Civilization III: Play the World

"We burnin' the earth...outlawz worldwide"

Civilization III was a hugely anticipated and much appreciated revival of a series that is considered among the elite titles of strategy gaming. To most people, it was a huge success, with very deep and complex gameplay and some new concepts which tried to make the game even more realistic. Play the World is an expansion pack for Civilization III which adds some new elements to the game, as well a long-awaited feature, online play.

For the single player game, some improvements have been made, but mostly it is simply a matter of new material being added to supplant the original edition. First, there are eight new civilizations to enjoy playing as: Spanish, Mongols, Vikings, Celts, Carthaginians, Ottomans, Arabs, and Koreans. In Civilization III, as opposed to the previous incarnations of the title, the civilization you chose to represent was not merely a name but had unique advantages and weaknesses reflecting its historical character. Thus, increasing the number of different nations by fifty percent can’t help but improve the game, but in fact their effect is fairly limited. The main traits of civilizations are determined by its two “civilization attributes,” which are chosen from among a possible six. However, there are only fifteen combinations of these attributes possible. (Proof of this will have to wait until combinatorics class). So necessarily all the new civilizations are very similar to at least one of the original sixteen; for instance, PTW’s Ottomans are Scientific and Industrious, just like the holdover Persians. Still, the new civilizations have their own unique units and leaders, both significant differences. On the whole, the eight new civilizations are stronger than the original sixteen, and will provide an easier time for beginners (as the player civilization) and a better challenge for veterans (as an opposing civilization). Plus, it’s nice to see some more cool cultures represented in the game, like the aggressive Mongols or the sea-raiding Vikings.

Firaxis also made a few minor additions to the gameplay. Airfields, which were present in Civilization II but mysteriously did not make the transfer to the new title, are back, and allow you establish a forward air presence in battle zones where you might not have any cities. This makes air forces a much more powerful segment of your integrated firepower, and allows units like the Stealth Bomber to better match the capabilities of land artillery pieces. Two other additions are Lookout Towers and Radar Towers. Lookout Towers allow you to push back the fog of war along your borders; place a tower on a mountain along a foreign boundary, and you’ll be able to see three or four squares into enemy territory. In the early game, this allows you to spot enemy invasions a few extra turns away, but the fast moving modern units, in combination with railroads, will overwhelm them. Radar Towers serve a different purpose, imbuing a combat bonus to all your units within their range. In PTW, they are a vital part of city defense and also change invasion patters -- destroying Radar Towers becomes a high priority even before attacking a city, often requiring you to surround a city before attacking it to eliminate towers on the far side.

In addition to these three new terrain improvements, which offer some minor changes to combat, there are also new units and city improvements. Almost all of these are welcome. The Stock Exchange is back, and provides a nice third level of finance-based improvement for your cities. New units like the Guerilla and Medieval Infantry are present simply to add life to the Swordsman’s upgrade chain, but they also add some life to the combat in early parts of the game. The only questionable addition is the new Wonder, the Internet. It puts a Research Lab in all your cities; this is great for you, but the massive bonus this gives to research and science, in addition to the extra culture points you’ll be getting from all those Labs, makes the Internet an absurdly overpowered Wonder. Generally, the wonders of Civilization III are all of fairly limited power, but this new one throws that out the window. Nevertheless, as a whole the new additions really seem to round out and offer some completion to the original title.

The best and most significant change to the single-player game, which I’ve kept for last, is the selection of new game types offered in the expansion. In “Regicide” mode, you have a king unit which you can move around like a regular unit -- except when this unit is lost, you lose the game and your entire civilization is wiped out. This game style makes daring military strikes more common and increases the aggressiveness factor, and also increases the value of espionage; knowing the location of the enemy king is a huge advantage! On the other hand, the new “Elimination” game provides a very cautious and slow-moving affair, since in this variation you lose the game if you lose even one city. The new game types not only increase the variety of Civilization III, but also offer shorter games than the long, multi-era game that is the main offering of the Civilization series, which keeps the game interesting and exciting.

Online play is obviously intended to be the major draw of the new expansion, but so far it doesn’t seem to have taken shape in exactly the way one would have liked. As it came out, there were a lot of bugs and problems with the integration of online play -- because the games are fairly lengthy already, connection dropout and crashing issues really need to be resolved before people can start enjoying the full-fledged online experience. Still, this series in particular shows huge promise for great times in online gaming, so one must hope that these problems are completely worked out with time. But expect quite a few patches for this expansion before that takes place.

My major criticism of Play the World focuses not upon the actual quality of the product, but its value. Despite the problems with online play, one hopes that these will be worked out in time, and the improvements to the single player game, especially the new games types, are great. But we’re being asked to pay for this game as if it is a real expansion pack, and this is the problem. Frankly, the 1.29 patch of Civilization III, which offered us a scenario editor in addition to some corrections and fixes, added more to the experience than PTW does. It says something when a simple patch has features to rival an expansion pack, and the message is not good.

The additions of new civilizations and the minor changes to the game are really just the window dressing of this expansion pack, and superior quality additions can be found in the free mods for the game that are widely available online. What should appeal to most players are the new game types and the addition of online play; both of these changes will extend the lifetime of a title that already has an almost endless lifespan of interest. It’s clear that this expansion is only for hardcore Civilization fans; other players will have had more than their fill of this genre just playing a few games of the basic title. Still, for those undaunted fans who never seem to tire of Civilization -- folks like myself, that is -- this is a highly recommended purchase.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/22/03, Updated 06/22/03