Civilization 3

User Rating

4.67

Out of 5 Stars
Rate this game

When you hear the name Civilization and mobile in the same sentence you can only feel hope and fear. Hope that the mobile version of Civilization 3 will live up to the PC versions and provide an amazing strategy, empire-building game. However, you can only fear that the title has been treated with contempt and a mediocre game pushed out just using the Civilization name to generate sales. Does this mobile offering from com2us hold up as a complete conversion of Civilization 3 for PC? Lets take a close look.

The goal in civilization 3 mobile is to build an empire to dominate the globe. This is achieved by either eliminating all computer civilizations, completing all technological advancements, or surviving until the year AD 2000. This multiple victory condition format allows you to choose your play style to some degree. The elimination of all civilizations and research of all technological advancements tend to end up being similar strategies since having a powerful civilization usually implies a superiority in research and military.

Before the game starts, you choose your difficulty setting from a selection of five difficulties with Chief being the easiest, and Emperor being the hardest. Next you choose the size of the word map. The size of the world map has the effect of controlling the games duration where a small map forces confrontation earlier and reduces distances between capital cities. Next you choose the number of civilizations that will appear in the game ranging from three to five. Lastly, you choose which civilization you will rule from Indians, Americans, Chinese, Egyptians, and Romans. Which civilization you rule has little effect on the game itself in this mobile version beyond the naming of your cities.

You start the game in the year BC 3000 with one settler. With this settler, you build a city. A city can produce city upgrades in the form of buildings, such as a barracks, or a marketplace, produce military units for exploration or domination, or produce settlers so that another city can be founded.

Shortly after your first city is founded you are asked to choose from a list of research goals to pursue. These goals are reached by your people researching towards them. The more people in your civilization researching, the faster your goals can be achieved. Research speed can be improved by building certain city enhancements such as a library or university. Once a research goal is attained a new goal is set and the benefits from the attained goal become available. The benefits can come in the form of new military units available for production, new building for city upgrades, or new wonders available for building.

In addition to city building and unit control, you also have control over your government style, such as monarchy or republic. Each government style has different qualities related to production within cities. More advanced government styles can only be used after they have been researched as a technology goal. You can also control budget policy allowing spending on scientific research and luxury to be controlled with the absence of both resulting in more money for the government coffers.