Editing Civilization III (section)

==Gameplay==
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[[File:CivIII 01.png|thumb|left|Configuring city resources in the game]]

The game map is made up of square tiles on a grid. Each city, terrain improvement, and unit is located in a specific tile, and each tile can host any number of units. Land tiles can contain a transportation improvement ([[road]] or [[railroad]]) and a land improvement ([[farm]] or [[Mining|mine]]) or a city. Cities must be built a minimum of one tile away from each other, i.e., no two cities may touch. Each tile is made of a particular type of terrain that determines, among other things, how much food, production, and trade it produces when "worked". A tile can only be worked if it is one of the twenty tiles surrounding a city. A tile can only be worked by one city at a time, and each city can only work a number of tiles equal to or less than its population.

Food is used to grow the player's cities. Each population unit requires food to survive, and excess food is stored. Production, represented in the game as "shields", is used to build units, buildings, and wonders. Commerce powers the player's economy. This commerce is split up as the player sees fit between research, tax revenue, and luxuries, each with a different purpose.

Each city's citizens have a certain mood (happy, content, unhappy, or resisting). If most citizens are unhappy, the city falls into [[civil disorder]] and all production ceases; if a city remains in civil disorder for too long, it can lead to rioting, which results in improvements being destroyed. If most citizens are happy, they will like their leader and increase economic benefits.

Terrain improvements are built by Worker units. Irrigation increases food, mines increase production, and roads increase commerce and reduce movement costs for all allied land units using them. Two civilizations must have ''Right of passage'' treaty signed to benefit from each other's roads.

Buildings enhance a city in some way and cost maintenance. Like units and Wonders, each one can only be built when the requisite technology has been acquired. Buildings require financial maintenance each turn, and can be destroyed. Only one of each type of building can be constructed in each city.

As in previous installments of ''Civilization'', there are unique Wonders of the World that can only be built once per game. Wonders provide a variety of major benefits to a specific city, all cities on a continent, or to an entire empire. ''Civilization III'' also added Small Wonders, which are functionally equivalent to Wonders except that each one can be constructed once per civilization, as opposed to once in every whole game.  Small Wonders have, for the most part, a sociological requirement to construct them, as well as a technological requirement. When a civilization captures a city with a Small Wonder, it is automatically destroyed. Some examples of small wonders are [[Wall Street]], the [[Forbidden Palace]], and [[The Pentagon]].

One of the major features of gameplay is [[scientific research]]. Completing the research of a new technology will make available new units, city improvements, and wonders of the world, as well as special bonuses and abilities that are related to the technology. The [[technology tree]] is divided into four ages ([[Ancient history|Ancient Age]], [[Middle Ages]], [[Industrial Revolution|Industrial Age]], and [[Modern Age]]); each age requires the research of specific technologies to advance to that age. Additionally, there are non-requisite technologies that nevertheless provide useful bonuses that are often essential for good empire management, or allow a civilization to install a new government. Technologies can also be traded to and from other civilizations in return for gold, resources, technologies, workers, and cities. Technologies acquired in this way can in turn be exchanged (also called 'technology brokering') for other new technologies by contacting one or more other civilizations.

Citizens are the people who work in a [[city]]. There are four kinds: Laborers, Entertainers, Tax Collectors, and Scientists. If there are more citizens in a city than available tiles to work, the extra citizens automatically become Entertainers. The second expansion, ''[[Civilization III: Conquests|Conquests]]'', adds two new types of citizens to the game: Policemen (reduce corruption) and Civil Engineers (enhance building and wonder production).

[[Culture]] is a feature that was not present in previous installments of the franchise. Each city has a cultural rating, which is the city's influence over local terrain. Essentially, the culture's outer edge, or "border", acts as the boundary of each civilization's empire. As the city's culture rating increases, so does its sphere of influence, bringing more territory under the player's control. Civilizations' borders may abut, resulting in their culture ratings vying for territory. If one player's culture rating is sufficiently higher than the other's, the former's borders will encroach into territory previously owned by the latter. Given enough time and cultural pressure, the latter player's city may even elect to join, or "flip to," the former's empire. Culture can thus serve as a means of peaceful conquest.

Every civilization starts with certain special abilities, and they have a special "unique unit" that only they can build; these units usually have a historical basis (for example: the Japanese unique unit is the [[samurai]], which replaces the standard knight, whereas the British unique unit is the [[Man-of-war|Man-O-War]], which replaces the standard frigate).

[[File:Civ nationalities.jpg|thumb|left|[[Citizenship|Citizens]] may be of different [[nationality|nationalities]]]]

Citizens have a nationality based upon the civilization under which they were "born." Citizens have a "memory" of their nationality and will consider themselves members of their previous civilization until they are [[cultural assimilation|assimilated]] into their new civilization.

Combat is an important aspect of the game. Each combat unit begins as a "regular" unit with three hit points (although some units have additional hit points bonuses which affect their stats). If the unit loses all its hit points, it dies. Units can be promoted after successful combat missions and gain hit points. The highest rank a unit can attain is that of "elite" (which features five hit points), whereas the lowest is "conscript" (featuring two hit points; this rank is only given to newly drafted soldiers and barbarian units). Each unit has an attack and defense value to determine the winner of each battle. Additional defensive bonuses can be conferred by, e.g., certain terrain types, the unit's "Fortify" command, or defending across a river. Ultimately, a [[random number generator]] determines the outcome of each battle. When an elite unit wins a battle against an enemy unit, there is also a small chance that it will produce a Great Leader. A Great Leader has the ability to create an [[Army]] or instantly finish construction of a building in a city, which made them particularly useful for completing wonders.

With respect to developing the cities within an empire, bonus resources may be found on tiles within the cultural borders. Each type of resource may provide a bonus to food, production, or commerce if found within the city radius and worked by a citizen. Particular kinds of resources, such as luxury or strategic resources, provide additional benefits such as increasing citizens' happiness or providing access to resource-specific combat units.

[[Political corruption|Corruption]] exists in ''Civilization III'' alongside waste, which decreases a city's productivity; together, corruption and waste represent the mismanagement of resources, the malfeasance of city-level bureaucrats, and the limits of a central authority's ability to manage an empire. Corruption and waste is often lowest in the capital city and highest on the outskirts of an empire. Furthermore, the levels of corruption and waste are dependent on the [[system of government]] of a civilization. There are a number of ways to combat corruption which include building city improvements, such as the [[courthouse]] and the [[police station]]. Small wonders like the Forbidden Palace and the Secret Police HQ also drastically reduce corruption and waste by acting, in effect, as supplementary capitals.

There are several ways to win the game. A player needs to meet only one of the victory conditions in order to win. These include Conquest victory, achieved when no civilizations besides the player's exist; Domination victory, achieved when two thirds of the world's land and population are controlled by the player; Cultural victory, achieved when the player successfully assimilates other civilizations; Diplomatic victory, achieved when the player is elected leader of the United Nations; and a science-based victory, achieved when the player researches a sufficient number of technologies and builds a spaceship to reach [[Alpha Centauri]]. If no civilization has met any of the other victory conditions by the year 2050, the civilization with the highest score wins the game.