Civilization 3

Every Civilization 3 civilization has two of eight traits: Commercial, Expansionist, Industrious, Militaristic, Religious and Scientific from the 2001 base game, plus Agricultural and Seafaring added by Conquests. Each makes some buildings cheaper or adds a bonus, such as a one-turn Anarchy for Religious civilizations.

Civilization 3 has 16 civilizations in the 2001 base game, 24 with Play the World and 31 with Conquests. Each has one leader, two traits, two starting advances and one unique unit.

Each Civilization 3 civilization has one leader, 31 with both expansions, from Abraham Lincoln of the Americans to Shaka of the Zulus. Leaders appear as animated portraits in diplomacy, and in Regicide games the leader is a unit on the map.

Each Civilization 3 civilization has one unique unit that replaces a standard unit, usually with one better attack, defense or movement point, and its first victory starts that civilization's Golden Age. There are 31 with both expansions, from the Zulu Impi to the American F-15.

Civilization 3 Complete (the base game, Play the World and Conquests) costs $4.99 on Steam and $5.99 DRM-free on GOG as of Oct 22, 2026, for Windows only. It first went on sale in September 2004 at $39.99, came to Steam on Oct 25, 2006 and to GOG on Nov 30, 2016; no Mac version is sold today.

Conquests is Civilization 3's second expansion, shipped by Atari on Nov 4, 2003 at $29.99 and made by Firaxis Games with Breakaway Games. It added nine historical scenarios, seven civilizations, the Agricultural and Seafaring traits, new governments, five wonders, the Demigod and Sid difficulty levels and more, includes Play the World, and is the version Civilization 3 Complete runs today.

Play the World is Civilization 3's first expansion, shipped on Oct 29, 2002 at $29.95. It added multiplayer (Internet, LAN, Hot Seat and email, in turn-based, simultaneous and turnless modes), eight civilizations, Regicide, Elimination and Capture the Flag games, airfields, outposts, radar towers, stacked movement and the Internet wonder; Conquests includes all of it.

A Civilization 3 city works the squares of a "fat X" around it (21 squares counting its own), grows when its food box fills, and needs an Aqueduct to grow past size 6 and a Hospital past size 12. Citizens work tiles or become specialists (Entertainers, Taxmen, Scientists), and cities build one unit, improvement or Wonder at a time.

Civilization 3's city improvements (buildings) cost shields to build and gold every turn to keep, from the Temple (40 shields, 1 gold) and Library (80, 1) to the Factory (200, 3); Temples, Libraries, Cathedrals, Colosseums, Universities and Research Labs also earn culture. Prima's official guide calls the Temple arguably the first building for every city.

Civilization 3 combat is fought in rounds: each round the attacker wins with a chance of its attack divided by attack plus the defender's modified defense, the loser of the round loses one hit point, and the battle ends when one unit has none left. Experience sets hit points (conscript 2, regular 3, veteran 4, elite 5), and terrain, fortifying, Walls and city size add to defense.

Civilization 3's Conquests expansion has nine historical scenarios, called Conquests: Mesopotamia, Rise of Rome, Fall of Rome, Middle Ages, Mesoamerica, Age of Discovery, Sengoku, Napoleonic Europe and World War II in the Pacific, plus three introductory ones; each has its own map, rules, units and way to win, and beating all nine unlocks a victory video.

In Civilization 3, corruption takes part of a city's commerce and waste part of its shields; both rise with the city's distance from the capital and with the number of cities you own. Courthouses (half off, per Prima's guide), the Forbidden Palace, a better government and the Commercial trait reduce them, and the capital has none.

In Civilization 3, Temples, Libraries, Cathedrals, Universities and every Wonder earn culture points each turn; a city's culture pushes out its borders, your empire's total sets how rivals regard you, and in the base game one city with 20,000 points or an empire with 80,000 (and no rival above half) wins a cultural victory.

In Civilization 3 a city near the borders of a far stronger culture can revolt and join that civilization on its own, a "culture flip" the manual calls defection. It is a rules option, on by default; strong culture in border cities and a city celebrating We Love the King Day make it less likely.

Civilization 3 has six difficulty levels in the 2001 game and eight with Conquests, which the Complete manual lists as Chieftain, Warlord, Prince, Monarch, Emperor, Demigod, Deity and Sid. Higher levels give each city fewer content citizens and let the AI build and research faster than you.

Civilization 3's Diplomacy screen lets you trade advances, strategic resources, luxuries, gold, cities, Workers, maps and contacts, and sign embassies, Right of Passage, military alliances, mutual protection pacts and trade embargoes (20 turns each) with AI leaders whose mood runs from furious to gracious. Soren Johnson later called this bargaining table one of Civ 3's standout features and "a big mistake".

