I don’t think my response is necessary seeing as virtually no one has defended CTP, but I thought Call to Power was stupid and I liked Civ III. I’m not sure whether I prefer it to Civ II, but it’s a good game.
I haven’t been able to get as far in it, but that is mostly because I don’t have a copy of my own to play constantly. I think that there are some improvements to the game, but also some things that aren’t as good as in Civ II.
Well, whenever anyone mentions civ3 i recomend a mod called Double Your Pleasure. DYP basically doubles (or more) the units, improvements, techs, and wonders. It’s a bit overwhelming at first because there is so much to learn about but you figure it out after your first game or two. I much prefer this mod to the vanilla civ3. I liked civ3 but i just couldn’t get into it like i did civ and civ2…then i installed DYP and i was playing games one after another.