One of the best games of all time for Strategy genre fans. The interface is not as streamlined as Civ 5, nor is the game play as intuitive as Civ 4, but it is the best of the Civ series to operate on an old computer. Bear in mind that the AI is not as sophisticated as most would like - the computer controlled opponents will gang up on you for no reason. However, this game is well worth the low price of $5. A physical copy at Wal-Mart will still set you back $10.

Sid Meier's Civilization III is a must own for people looking for something with a little strategy. The game may be 10 years old, but it still packs a punch that can ease anyones hunger for strategy. It still surprises me after playing it for nearly 6 years, and I'm happy to report that you can't get more bang for your buck than this.

Having played Civilization 2-5, as well as the games made by the original team of Civilization : Call to Power 1&2,
I would say ANY Civilization game so far is a buyer and a keeper, if you are into turn based strategy games.
The only reason Civilization 1 is missing from my collection is the rareness of finding someone having and willing to sell his/her copy, I woud jump at the change;)

every Civ Game adds a little and removes a little, the one that you like most is personal flavour.
To me this one certainly ranks higher than the later Civ 4 and 5.
This game was and is the height of "classic" Civilization games.

For you people ariving at this from Civ 2 : you only will miss the old advisors (civ 5 and they still not have returned them sadly enough)
For you people ariving at this from Civ 4 and 5 : no religion, but instead you will love the stacks of doom, army units, and other things that were removed in later game.

This game is also somewhat older and a lot lighter on system requirements than later civ games, making it great to play on any device you want to. Also for a mere 4.99 (and it's often on sale for 2.49, and more rare for 1.25) you have an asolute bargain!

A good game to waste countless hours of strategical planning and destroying other civilizations. If you get bored of the vanilla textures you can go and search googles for different ones. This by far got me right into the Civilization series and others. If you want to play multiplayer good luck finding a host. You can host your own but no one will play so the best is just host a hotseat or a lan party. I give this game a 10/10.

While it may not be able to compete graphically with newer Civilization games, it still keeps it's charm after all these years.

Because it is a Voxel/Sprite based game, making models is simple enough(and I say that due to me seeing a good 8-10 models pumped out a month compared to Civ IV and CIv V's model sections on Civ Fanatics)

the scenario editor is where all the fun is though, want to make a scenario based on a Colonial Marine Invasion of Xenomorph Prime? DO IT!, want to have Skynet and the Resistance fight a war ALL OVER THE GLOBE?! do it! ever wondered how the UNSC would fare against the Imperium of Man or the Galactic Empire? you can do it!

there is so much can be done with the scenario editor, and if that's not enough for you, some wonderful programmers at CivFanatics have made an expanded Civ scenario editor.