Rating: 
Summary: Need improvement, right, but no so bad!
Review: Hi,I readed all this reviews and despite it when this expansion come to my local stores i just buyed it... It maybe doesnt make sense that u buy a poor rated product by users like this but when u are a civ fanatic u need to try it by yourself and u know what... i liked it. THE GOOD: 1) The add-ons, no to much, but nice ones, the 8 new civs with their civ-specific abilities and units. 2) The users-made scenarios collection, u can also download them from many websites but i just tried a few of them and the guys at Firaxis had selected the best of this scenarios to include in the expansion pack, many of them reworked by the creators for multiplayer. 3) The most important point, the Multiplayer, right, the main feature is so buggy, people say that's a BUG and not a game, BUT, if u are patient u should be able to run a full game without a problem (try 3 or 4 players in a small-medium map). I mean, patient because u will try to launch so many times and only 1 between 5 will be a success. Anyway everyone knows that even if patchs take time to appear they will fix this issue, therefore its going to be only better. 4) I loved the two online gaming options, the turnless where every player play at the same time the fast as possible because the turn will advance so fast even if u didnt finished, this option combined with the accelerated production one can finish a civ game relatively fast.
The second one is the simultaneous mode, close to the other one but with the difference that u have enough time to complete your turn, sometimes u will need to wait for others to finish their turn. THE BAD: 1) Just ONE new great wonder and NO new techs at all!!! I truly expected more here since i am a tech lover. To bad. 2) Yeah i love the game and also the exp pack but i still have the sense (as many) that they needed to include this feature into the game and no to take money for this small expansion, good but small. 3) As everyone says here, the multiplayer bugs that need fast and good fixs. CONCLUSION: If u are a fan, take it now and if u liked Civilization 3 and like Multiplayer gaming wait for a good patch and then take it. I give this game a 4/5. Thanks for your time.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not great
Review: Good expansion but not what most were hopeing for. The expansion has many good things including more civilizations. They added many things but they did not add enough;. They only added one new wounder, two new units and three new improvments. It seems to me that much of this stuff they could have added as downloads. The best thing about it is the multiplayer aspect of it. They offer many ways to play your friends or other people over the web. Really it is only fair as a expansion on the single player aspect of the game offering only a few new items, and also some new menu setups (nothing major though). As a multiplayer upgrade it is very solid. Really if you think you need this game to expanded a single player gaming experiance your wrong this game only adds minor things to the single player aspect. It does add a whole different aspect to the game with the multiplayer aspect, and for that it is worth it, but overall I was a little upset there was not more added to the over game.
Rating: 
Summary: Not up to its expectations
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: What a rip-off
Review: Only the slugs at Apolyton could manage to get people to pay [to much money] for a single computer game. Why wasn't CivIII multiplayer from the start like CivII? Easy. It wasn't multiplayer because they wanted to make saps pay [even more money] in order to get the "play the world" expansion! [Not considered an Exspansion] Avoid this product like the plague and buy CivII instead.
Rating:
Summary: This game does not work
Review: This game/expansion simply does not work. I'm not going to talk about the single player additions, because you can download most them for FREE on the Internet. People will buy this expansion because of the multiplayer experience. This review incorporates the new patch out (1.14f) that is supposed to get the game to work. It does, for about 10 minutes. Then the game gets so slow it becomes tedious to play (and only with 2 human players). Units move slow. Combat takes forever (even without animations) and communication is difficult/impossible. For example, when you try and type to another player, PTW doesn't word wrap and you lose half of what you say. Voice communication is not built in, like in Alpha Centauri. You are supposed to use something called Microsoft DirectVoice. Don't know anyone who uses that. Granted, the 1.14f patch is MUCH better than before, but they will need a 2.00 patch before this game is enjoyable to the casual player. Sometimes when you are playing, the game just errors and bombs - forcing a hard reboot. You can recover from this, if you know the people you are playing with and can call them on the phone. If you are playing strangers online, forget about it, the game is over for you. When does it do this? Random times. Unrepeatable. I have never been in a game with more than 3 human players. I haven't even seen a game with more than 3 humans START successfully (it always crashes or doesn't allow all the players through). There is no auto update ability, so you have people trying to play unpatched PTW, PTW v 1.04, and PTW v 1.14f. So getting the game to start is a 30-60 minute effort. There are other features that make this game difficult to play multiplayer. Features that are in single player no longer exist in multiplayer - such as research notifications don't pop up. Cities don't request build orders. Units don't always automatically center, so you don't know if the computer wants you to move or not. Manual moves are so slow that you basically need to use G to move or drag and drop - meaning exploring is difficult and unpredictable. Combat is not fluid. You'll move a unit to attack, (in simultaneous mode), and the attack takes 1 minute to resolve. The company seems proud that they were able to get multiplayer to work - a little. Seems like since that's what we're paying for it to begin with, it's little to be proud of. They brag about direct IP (a feature added in the latest patch) because they can't get their internet matchmaking system to work well - note: not GameSpy's fault. I'm sure this game will eventually be patched up so it's a little more playable, but by then it will probably be in the discount bin and already written off by many gamers. So don't purchase this as a gift for someone. It will only frustrate them for the holidays. Wait until the game is ready to be bought, and then the enthusiast will purchase it him/herself. Don't take my word for it. Check other reviews. This game is ranked so poorly by professional gaming magazines (GameSpot, GameSpy, etc) that it's amazing stores will even stock it.
