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The Civilization series was
always known for one peculiar thing: the games never came with multiplayer,
which was released separately as an expansion or even a standalone game.
Civilization III is not an exception. However, in today's world, where neither
the name Sid Meier nor the Civilization franchise have the same brand
recognition as five years ago, even the best game designers have to adjust to
what the market demands. Firaxis didn't do so, and for the last time released a
product I would buy. Establishing what seems to be a new tradition, Play the
World follows the footsteps of Civilization III: It is a well meant, but
incredibly buggy release.
A look back at Civilization
The original Civilization was released in 1991
by Microprose. In this turn-based strategy, you assumed the role of a leader of
a civilization. You had to build cities, which produced your income and units.
The income was used partially to support new structures in your cities,
partially for research and to a part to keep your people content. Technologies
were required to be able to build more advanced city structures and units, with
the ultimate goal of either conquering the entire planet or building a spaceship
and colonize a foreign planet. In 1995, the game was re-released, with a
multiplayer addition as CivNet. I still remember the largely negative response
the game has gotten; most reviewers blaming the developer for not improving the
graphics or the few game balance problems the original suffered with.
Civilization II, while still bearing Sid Meier's name, was designed by Brian
Reynolds. In a sense, it was an extension of the original Civilization, offering
more technologies, units and buildings, but with little change to the gameplay.
However, the game featured a powerful editor, which allowed for the creation of
truly unique maps and scenarios. Microprose later released two expansion packs
with extra scenarios, and finally Civilization II Gold Multiplayer, which has
cost me a good portion of my life.
 Brian Reynolds then designed what many
consider to be the ultimate Civilization - Alpha Centauri. This game was true to
the basic Civilization design, but featured many unique improvements. Different
factions had different advantages and disadvantages. Country borders were added,
forcing enemies to declare war before they approached your cities. Unique
victory conditions were added, such as cornering the world's commodity markets.
Terrain elevation played a major role, as did several unique terrain features.
All in all, the game could not get much better.
After Reynolds left Firaxis to
form Big Huge Games, Civilization III was designed by Jeff Briggs, one of the
designers of Colonization and Soren Johnson, a relative newcomer. This game has
borrowed much from Alpha Centauri. Different civilizations had their unique
strengths and a unique units. However, these strengths didn't differentiate them
from each other as much as in Alpha Centauri. Countries now had their own
borders, which expanded according to the country's culture rating. New victory
conditions were added as well, such as cultural dominance. There was one unique
aspect to the game, however: the existence of strategic and luxury resources.
The luxury resources merely improved people's attitude, but strategic resources
were much more important. They appeared only after a particular technology was
discovered, and were required for many advanced units and structures. Because of
their scarcity, a player had to enter complicated diplomatic agreements with his
opponents in the case he was missing one of the vital resources. This, and a
brand-new A.I., made Civilization a much more war-like game than its
predecessors.
Then came Play the World and it was bad...
Play the World
Before slamming the expansion and calling it one of the worst ways to spend
one's money, let's look what Play the World offers.
Multiplayer. The
major feature is a multiplayer patch for Civilization III. Gamers can now play
the game over the GameSpy Network, e-mail or hot seat. TCP/IP support will be
provided in a future patch, according to Firaxis.
New civilizations.
There are eight new civilizations, each with its own units. The consensus within
the civilization fan community is that the new civilizations are a little
stronger than the original ones. This should make the game more accessible for a
novice player, as well as offer some extra challenge for the veterans.
New
units. In addition to the eight civilization-specific units, there are two
more. Medieval Infantry fills the gap from the original game, which was lacking
a Middle Ages infantry unit. Guerrilla handles similarly to the partisan in
Civilization II, but considering how late in the game it arrives, it is largely
useless. However, there are many more new units available for creating new
scenarios, ranging from dinosaurs to German panzers.
New city improvements.
There are two new city improvements. Civil Defense acts just like city walls in
the previous games, giving extra defense bonus to units in the city. Stock
Exchange is now a next-level moneymaking improvement, after you build the bank.
The Wall Street now requires five stock exchanges, instead of five banks.
New
terrain improvements. There are three new terrain improvements. The Airport
serves just like the one in Civilization II: you can land planes there, and use
it as a basis point for airdrops. Outlook is a tower that gives you extra
visibility, making it possible to observe the enemies' movements. Radar Tower
gives extra combat bonus to all friendly units within its effective radius.
New major wonder. The Internet now serves as a Research Lab in all your
cities. In addition, it automatically sparks the Golden Age (increased
production and income for 20 turns) if the civilization didn't have one before.
New victory conditions. Multiplayer warrants some new victory conditions,
especially if you want to make the game shorter and more intense. Elimination
wipes out a whole civilization after a single city was lost. Regicide gives
every civilization a King unit, and a civilization is destroyed once the king is
killed. Mass Regicide works the same way, only all civilizations have multiple
king units. Capture the Flag is also present, only instead a flag, there is the
Princess unit that needs to be captured.
