 is by no means a bad game compared to 5, but some of the design decisions Firaxis has made with Civ 5 feel so natural and of-coursey, in addition to the visual and UI upgrade, that I think I'll personally have trouble going back to 4 from now on.

I fear that trying out Civ 3 is going to follow a similar path. And I would venture that if I were to go back to Civ 1 and 2 the results would be the same despite the hours spent on them as a kid. Thanks for the nice read.

Oh god, getting into 4X games as an adult seems like such a Sisyphean task. There's just so much intricacy to these games that only come to light after several 10+ hour games that I can only salute your resolve. Keep at it though, there's a reason why Civilization is considered one of the best game franchises ever.

Regarding @belegorm and @mezza's comments, III was a bit of a transition point for the series. Civ I was good for its time, but dated and not worth getting into for newbies. II is where Civ became the franchise as we recognize it today. The tech tree was more robust, your advisors were cheesy by memorable, and the diplomacy and combat were much improved. III feels a bit like a half step where it updated the graphics and made a few gameplay tweaks but did little to advance Civ II's ideas. IV on the other hand was a breath of fresh air, as it made substantial changes to how governments and policy are established and revamped the culture aspect to be more hands-on. V, the most recent of the franchise, was a complete overhaul. It introduced a hex grid that made for more interesting unit movement and also restricted units to one per hex. This was a substantial improvement in my mind, as it got rid of the endless stacking of units that occurred in previous games. The knock-on effect of this is that the amount of troops each side had in wartime was actually reasonable and made combat fun for the first time. You were smart to go the culture and science route in Civ III, because for any Civ game before V, if you were going for domination or conquest victories you would be doubling your play time just due to fiddly troop movements.

In any case, Civ III is just fine. It's not most people's favorite Civ game, but it's perfectly serviceable and gives an accurate representation of what the series is all about. If you want to switch games then I'd to recommend V (or Beyond Earth if you want a sci-fi wrapper around the same gameplay). I'll also give a shout out to the mobile versions of the Civ Rev games. They are simplified when compared to the PC games, but are actually pretty fun to have on the go. Plus, unlike wasting a day playing a PC Civ campaign, you can wrap up a Civ Rev game in about an hour.

Also, Cities: Skylines is crazy fun and I'm excited to hear your thoughts on it! I hear that the game is much improved from when it released, and it was already pretty intuitive back then. One word of advice; start small. Too many people plan out a big metropolis and end up going bankrupt very quickly. Better to start small and grow from there.

@kmfrob: Darth_Navster pretty much sums it up for me. I couldn't tell you much more. Back when I played Civ 3 I was still a child so I don't remember much other than it being a lackluster point in the series for me. It didn't feel better and in some ways felt worse than 2 which I had played for years. Then 4 came out and I was completely amazed by that and hooked back in. 5 with all of its expansions is my personal favorite in the series and generally regarded to be the best I believe. Some people prefered 4 at first and still might, but I think that general opinion faded away once 5 put out Brave New World. It goes on sale fairly often and definitely will be dirt cheap during the steam summer sale, so I recommend getting the complete edition of 5 and checking it out. Beyond Earth is pretty decent too although a bit lifeless and shallow compared to 5 in my opinion.

@malibuprofen:Thanks for the feedback, man! Yeah I know what you mean about going back to games you thought were peerless at the time! I had this idea in my head that Speedball 2 and Road Rash on the Mega Drive/Genesis were these unquestionably perfect games, but when I actually went back and played them... well they still have their merits, but all-time classics they are not!

@darth_navster: Hmm that's interesting. I actively tried to avoid conflict at all times so I never noticed that issue, but I could see it was a problem. I think one of the few things that I did get frustrated with at times would be getting to a stage where most of my cities had built everything available at that time in terms of culture/infrastructure and then reverting to building worker upon worker (or settler, or archer or whatever) that I didn't need. I just didn't know what to do at that point but stockpile. But still, on the whole I thought the game was a lot of fun. Maybe it's like your first Zelda... Oh and yeah I'm fairly confident I'll enjoy Cities. I'm at least competent at Sim City so this one won't be too daunting hopefully!

@mezza: Okay, maybe I'll give V a look once I'm done with my other games. My friend has shared his Steam library with me and he has V on there so I can defo give it a go some point soon! Cheers for the advice!