After reading all those praises of Civ 3, i tried to get the hang of the game to see how it was, and indeed, its impressive. Yes, it did take me a bit of time to get used to it, but now its fun. Only thing unenjoyable here are the way battles are fought---luck and chance---a spearman can even defeat a rifleman or sometimes(it happened) a TANK.
The second disappointing thing is that the unique units are not very much different from the units they replace...ie. almost all their skills are same exept one skill which is greater by one or two points. This does make some sense in earlier ages, but in modern ages, it doesnt
Only thing AOE2 was missing was that it did not have expansionism till the modern age--no tanks, no rockets and all....but RON is suffice to meet these demands.
Hence , AOE2-Conq and RON-Thrones remain on top of my list