Multiplayer Expansion Pack for Civilization III
Developer: Firaxis Publisher: Infogrames
Reviewed by Merope on 7/08/03

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First Impressions:

Graphics:

The graphics are pretty much identical to Civilization III. The terrain and units are slightly altered but it doesn't enhance nor detract from the game play.

Sound/Music:

The music is unobjectionable—the same five or six pieces cycle continuously, but almost imperceptibly. The sound effects are fantastic but can wear on your nerves—particularly in battle. Fortunately, these are easy to switch off.

Gameplay:

Game play is essentially the same as Civilization III. A few new features (noted in the First Impressions section) do facilitate game play. Of course, I recommend reading the manuals to both games even if you're an experienced Civilization gamer: there are many keyboard shortcuts and other menus that can really speed along game play. I'd been playing Civilization for months before I realized that the Domestic Advisor's screen was probably the most useful in the game: you can sort your cities by which ones have the most production, which ones grow the most food, or sort by what each city is producing, for instance. This makes managing a vast empire much easier.

Enjoyment:

Play the World is frighteningly addictive: I've found myself staying awake until the wee hours of the morning, certain that victory was just around the corner. The standard game play can become a little repetitive, but with five different "standard" victory conditions, there's plenty of room to change your style as a leader and have a new outcome. Then there are five options for shorter game victories (including the capture the flag setting) and the inclusion of a map and scenario editor so you can create your own worlds and rules to play. All this added to the six levels of difficulty means dozens of different ways to play.

Multiplayer:

The primary reason for picking up the expansion pack for Civilization III is the multiplayer feature. I had to download a patch to get the multiplayer staging area to work properly, though this may have been fixed in later versions. Once in the staging area, you can either join a game or host your own—pretty standard multiplayer stuff. The problems with multiplayer lay in the fact that this game is designed to take hours: a game on a tiny map can take one to two hours whereas a game on the largest map can take from ten to twelve. You can save the games in multiplayer, but you'd have to make an appointment with your challengers to revisit it.

Another problem with multiplayer is the problem with different gaming styles: I usually go for a peaceful victory (diplomatic, cultural, or space race), and the majority of the gamers I've challenged have been military victory types. This clash of gaming styles results in games where I'm struggling to stay alive simply because I'm not accustomed to war-mongering. Making explicit rules about victory types (which is an option when hosting your own game) or playing only with gamers of a similar style could solve this problem.

While multiplayer gaming in Civ seems like a good idea, in reality it feels like a lot of wasted time—you spend a lot of time waiting for other players to finish their turns. It takes a great deal of patience to endure a multiplayer game. I find that I much prefer to play with friends than with random gamers online, since I spent a good amount of time chatting in between turns.

There's also the option to play via e-mail: you play your turn, save the game and then e-mail it to a friend who does likewise. This concept is reminiscent of playing chess by mail: it's a quaint idea, but ultimately impractical. Games would take weeks or even months to finish.

Overall Impression:

My inner history nerd rejoices in Civilization III: Play the World. I love nothing more than when certain battles between nations reflect historical ones (like the Ottomans capturing the Roman city of Byzantium), and I love the attention to detail in giving the minor tribes historically accurate names. The game play is straightforward and there's plenty of help within the game: it comes with a "Civilopedia" which will provide you with an analysis of a unit or city improvement, as well as give you brief historical sketches.

One of my few problems with the game is the fact that after offering a choice of genders in rulers in Civilization II, the programmers have opted to return to pre-assigned genders, which are loosely based on a civilization's history. Out of 24 civilizations, only five (Egypt, Russia, England, France, and Spain) have women leaders. I appreciate the attention to historical detail (though I quibble with France's leader being Joan d'Arc), but the greatest aspect of Civilization is the fantastical opportunity to rewrite history. I like the animated portraits, but agree with Irony's assessment: I'd rather have no portrait than a man's portrait. My favorite civilizations to play in Civilization II were Carthage and Greece and in Play the World, they're both headed by men. Sure, I can customize the tribe, changing Alexander's name to my own and setting the gender to female, but I'm stuck with the portrait of a man, and that bothers me on some strange level. I end up playing more games as Egypt just to have a female avatar.

If you're interested in playing multiplayer games, then the expansion pack is definitely for you. Even though I play far more games solo, I still think the expansion pack was a worthy purchase as it really does enhance game play in very subtle ways. However, I realize not everyone has a fanatical addiction to this game.

Marketing Efforts Towards Women:

The game and packaging shows no gender bias in marketing. However, the problem with the small ratio of female leaders—a step down from the fabulous diversity shown in Civilization II—leaves the woman gamer feeling marginalized.