A Civilization 3 game is set up on two screens: the world (size from Tiny 60x60 to Huge 180x180 squares, land mass, water coverage, climate, temperature, age and barbarians) and the player (civilization, rivals, difficulty and rules). Every setting except world size can be Random.

A Civilization 3 Golden Age lasts 20 turns and raises the output of every worked tile; it happens once a game, usually when your unique unit wins its first battle against another civilization, or when you complete wonders that match both of your civilization's traits.

Civilization 3's base game has five governments (Despotism, Monarchy, Communism, Republic and Democracy) plus Anarchy between them, and Conquests adds more, among them Fascism and Feudalism. Republic and Democracy give the most commerce and the least corruption but suffer war weariness; Monarchy and Communism suit war.

In Civilization 3 an elite unit that wins a battle has a small chance (1 in 16 in Prima's guide, 1 in 12 with the Heroic Epic) of producing a Great Leader, who can finish a wonder or other build in one turn or form an Army of up to three units (four with the Pentagon) that share their hit points. Conquests adds Scientific Great Leaders, earned by being first to an advance.

Civilization 3 citizens are happy, content, unhappy or resisting, and a city falls into civil disorder, producing nothing, when its unhappy citizens outnumber its happy ones. Luxuries, the luxury rate, Temples, Colosseums, Cathedrals, wonders, Entertainers and (under Despotism, Monarchy and Communism) military police keep order; war weariness makes Republics and Democracies unhappy during long wars.

Civilization 3 shipped in 2001 with no multiplayer; the Play the World expansion (2002) added Internet, LAN, Hot Seat and Play by E-Mail games for up to eight players, and since a Steam update of Mar 16, 2015 online games run through Steam instead of the closed GameSpy service, without the old Direct IP option.

Civilization 3 has eight strategic resources that units and buildings need (Iron, Horses, Saltpeter, Coal, Oil, Rubber, Aluminum and Uranium), eight luxuries that each make a citizen happy, and bonus resources that add food, shields or commerce. A resource counts only when your trade network reaches it by road, Harbor or Airport, and surplus can be traded to other civilizations for 20 turns at a time.

Small Wonders are national wonders that every civilization in Civilization 3 may build once, unlocked by an achievement such as eight cities or five Banks rather than by an advance alone. The base game has 10 (the Forbidden Palace, the Heroic Epic, the Military Academy and others) and Conquests adds the Secret Police Headquarters for 11.

To win Civilization 3's space race you build the Apollo Program Small Wonder, then all 10 spaceship parts in your cities, and the first civilization to launch a finished ship wins at once. The parts need Space Flight, Satellites, Superconductor, Synthetic Fibers and The Laser, plus Aluminum, Rubber and Uranium.

Civilization 3's tech tree has four eras (Ancient Times, the Middle Ages, the Industrial Age and Modern Times) and 82 named advances in the base game; you must research every required advance of an era before the next era opens, while 18 optional advances can be skipped. After the last advance, Future Technology can be researched again and again for score.

Civilization 3's map is a grid of diamond-shaped terrain squares, each yielding food, shields and commerce, and Workers improve them with roads, irrigation, mines and railroads. Grassland gives 2 food, Hills 1 food and 1 shield with a +50% defense bonus, and pollution and global warming arrive with industry.

Every Civilization 3 unit has an attack, a defense and a movement value, a shield cost, an advance and often a strategic resource it needs, and its hit points come from experience (conscript 2, regular 3, veteran 4, elite 5), not from the unit type. Firaxis counted 46 units in the base game, from the Warrior (1/1/1, 10 shields) to Modern Armor (24/16/3, 120 shields).

Civilization 3 can be won by conquest, domination (two-thirds of the world's territory), the space race, culture, a United Nations vote, or the best score when the game ends in 2050 AD. Play the World adds Elimination, Regicide, Mass Regicide, Victory Point Locations and Capture the Princess, and Conquests adds Reverse Capture the Flag.

Civilization 3 has 24 Great Wonders in the 2001 base game, 25 with Play the World (the Internet) and 29 with Conquests, which added the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus, the Mausoleum of Mausollos and the Knights Templar. Each exists once in the world, gives culture every turn, and can be rushed only by a Great Leader, never with gold.

For a first Civilization 3 game, the Complete manual recommends Chieftain, the easiest of its eight levels; found your capital on or near your starting square, guard it, research Bronze Working for Spearmen, then grow into Settlers, Workers and a better government than Despotism.

Civilization 3's manual says to put each city where it has food, shields and commerce, near resources and fresh water, with as little overlap with other cities' radii as possible; because corruption and waste grow with distance from the capital and with the number of cities, an empire kept close to its Palace keeps more of what it produces.

