Customer Reviews

Civilization 3 Expansion: Play the World

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

PTW should be recalled from the shelves and destroyed. It serves no purpose now that "Conquests" has been released. Read on and save yourself some money and frustration....

The "Play the World" expansion pack was originally released in 2002 and it was generally considered buggy and incomplete. Patching fixed many of the bugs but the multiplayer portion still left much to be desired due to poor original design. Unfortunately, these design flaws were deeply rooted and could not be fixed by further "free" patches (it just wouldn't be economical) and so the developer went to work on a new expansion pack called "Conquests".

Now, in 2003, with release of the "Conquests" expansion pack, the "Play The World" (PTW) xpack has been rendered utterly obsolete, since Conquests includes all of the 'good' stuff from PTW (and none of the 'bad'!). Conquests also has many new features (new civs, new wonders, new techs, new units, etc) and much better multiplayer support.

My advice to anyone considering buying this PTW xpack is: DON'T!

You're much better off getting the "Conquests" xpack instead which, at the time of this writing, is the same price as PTW!

In summary, the "Conquests" xpack:

a) includes everything in the PTW xpack except the bugs and flawed multiplayer support

b) has a bunch of new stuff: civs, techs, units, wonders, etc.

c) costs the same as PTW!

Good luck.

First off let me say that I do not play multiplayer games nor do I have any interest in playing them. Based on the other reviews here I would not buy the expansion if playing the multiplayer game was a priority for me...but,

I let the reviews here keep me from buying the expansion for 4 months and now I wish I hadn't waited.

The Good:
1) New civilizations. Especially the Ottomans and Spanish which are very challenging.
2) New animations. These are very cool.
3) New AI...I have noticed a smarter AI in the games I have been playing since the expansion and patches. This is making deitiy level much harder to win.
4) New units! Getting to update the swordsman to medieval infantry and eventually guerillas is huge since they are a valuable early unit type.
5) The editor is GREAT...SO much better than the original editor.
6) Expanded commands, especially expanded automation for workers.

The Bad:
1) Multiplayer
2) The price

Civilization is my favorite game all time so any expansion that is put out isn't going to be a price sensitive purchase for me. I felt ripped off paying $29 for the expansion, but it was worth it to me because I am a hardcore civilization player. Bottom line is this...if you are on the fence and don't intend to use multiplayer I think this expansion is worth the money for the hardcore fan.

I have been an avid fan of the series since the first installment of civilization and have easily wasted solid months (years?) at a time playing Civ II, SMAC, etc. I even bought a new system just for the release of Civ III because it would cause me great mental anguish to know that it was out and I couldn't play it. If this sounds anything like you, and you have a broadband connection (you really do need it) you need to buy this expansion.
Caveats:
I picked up PTW on release day and raced home to see how my months of training with Civ III would fare against human opponents. Crashes and complaints were frequent (this version should have never been shipped) but firaxis has made it work with their second patch (1.14f available from firaxis.com) and after a few frustrating weeks, I have little to no trouble connecting with people to play with, crashes are way down and probably due to new users trying to play without the patch.
My only complaint now is with the human opponents. People with leave the game if they think they are losing, or if you attack a poorly defended civ, or if their sister needs to use the computer or whatever. This wipes their cities completely off the map but also gives the neighboring civ easy access to expand their territory, upsetting the power balance. Other players must think this is a good idea because they then begin to leave in droves. There are no overall statistics kept on your own overall performance (wins/losses/quits) which could have been a nice feature especially matching similar skill levels to play each other. Dial up pings are high and hosts will often ask a player with high pings to leave, if they don't they get booted by the host before the game begins (thus the broadband recommendation). Games last on average at least 3-4 hours and significant military movements can be difficult to complete within the time allotted even if you make use of all the management features. Even with all of these issues, I find myself going straight for the multiplayer lobby rather than the single player game. Hope this helps someone.

The Civ series of games are probably the best computer games ever made. The trend has continued with Civ III so naturally I bought the expansion the day it came out and I have been moderatly dissappointed. I would reccomend waiting a few months before you purchase this expansion.

The reason for this is that there are may bugs with the multiplayer that makes it unplayable for most people. If you can actually manage to get a game going then it will probably be more trouble that it is worth. After a month or so they will have several patches that I am sure will work out most of these problems and it should be good to go.

If you just want to play single player with the new units and civilizations and don't care about the multiplayer then go ahead and buy it now. There is a bug with industrious civs not getting bonus shield production correctly and small bugs like this but nothing that makes it close to unplayable like the multiplayer is.

All in all Civ III is one of the best games ever but if you are going strictly for multiplayer like most people are who purchase this expansion then you'll have to wait. It just doesn't work yet.