Rating:
Summary: More SLOW, BUGGY BETA JUNK from Firaxis. NO STARS.
Review: A year ago, Firaxis rushed to market Civ 3 - an underdeveloped and incomplete beta game so buggy and filled with bad concepts it took over half a year and four patches just to get it somewhat playable. It still remains very flawed, both as a game and as a simulation of history. It was a big let down as a successor to the great Civ 2. Now we have "Play The World", a Civ 3 expansion that contains much of what should have been in the original game such as Multiplayer - but Firaxis could not charge us extra if it did that. They do give us more meaningless superficial graphics and leader heads, for those who care. PTW is another abject failure - more beta buggy junk from Firaxis, with MP so bad it slows the game to a crawl, when it doesn't crash. Firaxis had to have yet another patch out even before the game hit the stores. That is INEXCUSABLE, and shows more lack of play-testing, and more disdain for the consumer. Even though certain online forums, such as CFF and Apolyton, act as shills for Firaxis, most of us no longer have any faith in Firaxis, and we will remember to avoid that company in the future. We get a few minor single-player features, that also should have been in the original game, but these aren't much. Multiplayer? MP doesn't work well at all even after their patch. It sometimes crashes the entire system as if you hit "restart". The game's interface, single or MP, remains sluggish causing delays; it is also cumbersome and incomplete. Many of the complaints people had with Civ 3 are still around, such as not being able to cooperate with an ally in times of war. PTW just adds a few little things on to an already flawed Civ 3 while giving you a lousy MP experience - what was supposed to be the main reason for PTW. You get a lot more bugs and problems than anything useful. Oh yes, for just tacking on a tiny number of single player additions that should have been in Civ 3 in the first place, the expansion is expensive - [$]. You do need the original game to play it - but you'd better also have Civ 3's latest patch or it won't work! No thanks, Firaxis. Find another...
Rating:
Summary: casual Civ 3 player
Review: I have played this game 5 hours. I know this because when you retire from a game it tells you how long you have been playing. I have not played the multiplayer part of the game. This upgrade has a lot of nice features, which make the game less tedious to play, this is good. For example you can now move a stack of fighting men without having to move each one separately, this saves you a lot of time. You spend less time maintaining you're empire and more time strategizing which to me is the best part. 3 stars PRICE . Time is Money; I have time but no money.
Rating: 
Summary: Pass Up Play the World
Review: I have been a Civ III player for ages and love the game. However PTW is just plain bad. It offers a handful of new units, races, and some improved graphics. It also runs much much slower than the original CIV III, crashes almost constantly, and lets not even discuss the uselessness of the multiplayer interfaces. I've downloaded the newest patch for PTW and that didn't fix any of the above issues. My advice is to play the original and pass up PTW until it works. Which won't be anytime soon.
Rating: 
Summary: Great addition to a very good game
Review: First off, I really liked civ3, If you didn't like that you won't like the expansion. The expansion as a some nice new elements to the game, a few new improvements, great worker automation, multiplayer, some game tweaks, and some new civilizations. My favorite improvement is the increased build rate. Now you can finish a full game in a day versus a week. Makes it much more enjoyable. The multiplayer doesn't really interest me. To many cheaters out there and basically I just am not good enough to beat the good players (can beat warlord but no higher) Definately a great addition to a very good game
Rating:
Summary: Are you people CRAZY?
Review: If you DON'T own the game DON'T review it. You people who have given 4 and 5 stars have obviously not played it. After you buy this game, you maybe able to download the patch, which by the way, isn't even on the official site yet. You'll have to get that from gamespy, which is at least an hour wait for an open servor. By the way don't use gamespy arcade, because the game can't launch from there. (Don't ask me why) After, you finally download the patch and install it you might be able to play it, but don't count on it. The program may crash 5 to 10 times beforehand. (The whole program is extremely unstable) I wouldn't even think about gettin this unless you have dsl or cable, the lag will make you physically ill.
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