Gamespot has a detailed review of Civilization III. I was really hyped about the game until I got to this part,
Also, as the game neared completion, Firaxis decided not to ship with multiplayer support. It has suggested that multiplayer features might be added later, but if you’re looking for a multiplayer grand-strategy game, then Civilization III isn’t the place to look for the time being.
Ugh. I can’t believe they shipped this game without multiplayer, especially after Firaxis’ Jeff Briggs had told Gamespy, “Don’t worry, there will be multiplayer capability over a LAN and Internet.”
I’ll stick with Civ2 until they get that bug worked out.