New maps and scenarios. There is
plenty of new maps and scenarios to choose from. However, with a few rare
exceptions, all of them are fan-made, and were available for free download from
the Internet a long time ago.
New graphics. The game features several new
graphics, especially for the strategic resources, which are now a little harder
to spot on the map. In addition, the graphics for city ruing was added, which
appears on the place of destroyed cities.
Improved interface. The player
can now choose to have advanced command buttons displayed, which takes care for
all those pesky keyboard shortcuts that I could never remember.
Why the game is not worth it
Let's face it: Play the World is a glorified patch, not an
expansion. Consider the following: Most maps and scenarios were already
available from the Web. According to my last count, there are over 20
civilizations available for free download on various fan sites. The multiplayer,
which doesn't work (I'll get to it in a moment), can hardly compete with the
multiplayer patch for Heroes of Might and Magic IV, which is available as a free
download. The editor, while slightly improved, doesn't allow to set custom
diplomatic status among the players, and as such is completely useless for
creating advanced scenarios, such as World War II. Finally, the interface
improvements should have come with the original game, or with a regular patch.
All in all, I paid $30 only for two new city improvements, three new terrain
improvements and one new wonder. This is hardly worth the price, if you ask
me...
Bugs, bugs and more bugs...
The main problem with the game,
however, is the onslaught of bugs. The same day that Play the World was
released, Firaxis also published the first patch (1.04), and announced that
another was in the making. If you wonder why, here's the reason: the multiplayer
doesn't work.
Most people would want to play over the Internet. Play the World
is supposed to run through GameSpy Network, but after two days of trying, the
best result I got was playing a game through two turns before it closed and
dumped everybody who was connected. Because I was hosting the game, I know that
it wasn't intentional. Judging from the amount of similar experiences by others,
I must concede that Internet play doesn't work yet. A possible (untested)
workaround lies in uninstalling GameSpy Arcade, but that would cut me off from
many other games I play there. Hot seat doesn't fare much better: there are
numerous reports of bugs, the most frustrating one is constant crashing when two
human players are trying to change their diplomatic relations.
The new 1.04
patch brought another serious bug, which has frustrated me (and many others) to
no end. For some reason, in many cases the game stops recognizing that the CD,
which is necessary to initiate the game, is already in the CD player. This
affects mainly the users of CD recorders and DVD players, and prevents them from
playing the game altogether.
Gameplay - 6
The gameplay is affected by
several factors. Most importantly, the new defensive and moneymaking
improvements favor a more defensive style of play. The A.I. seems to agree with
it, as I have never seen it declaring war on me ever since I installed the
expansion. Considering the frequency of attacks before, I must conclude that the
game now concentrates on building, and not war. This is a large setback for
those of us who enjoyed the unprecedented level of aggressiveness of the A.I. in
Civilization III, and renders the game a little more repetitious. Second, the
huge amount of bugs, random crashes and graphics glitches takes away a lot of
the fun, replacing it with frustration. Only the new victory conditions,
especially the Regicide, save the game's otherwise sub-par gameplay.
Graphics
- 5
There were very few changes in graphics, most of them to the worse.
Strategic resources got new, pseudo-3D graphics. I found them much harder to
locate on the map, and sometimes had to turn off all cities and terrain
improvements to spot them. The ruins are a nice touch, but they don't disappear
until you try to improve the terrain, and sometimes miraculously shift into the
middle of the ocean.
Sound - 3
Sound was a major disappointment for me.
The old tunes from Civilization III were gone, replaced by fewer, shallower
ones. I miss especially the modern times tunes, which were one of the main
reasons for playing the game. While Play the World installed itself into a new
sub-folder and thus all the old tunes are still available, according to more
knowledgeable Civilization fans, there is no easy way to incorporate them into
Play the World.
Replay value - 4
Okay, I admit: the replay value is
great, and will be even better once the multiplayer is fixed. Until then,
however, the game adds absolutely nothing to the replay value of the original
game. The only reason I actually awarded some points here is the existence of
new victory conditions, and the few new civilizations that have some novelty
value. After almost a week of playing, however, I reverted back to the old
Civilization.
Final verdict - 4.5
About a month ago, I was complaining
that the expansion for Heroes of Might and Magic IV was overpriced. I still
think so, but compared with Play the World, it suddenly looks like quite a good
deal. The Civilization III expansion is not only vastly overpriced, it is
unnecessary as a boxed title at all. A patch download from the official site
would be more than sufficient to offer the majority of improvements Play the
World offers. Firaxis has pulled the PC gaming heist of the century: they made
me spend $80 on a single game. Remind me, please, not to buy another game from
them.
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