Civilization III: Conquests

"Be Prepared"

Conquests is the second expansion for Civilization III. It adds a few new things to the game, but the selling point is the ''Conquests'' section: there are nine scenarios with altered rules and victory conditions. Conquests includes all of the features from Play the World.

New Governments: There are two new governments. Feudalism and Fascism. Feudalism is mostly a tweaked Monarchy. Supposedly it works best with small empires but I haven't noticed it make all that much of a difference. Fascism is a bit more interesting; it permits a greater capacity for war, but conquered cities become harder to manage. I don't find either to be a game-strategy-altering addition.

New Wonders: There are four new wonders for Play the World. The Statue of Zeus (available with Mathematics) and the Knights Templar (Chivalry) generate a special unit (Ancient Cavalry for Zeus, Crusader unit for Templar) every five turns. The Temple of Artemis (Polytheism) acts as a temple for every city on the continent. Mausoleum of Mausollos (Philosophy) gives the city it's in three Happy faces--and never expires. I like Wonders and these are fairly sturdy Wonders, so no complaints here.

New Small Wonder: Only one--the Police HQ, which can only be build and operates under Communism. It acts as a second Forbidden City. Not a big deal.

New Specialists: The Policeman reduces corruption--yay!--and the Civil Engineer reduces the cost of building buildings. Both are nice but their imapct is minimal, so a lot of them have to be used to make a difference.

New Tribes: The Hittites, the Byzantines, the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Mayans, the Incans, and the Sumerians. Nothing special or new here; unique units have some new abilities (Casquai Scout (Inca) can ignore movement penalties for many types of terrain; Enkidu Warrior (Sumeria) gets an extra hit point; and Javelin Thrower (Mayan) can enslave workers (see below).

New Attributes: Seafaring and Agricultural. They do what you think they'd do: Seafaring reduces the change of sinking and increases commerce on coastal cities. Agricultural increases food output and a handful of environmentally-themed buildings, such as Aqueducts, Solar Plants, and Recycling Plants (though strangely not Granaries). Previous civilizations have been thankfully retooled (the English are now Seafaring. Yay!). These are nice and certainly add a lot to the game.

New Units: Not much extraordinary. The Curragh is an earlier naval unit; Flak Cannons are good against aircraft; TOW Infantry are a new land-based and powerful modern unit. Mostly just fills in gaps.

New Concepts: Swampland is a terrain type where cities cannot be built; a new type of leader--the Scientific Leader--may occur when you discover a new technology, and can be used to hurry a project (like before) or boost science output for twenty turns in a specific city. Wonders can, after a while, become tourist attractions, increasing commerce in that city (good bonus for obsolete wonders). Slavery can occur in a few different contexts, which basically creates a worker (similar to capturing workers before).

That's a lot of additions. But does it add up to an expansion? These changes are nice but a lot of them have a feel of filling in gaps rather than creating new and innovating concepts to keep the game fresh. The conquests are nice, but after finishing two of them in about three days I don't see that these conquests are going to add a lot to longevity. The conquests are very nice, however, because they have thir own technology, government types, events, units, and victory conditions, so these feel like brand new games.

This leads to one of the problems I had with the game--not the game per se, but its marketing. ON all of the promotions and on the back of the box it promises lots of new things--over 250 new additions, 60 new buildings, various numbers of new units and governments. Unfortunately, most of these are available only with the conquest scenarios. The Tribal Council government, which it mentions several times, doesn't show up in the main game. The interesting sounding Imperialism government isn't in the main game. The exotic birds, salts, and other luxuries--not in the main game. This is a major disappointment. I'm not going to charge misleading, but it's darn close. It's this disappointment that knocks a few points off of my review.

As an expansion in and of itself, it *may* be worth $20, certainly not thirty. If you did not have Play the World, it may be worth the $30, since it includes PtW and the new items. While all of these additions are nice, it's only slightly more meat than a regular patch.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 11/09/03