Sadly, Civilization 7 hasn’t garnered the strongest reception at launch. Issues with the UI, enemy AI, map sizes, and more have left many players feeling disappointed by the highly anticipated sequel from Firaxis. If you’re among them, or if the tepid response has you wary, you can pick up one of the older and more highly regarded installments for less than a dollar on Steam.
Released back in 2001 – though still coming with a cinematic intro not too far removed from Civilization 7‘s – Civilization 3 is one of the best and most beloved strategy games in the iconic series. The first entry to come from Firaxis, it made some welcome changes by expanding victory conditions, adding the Culture rating for measuring a city’s influence, and giving you the power to build Small Wonders once per civilization for added bonuses, among various other tweaks and alterations.
The Culture stat is particularly noteworthy because it created another peaceful method of victory and conquest. Culture increases a city’s outer borders in the 4X game, and if you grow it enough you’ll eventually push into someone else’s land. But if your Culture rating is higher than theirs, you can flip the city. If your civilization reaches 100,000 on the Culture scale and stands at twice or more of your nearest rival, it counts as a victory condition.
Following on from Civilization 2, which is still seen as an early peak for the series, the third game retains everything good about it but layers on those new features and quality-of-life improvements.
Two expansions arrived post-release, Play the World and Conquests. The former adds eight more civilizations and makes it a multiplayer game, while the latter brings a variety of different historical scenarios you can playthrough. Civilization 3’s multiplayer has actually seen a resurgence over the last decade, with a fan-led league known as the CivPlayers Civ3 League happening annually if you fancy putting your leadership to the test.
Civilization 3 is currently $0.99/£0.85 on Steam, with both expansion packs included. You can check out the Steam page here. You’ll notice 91% of user reviews are positive, so it’s truly a release that’s stood the test of time.
If you’re still committed to the latest entry in the series, check out our guides to all the Civilization 7 leaders and the best Civ 7 civilizations for each age to help you navigate your way to victory.
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