On Civilization 3's top levels your cities start with one content citizen, corruption is higher and the AI builds and researches faster than you (in 60 percent of your time on Deity, per Prima's 2001 guide), so the official advice is to master happiness first, trade with care, claim land early and attack before the AI's lead grows.

The Civilization 3 early game is a race for land: guard the capital with a Warrior and then a Spearman, build Settlers and Workers, claim luxuries and Iron with new cities and roads, and research toward Monarchy or the Republic to escape Despotism's penalty.

The easiest way to run Civilization 3 on a current Windows PC is the Complete edition from Steam ($4.99) or GOG ($5.99), which bundles the base game and both expansions; Steam still lists Windows 2000/XP requirements and rates the game Unsupported on Steam Deck, and GOG says DirectPlay must be installed on Windows 8 and later. No Mac version is sold today.

Civilization 3 wars are won by striking while you have units the enemy cannot match (a unique unit in its prime, a strategic resource they lack), bombarding defenders before attacking, taking cities with Armies or massed attackers, and fighting under Monarchy or Communism, which Prima's official guide says suffer no war weariness.

Civilization 3 (2001) added culture and borders, strategic and luxury resources, unique units, two traits per civilization, Great Leaders and armies to the series and dropped Civilization 2's caravans, engineers and unit bribery; Civilization 4 (2005) then replaced Civ 3's corruption with city maintenance and added spreading religions, civics and Great People. Critics scored Civ 4 a little higher, and which is better is a matter of taste.

Firaxis Games made Civilization 3, designed by Jeff Briggs and Soren Johnson; Hasbro Interactive and Firaxis announced it at E3 on May 17, 1999, and Infogrames published it in North America on Oct 30, 2001.

Jeff Briggs cofounded Firaxis Games with Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds in 1996, was its president and CEO, and was the lead designer of Civilization 3, which he designed with Soren Johnson after Reynolds left; he is also a composer.

The last official patches for Civilization 3 are v1.22 for Conquests (Apr 5, 2004) and v1.27f for Play the World (Mar 3, 2003); the base game's v1.29f came out in 2002 or early 2003, and 2K's two Steam updates of 2015 moved online play from GameSpy to Steam. Fixes since then come from fans, chiefly the C3X mod for the Conquests executable.

Civilization 3 scored 90 on Metacritic, 9.2 at GameSpot and 9.3 at IGN, won the PC Strategy award at the 2002 Interactive Achievement Awards, and was the best-selling game in the US in its launch week; critics faulted its corruption, endgame micromanagement and missing multiplayer.

Civilization 3 came out for Windows in North America on Oct 30, 2001, followed by a Mac version on Jan 6, 2002, Play the World on Oct 29, 2002, Conquests on Nov 4, 2003 and the Complete edition in Sep 2004. It reached Steam on Oct 25, 2006 and GOG on Nov 30, 2016, and its online play moved from GameSpy to Steam on Mar 16, 2015.

Sid Meier created Civilization and his name is in the title, but Civilization 3 was designed by Jeff Briggs and Soren Johnson; Meier is credited with the original Civilization design and, in Conquests' credits, as Director of Creative Development.

Soren Johnson co-designed Civilization 3 with Jeff Briggs and wrote its game and AI code, working at Firaxis Games from 2000 to 2007 before leading Civilization 4; he has since called Civ 3's bargaining table a big mistake and its corruption the number one complaint.

C3X is a free fan mod of the Civilization 3 Conquests program (Civ3Conquests.exe) that fixes long-standing bugs, speeds up late-game turns, improves the AI, removes the unit limit and adds options for players and modders; it works with the Steam and GOG Complete, installs by running INSTALL.bat in the Conquests folder, and does not officially support online multiplayer.

Civilization 3 Complete ships with its own editor, Civ3ConquestsEdit in the Conquests folder, which edits maps, rules and scenarios saved as BIQ files; mods and scenarios change units, civilizations and maps through those files, while the fan mod C3X changes the game program itself.

OpenCiv3 is a free, open-source fan remake of Civilization 3 built with the Godot Engine and C# under the MIT license; it is in pre-alpha, its latest release is v0.3 "Dutch" Preview 1 (December 2025), and it runs on 64-bit Windows, Linux and macOS, using a Civ 3 Conquests or Complete install for its graphics or placeholder art without one.

Civilization 3 (Sid Meier's Civilization III) is Firaxis Games' turn-based strategy game, published by Infogrames for Windows on Oct 30, 2001, in which you lead one of 16 civilizations from 4000 BC to the space age. Its expansions Play the World (2002) and Conquests (2003) are sold with it as Civilization 3 Complete, $4.99 on Steam and $5.99 on GOG.