Your welcome. i don't know about the steam version, the requirement of steam for Civ5 is the sole reason i never bought that game.

I've tried it three times now, and it runs the game, but no sound on the intro for some reason. Good sound in game, but not on intro. Guessing that means the wonder movies (did 3 have them?? Can't remember) won't have sound, but other than that, it looks like it runs fine.

Also, I can't seem to be able to set resolutions so I'm left with big black lines on both sides of the screen.

Minor stuff, really, if you want to play I guess. Although I've never ever played a single game of SMAC, and when I can't get sound on my gog version of that during movies and for me that was enough not to play it. I have a feeling all those "interludes" add to the story, and as such, I want to be able to fully enjoy them if and when I ever can play it.

So, for me game works, no sound on intro (and I'm guessing any in game movies, but that's a guess)

ADDED: Wow, some SERIOUS deja vu here. Brings back a lot of good memories (and some unpleasant ones, goddamned corruption and waste). One of my favorite things about 3 that didn't make it to four was the concept of Armies. That was a blast, especially when you had the four unit ones. LOL. Move over MFers, cuz OFG is coming through!!!! LOL

Thanks for checking. I guess it's acceptable for playing.

I guess you know, but just in case, IV fixed that pollution crap too (thanks, I had forgotten about that other big headache, having to keep workers around in stacks of 6 or 8 to go clean up pollution every turn like Whac-a-Mole was no fun either).

In IV they used maintenance costs to do away with the need for corruption and waste, and it does it well IMO. On more than one occasion I've over built cities, only to discover my research grinds to a halt because maintenance costs become so high you have to set research down to 10% or sometimes even 0 just to make it from turn to turn.

And the pollution change (along with city unhappiness) changes were vast improvements IMO. And that, coupled with any leftover shields/hammers rolling over to your next project instead of being lost made checking every single city every single turn to maximize everything no longer required and was INSTA JOY for me.

For those wondering, pollution is now handled by an equation of health bonuses (+) versus pollution (-) and if the equation ever turns negative, it simply slows your growth by gobbling up extra food. So if you have a population of 4 and a balance in the pollution equation of (-3) instead of it costing 8 food to feed your city that turn it will cost 11 (4x2 + 3) And happy/unhappy works on the same principle, with any negative result resulting in that many workers no longer working a city tile.

Much neater, nicer, and easier to manage IMO.

i might agree, if not for the existence of the blasted MAF (Memory Allocation Failure) in Civ4. That totally kills the best part of the game for me - big mods on huge maps. No fix for it, unlike the mod fixes for lame aspects of Civ3. And i favor the graphics of Civ3 but that is minor except for how these graphics of Civ4 affect the MAF.

In the end i like both games. Different mechanics for each. So it comes down to which i can play my kind of game on. And which DRM scheme i hate least - starforce drm is another black mark for Civ4 (even though the final patch removes the CD check, starforce is still installed in order to install the core game, so starforce stays on system).

Firaxis kinda sucks far as UI and completeness goes. But Civ is my kind of game, so i put up with alot of their weak shite.

The Civ3 CD version works well, the intro music plays and It expands to fill my widescreen laptop on Win 7 x64. My laptops resolution is set at 1600x900...not sure what the game is set at (no option to change the res) but it fills the screen.

I prefer Civ4 to all the other Civ's (including 5), so I barely played Civ3, but I still play 4.

I bought Civ3 & 4 in a bundle from one of the sellers on Amazon, Tns Deals...it's DRM-Free and easy to rip to your hard drive to run the installer. After that purchase, I no longer use Steam except for the Wasteland 2 Beta.

GoatBoy: If you love Alpha Centauri as much as I do (best game EVER!!), you might want to give a try to Pandora: First Contact. It calls itself a spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri and IMHO it does it quite well.

Here is a well written review:
http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2013/12/pandora-first-contact-review/


PS: It is NOT a clone with modern graphics and UI, there are a lot of differences.
Sometimes good ones, sometime bad ones, overall it's a great game.