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Sid Meier\'s Civilization III: Conquests |
| Genre: Strategy |
HD Support: 0 |
| Developer: Firaxis |
System Link: NO |
| Publisher: Atari |
Live Enabled: NO |
| Release Date: 2003-11-06 |
| Description: Take over the World One Conquest at a time. Sid Meier's Civilization III: Conquests takes players on a provocative journey through the ages as they pursue victory in the most famous conquests in history. What does Civ Conquests give to fans of the award-winning series? Simply put, more Civilization! More to Build, More to Fight, More to Rule. Civ fans will discover intriguing new civilizations, units, wonders, technologies, and abilities to help them triumph in nine professionally designed conquests throughout history. Compete as one of the seven new Civilizations, each with its own powerful leader, unique units and special abilities, and lead your nation to its destiny. New victory conditions, Wonders of the World, terrain elements, resources, city improvements, and governments offer endless variation in your quest to rule the world.
Updated multiplayer modes, expanded difficulty settings, and a slew of editor enhancements round out what Time Magazine calls the greatest computer strategy game of all time. Do you have what it takes to lead a civilization to greatness? Or, will your nation be conquered by some greater power? You decide.
Features
- Civilizations -- Seven new powerful civilizations from the innovative sumerians to the mystical mayans
- Units -- Use Trebuchets to batter down the enemy's walls or Sumerian Enkidu warriors to quickly gain military dominance
- Disasters -- Beware the volcanoes or Pompeii could become your reality
- Diplomacy -- Locked alliances allow good vs. evil conflicts you'll never forget
- Map Features -- Bombard the enemy and leave behind craters
- Resources -- Fight for control over tobacco, jade & exotic birds
- Wonders -- get the statue of Zeus to really make your troops powerful
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Sid Meier\'s Civilization III: Conquests Staff Review | |
| Overall 8.0 Gameplay: 8.0 Visual: 8.0 Sound: 8.0 | Reviewed By: admin
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AFTER THE BITTER PILL of Firaxis last Civ III expansion, Play the World -- which, while adding the much-desired multiplayer game modes, never made it out of the stone age of fun due to bugs more numerous than a barbarian horde and an early game that still felt rote and uninspired -- Civ III fans haven't exactly been looking forward to Conquests as a next wonder of the world. It turns out, though, that this final expansion is precisely the hidden treasure it needed to be to make sure Civ III stands the test of time.
The initial problem was that "Epic Game" (the default way the game is played in single-player) made for boring multiplayer. It's too long, the players usually get factionalized into two teams too early (or never get aggressive enough), and once a player starts losing by a large enough margin it's very difficult to get them to stay in the game and see it through. As a result, the end-game almost always turned into a battle between maybe two, three players at most. Conquests takes the epic game, chops it up into digestible bits by focusing on specific time periods and scenarios and then forces a frenetic pace of conflict by giving custom and more focused goal-sets. Derived from periods of high-conflict in our world's history, each Conquest hones in on specific periods and regions, intentionally limiting the scope of the game being played in order to place people squarely on opposing teams and giving multiple, historically accurate ways to reach victory so that one failed tactic doesn't necessarily lead to the type of doomsday scenario that forced the early quitters in Play the World.
Each "Conquest" is constructed with that idea in mind. The Barbarian Hordes in "The Fall of Rome" can win either by eliminating eight Western Roman Empire and eight Eastern Roman Empire cities, thereby bringing about their collapse or by hanging on to various "victory point" locations for long enough to reach 35000 victory points. The catch is that the Roman Empires hold all the victory point locations, so unless the Barbarians start their pillaging and plundering right quick, the Romans will take the victory point win every time. "Sengoku - Sword of the Shogun" takes place entirely on the isles of Japan during the feudal period as the various samurai houses are vying for control of all Japan and the title of Shogun.
Like the other Conquests, there are multiple paths to victory. Two common paths are either to eliminate all the other Daimyo (heads of other clans) or be voted into the title. The close proximity and limited number of turns force conflict almost from the beginning, giving players little choice but to duke it out for the Shogunate, precisely as it happened in Japan's past.
And that's the genius behind each of the Conquests. Firaxis took a specific chunk of history and then adjusted all the gameplay elements to make the players feel as though they actually are taking on the key rulerships and having to make the same sorts of decisions their true, historical counterparts did. The tech tree, units, civilizations and even types and quantity of resource squares are all modified and then limited in scope to make sense for the part of history being played out.
This leads, occasionally, to a certain amount of necessary "suspension of disbelief" as there aren't enough graphics to go around. Making a hi-rise, brick and mortar "hospital" as 3rd century Celts, for instance, requires a little forgiveness. There are other holes, as well. Some of the new wonders don't appear on a city's "bird's eye" view in the epic game and certain units such as the peasant worker and the spearman still look too similar across different cultures. Strangely, the "Scourge of God," a unit-generating wonder in the Fall of Rome conquest is represented as the Pentagon. Whether it's a political statement or just an oversight, it's not the only conquest-specific custom element to have out-of-place artwork. Also, when a modified tech tree ends an age or two early, your civilization will still get the "We've entered a distinctly new era" messages from the missing epochs. Still, these are more annoyances than any kind of real gameplay hindrance and are easily overlooked in the face of all the additions - which are many.
Including the expected new units, small and great wonders, city improvements and new civilization types (my favorite is "Seafaring"; gives you an extra move with all water-born vessels), Conquests also features some new, culturally-themed soundtracks and more unit sound effects. The new, unit-generating wonders (Statue of Zeus, Knights Templar, etc.) at first seemed like a questionable addition since having a free, fairly powerful unit generated every five turns is really an enormous advantage in the Civ early game, but then it became apparent while playing some of the Conquests that they are meant as a balancing tool for those who find themselves lacking in the force of arms. If an already-powerful empire builds one of these wonders then it can mean Game Over for neighboring nations, which is where the strategy comes in. Using "diplomatic" missions to sabotage the big guy's wonder building while putting together a Statue of Zeus for yourself is very effective in staving off the tides of destruction.
With Conquests, Civ III feels like the game it was always meant to be. The early epic game is no longer marred by the mediocrity of carving out your empire exactly the same way every time, regardless of chosen civ, and the Conquests are an entirely new way to play the game in both single-player and multiplayer. I still found the single-player to be more enjoyable, however. The mutliplayer is still beset with lag issues and on random 'net games people still seem to drop out just when things start to get interesting. Also, it's just hard to find enough people willing to fill out all the sides in a conquest. Fortunately, empty slots can be filled with computer players, but at that point it's hardly worth putting up with the multiplayer lag. Jumping online with a friend or small group of friends who are committed to seeing a game through (whether epic or conquest) can be a small wonder of its own as it feels very much like gathering around a large table and playing Axis and Allies - except that you can do it naked and drunk. Some of my Axis and Allies games have ended up like that anyway, but that's another story.
Whether you're looking to cool the burning disappointment of Play the World or just a fan of the Civ franchise, this expansion is definitely worth the dough. It makes the best Civilization even better by applying limited amounts of the overall gameplay to digestible and historically interesting settings, making the history seem more alive and placing the player squarely in the halls of power. And, if you really don't like the way a conquest works, or just want to make one of your own, all the abilities necessary to create or modify Conquests have been added to the editor. Tech trees, victory conditions, unique units and civs - I'm hoping the community at large will pick up on the improved editor and start churning out some smashing Conquests. I've got an idea for one of my own, but I'm not telling you. At least not without a per-turn tribute and one of your cities.
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