GameSpot has published an interview with Sid Meyer and Jeff Briggs of Firaxis games discussing Civilization III, which will be shipped to stores on October 30.  I’ve been something of a Civilization fan since I was working at Microprose on the second Civilization III team.  (The first team was horribly mismanaged and the project was canceled.  I quit the second team [also horribly mismanaged] just a few months before Microprose ceased to exist.)  I previously posted some of my thoughts on Civilization II (albeit in the context of the game Alpha Centuari–see June 26), and had given up on ever finding a resource management game that wasn’t tedious, so when I saw that Civ III was upcoming, I was hopeful that they’d fixed those problems.  Sadly, there’s nothing in the interview to indicate that.  They’ve added flash–more and varied units, nicer graphics, and more gameplay features–but they don’t say anything about having fixed the automation problems.  The game looks compelling, and if they fixed the A.I., I’d be all over it.  But I don’t think I’ll be able to bring myself to shell out the $40 or whatever it’ll cost just to get ticked off having to micro-manage 200 cities.  I guess I’ll have to find some other form of entertainment.