This is the first expansion pack to 'Civilization III', and, after installing the badly-needed patches provided on the civ3 website, I've enjoyed it for its single-player additions alone.

The important thing to know at this point, however, is that all of the content in 'Civ III: Play the World' is to be included in the *next* expansion -- 'Civ III: Conquests'. That means that there's no reason whatsoever to invest in this expanion now. Note that pre-ordering 'Conquests' here at Amazon earns one an additional bonus disc of fan material as a giveaway from Atari.

Got it? In order to get the 'Play the World' material (and all the new additions), go buy 'Conquests'.

The Civilization game series have been a huge blockbuster and success since Civil 1 came to birth in the early 90's.
The idea of building an empire of your own from the first village to a global domination was compelling undoubtedly.
Plus you had the possibility of interacting with other nations and adopt a peaceful or warmonger attitude.

Basically these were the foundations where the game appeal was built on and which were lately polished and perfected through out the next episodes II (1996) & III (2001).

The great con which was made more clear as time passed by, technology improved and Internet became something available, was the lack of multiplayer support.

Play the World (PTW) is the last installment of Sid Meier's creation, and it's merely a patch to add-in that feature long requested.

Yes, of course it has another features such as 8 new civilizations, units and options, but the main attraction was the possibility of facing other human players on your race to world domination.

The multiplayer is really slow, even if you get a Pentium IV with lots of RAM and it tends to get even slower as the game advances to modern ages and players get more cities, units and actions to do.

I know it's hard to satisfy everyone but considering the anxiety multiplayer had provoked, PTW should have been a little more polished and more beta-tested among users before being launched to the shelves.

Absoluety abysmal code. The game does not work - the lag is incredible even with my cable modem and the game is so unstable I've not been able to "play" for more than 15 minutes without a crash. It is the worst bugfest I've ever seen. If you read this review and don't believe me, check the online gaming websites. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

The Civ3 add-on "Conquests" is one of the greatest add-ons I have seen in the Civ line-up. To play the add-on, you only need to have the original Civ3 game (as this add-on includes the title name add-on "Conquests" and the first add-on for Civ3 - "Play the World"). For those of you who played Civ2 from the time it was released until Civ3 was released, I see no reason not to purchase Conquests - Civ3 is going to be around for some time, the add-on is worth it.

My favorite feature of the game is the simultaneous moves multiplayer mode. Unlike the bugs and glitches of the Play the World add-on, the Conquests version features a fairly streamlined play. I frequently play a small or normal sized world with friends on a local LAN (although internet play is viable as well) on a weekend day.

Another feature that makes Conquests great is that it expanded everything about the game without changing the core system. Instead, it just adds more choices a player must make to be successful (which is a good thing for those that like strategy games like Civ3).

Friends of mine who make Mods for games have found this add-on to be very exciting. Not only does Conquests come with recreations of real life conquests (such as WWII in the Pacific), Mod makers can create their own Mods just like the conquests that come with the game.

At about $20, Conquests is a great deal that delivers a lot. Its flaw, although not directly related to the game, is that Firaxis/Atari released the "Play the World" add-on separate first (charging $20 for that game as well) and included it free in "Conquests." While it was a smart choice to sell them together for "Conquests", those of us that purchased the first add-on feel cheated.

I do have the game. The "single Player" new aspects are exceptional. The Artifical Intelligence that controls the enemies seem even smarter than before. That said, the reason I bought this game was to have the chance to play with some friends. I even talked them into buying it.

Well, Multiplayer ( the game is called play the world) doesnt yet function at 100% or even half that. It works on a LAN. It works via PBEM (play by email) and some have had a little bit of success using the in game player matching.
BUT
going through the intended software Gamespy Arcade it simply crashes. NOT just for me. But for EVERY single person that tried it.
Most multiplayer games attempted by the in game multiplayer access failed or suffered massive lag.
This game was released when it was NOT ready for prime time. A patch was released when the game was, but it didnt solve any of the issues in multiplayer.
I am sure they will fix most of the multiplayer issues, but this game was released LONG before it should have.

I Bought this the other day, expecting to play multiplayer. I did end up playing but not after first downloading a patch, and several tries. No big deal though. I was horrified the first time I played it. It is so slow. It takes probably 10 seconds just to select a unit and move them one turn. It took me over an hour to play about 32 turns. My computer is not slow.
I really think that what they have for Multiplayer is great, but until they speed it up (somehow) I wont play Muli. You may still want to buy it for its added features, such as additional units and civs, but without playing Multiplayer because of speed, the price is a little steap.
Overall the Multilplayer really outways any goodthings about this game, since that is basically the whole point of the expansion pack. Buy it if you want, but if its just for Multiplayer, hold off until improvements are made!