How do you add onto perhaps the greatest game of it’s genre?  Play The World is the long awaited expansion to Civilization III (Civ3), and is a good example of what not to do for a game add-on.  What good things in Play The World are either haphazardly organized or should have been included in Civ3.  There is hardly enough added to the game play to justify buying Play The World.

New Civilizations

The new civilizations in Play The World are either ones that should have been included in Civ3 or not considered at all.  It is not an issue of race or bias, just my own historical opinion.   New civilizations were the most anticipated addition to the game, for me ,and I came away slightly disappointed in the new selections.  They do play alright, which is what it comes down to.  Almost all are militaristic and aggressive, so they are all very similar to play against.

Mongols:  A good addition that was left out of Civ3, but with a weaker unique unit than what it replaces.  A tough civilization to play

Spain:  Another good addition, but its special unit is wasted

Arabs:  A decent mid-game civilization and a good addition to the game from a playability and geographic perspective

Korea:  Thai would have been my choice, but Korea is a decent civilization.  A cool artillery unit, but it is not the Asian culture I would have picked to tack onto the game

Celts:  An okay early civilization, but not a great addition to the game.  While the Celts were throughout Europe, they really never became domineering (akin to Carthage) and are probably in the game as Celtic culture is popular today. 

Ottomans:  It seems redundant to have both the Ottomans and the Arabs as add-on cultures, but really it is a good addition 

Carthage:  An interesting choice, but another Mediterranean civilization that never succeeded.  Probably a better, non-Mediterranean civilization would have been a better choice.

The Vikings:  A good early game civilization and a nice addition to round out the Europeans, especially if sea power early on is of interest.

More Scenarios

Had there been anything resembling organization, value, consistency and detail this could have been a great feature of Play The World.  There are some gems hidden inside, but it mired with some clunkers.  The scenarios are listed in an orderly fashion, but the descriptions vary wildly from one to another.  There is nothing included in this section that could not be downloaded off the web…for free.  Had Firaxis made some really nifty scenarios and included the best of off the web and organized it, this might have been a nice value add.  However, they did not and it is not. 

Bells and Whistles

The new opening animation for Play The World is less fun then what was in Civ3, and is a harbinger of things to come as you explore this expansion.  The original animation has a neat feel to it progressed through a city and technology.  The new animation is more like watching loosely connected vignettes, while well animated they don’t really add anything to the experience or feel of the game.  Any other graphical additions to the core game is minimal.  Some of the scenarios add different units and tile sets, some of which are nicer than what Civ3 or Play The World have (most of which are free).

The new worker built improvements are a mixed lot, but definitely help with gathering info around a civilization’s borders (radar and outposts).  The air field is a good addition too, but given aircraft are different in this version.   Planes are based on carriers or cities and fly missions to bomb targets and not combat them directly.  Given carriers are available early on and they can be housed in cities, the value of the airfield is not great.

Many of the game play features should have been put into the original game.  The interface improvements are decent, in particular the movement interface, but it is not so tough to move units to begin with.  The espionage interface is a great addition to Play The World, it gives all the information on one handy screen and is very functional.  Espionage is still tough to do though.  If you can afford to do it, you probably don’t need to…

City based improvements and new wonders are alright, but don’t add much.  The Internet is a great end game wonder, as it gives a boost to research.  If you can build it, you might not really need it though (unless the game is close).  The stock market improvement is a better addition as you have to have several before building Wall Street.  It also gives better economies to the cities that build stock markets, which is a good thing. 

The new worker built improvements are a mixed lot, but definitely help with gathering info around a civilization’s borders (radar and outposts).  The air field is a good addition too.  Given that aircraft fly missions or interdict other aircraft they are much better in cities.  I would have a hard time justifying sending a worker to build an airfield and then a unit or two to defend it when a city will do much better.  Aircraft carriers are available early on and they can be housed in cities, the value of the airfield is not great despite it being a good idea.

New Units

Another thing to look forward to in Play The World, new and interesting ways to smite your enemies.  Disappointingly, there are a mere two new units available to all civilizations are the medieval infantry and guerilla.  The medieval infantry is a sort of stop gap unit to replace swordsmen, but if this is your key offensive unit it is a tough one to play with as they are not overwhelmingly strong as compared to many defending units.  The guerilla is a good unit as it has not resource requirements and has a balanced attack and defense, good for remote cities in a civilization to create.  The guerilla is also the upgrade path for many units, given its balanced nature it is a fair defending unit until infantry or mechanized infantry can be put into place.  Neither unit add much to the game play.  I would have rather seen some different naval units added (such as cruisers and modern destroyers).

            Unique units for the civilizations above have mixed results.  The Arabs, Ottomans, Koreans and Vikings all have decent and useful units.  The Korean unique unit (Hwach’a) in particular is a nasty replacement for the cannon, as it can destroy units and not only wear them down to 1 health.  The Viking unit (Berserk) is interesting as it is the first amphibious unit in the game, which allows them to attack (appropriately) from the sea.  The Berserk also replaces the nearly useless bowman, so that is a plus too. 

Some units are not so swell.  The Spanish unit (Conquistador) is a hardy variation of the explorer and ignores terrain types for movement.  A neat idea, but by the time the Spanish civilization can build the conquistador, it is too late.  Much of the world has likely been explored and exploited.  The Carthaginian unit (Numidian Mercenary), is a spearmen with better attack and defense.  It is a better garrison unit as its attack strength may not be effective against anything but warriors or attacking spearmen.  The Mongolian  unique unit (Keshic) are analogous to knights, are slightly cheaper to build (60 rather than 70). They also have a lower defensive rating (2 rather than 3…ouch).

The rest of the units are just slight improvements over normal units, but are powerful enough that they are special for the era they are available in.  All are early to mid-game units, which is a shame as there are so few modern unique units (F-15 and Panzer) in Civ3 and now Play The World. 

Multiplayer Gaming

I am not sure why every game released must have multiplayer capability, but maybe I am just old fashioned.  The general consensus amongst the professional gaming writers is that this does not work well in Play The World.  The game is too slow and unreliable.  Perhaps, they are right.  The real core of the problem is that this type of game does not play well with multiple human players for several reasons.

The first is a game performance issue.  Having lots of civilizations is probably the most fun way to play the game (and oddly the easiest for a human player).  The second is simply time, sometimes a turn can take a good deal of real time to resolve actions (though there is some real time things in Play The World), that could be ponderous if there are more than 2 players.

Also the game performance, even on fast systems, drops like a hot potato when there are more than about 16 civilizations on a large or huge map.  Try playing it with 32 as included in some of the added on scenarios.  As the game progresses a human player quite literally needs to bring a book for something to do while the computer busily figures out moves, borders and other things.  Your book might become more fun than the game itself. 

Synopsis

Civ3 is the best game to date in the series and amongst its genre.  Firaxis and Sid Meier are well known for releasing great games.  Why then did they release such a lemon?  It is hard to say, but the fact that Play The World has garnered the most disappointing release of 2002 from Gamespot was no surprise.  For thirty dollars, Play The World caters to only the most diehard of fans.  Fans should wait for it to go on a sale.  For the casual gamer, or anyone who can download some impressive third party mods and scenarios Play The World is best avoided.