Civilization III is the latest in the Turn-Based Strategy (TBS) series by legendary designer Sid Meier.  Called "The Greatest Computer Strategy Game of All Time" by Time Magazine, it has sold millions of copies and consumed hundreds of hours of my time!  I was first hooked on the original Civ when an old college friend showed it to me back in 1992.  I got a copy on a 3.5" floppy, and this game finally convinced me to upgrade to a 386 and a color monitor!  This latest version is published by Firaxis Games [www.civ3.com ]

Through Civilization II, CivNet, and Civilization III, it is a series that I return to time and again.  My interest has been extended through participation at an online community, Civilization Fanatics Center [www.civfanatics.com ]  In addition to multiple forums on the various versions of Civilization, the site also hosts a great War Academy of various strategy guides and tutorials, and tons of other great resources.  One of their marquee events is the Game of the Month (GOTM), in which a new start position savegame is released the first of each month, open for participants to download and play, then compare results by the end of the month.  While the games are scored as a competition, the reporting and comparison of how other players handled the same situations you face over the course of the game has been extremely fun, as well as an awesome learning experience.  I have posted my game reports in the "spoiler threads" opened in the GOTM forum at the site for the months I have played, and will (eventually) consolidate them here on this site as well. 

I have also recently begun playing another game event, the Epic series hosted by Realms Beyond [ www.realmsbeyond.net/civ/ ]  This is more of a Comparative rather than a Competitive experience, as the emphasis is on good, challenging gameplay and reporting of the game, rather than the raw game results.  Realms Beyond also focuses on maintaining (and enhancing) the challenge of the game while staying within the spirit as well as the mechanics of the game design, and the RBCiv Tactics are often held as a standard of non-exploitative gameplay.  I will be using my site to host my game reports for the RBCiv Epics as I complete them.

This page was last updated on 05/03/04.

Joe Schweickert.

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