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A welcome addition to the ever-evolving series with enough new content to make it a worthwhile purchase.

Whether you are a long time Civilization player or are looking at the game for the first time, this expansion is well worth the money.

I was hesitant when I heard that there was an expansion on the way out because not all of the expansions in this long series of games have been worth a second glance.

Much like Play The World, the first expansion for Civ 3 (Civ is the street lingo for Civilization), this installment adds alot to the game play experience.

To start with, the eight new civilizations give a little more choice when trying to decide whom to rule the world with. My favorite so far has to be the Mayans. With their special unit enslave ability, I was able to build an army of workers to terraform my territory. In addition to this, they are an agricultural civilization; one of the two new civ characteristics.

The agricultural characteristic provides additional food in the city starting squares and allows cities to populate the deserts since irrigated desert provides one extra food. Seafaring is the other new characteristic, which provides extra ship movement, cheaper water-based improvements, and a better chance of ship survival out at sea. With these new characteristics comes the retooling of some of the old civilizations.

Another bid addition is four new wonders of the world. Two of these can be serious game breakers, as they provide a tough unit every five turns. The Temple of Artemis is a nice one as well, but the benefit of a free temple in every city is only worth the five hundred shield cost if you are on a large land mass. The last new wonder merely makes three people happy in the city that builds it; luckily it is relatively cheap.

There is one other big change as far as wonders are concerned. Some wonders now become tourist attractions after 1000 years. Any tourist attraction adds commerce to the city in which it is built. The amount added increase based on how long the wonder has been around.

This makes it possible to have a monetary or scientific beast of a city. With only some of the wonders in the city, I managed to get a scientific output of 768. That is enough to get any industrial technology in four turns.

Conquest’s big selling point is the scenario mode. There are scenarios that span from the beginning of modern civilizations in the Middle East region to world war two. This is something that was in Civ 2 but not in Civ 3.

These scenarios are extremely in-depth, each with their own civs, technologies, governments, and special units. It is almost like playing a different game every time you load up a new scenario. There is also a scoreboard that keeps track of your best score on each of the scenarios.

A final feature is the addition of a new difficulty level. I’ve never been able to play on deity, the old hardest difficulty, so I know there is no possible way I could compete on the “Sid” level.

This seems odd that they have Sid and deity levels though, because I was under the assumption that Sid Meier is god. I guess this will provide a challenge for those that have mastered the game to the point of playing deity with their eyes closed, but for most people is going to be an unused feature.

Civilization 3: Conquests is a welcome addition to the ever-evolving series. If you haven’t played it before, I highly recommend picking it up.


Review by Kris Warshefski.