Are you sure it was CivIII you installed? The opening intro is just an overview of some mediteranen island showing work on some huge palace-like structure in stone age, then medieval, industrial, and finally modern as the camera rises and then it ends at the top. Not much but not funny either so you have me confused.

As for graphics as a gameplay element it wasn't really underestimated, enough companies have shown graphics can hide gameplay flaws. They just focused more on other things once an acceptable level was reached. Or so I guess anyway. I would imagine its also hard to represent entire worlds with photo-realistic quality with units and cities in the mix as well. But as i've said and you've ever-so-subtly hinted at, i'm biased in this area.