Conquests Scenarios

Civilization 3's Conquests expansion has nine historical scenarios, which the game calls Conquests: Mesopotamia, Rise of Rome, Fall of Rome, Middle Ages, Mesoamerica, Age of Discovery, Sengoku, Napoleonic Europe and World War II in the Pacific, listed after three Introductory Conquests in the game's Conquests menu. The Complete manual (pp. 15 to 17) calls them "fully featured Civ-style gameplay experiences", each with its own rules, units and wonder effects ("You should ignore standard Civ III rules"), and says that winning all of them earns "a victory video". Most were designed by BreakAway Games, which made Conquests with Firaxis, and each was built to show off a different way to win.

Quick facts

Source: Civilization III Complete manual, pp. 15-21, and the designers' diaries on the official site, linked below.

The nine Conquests at a glance

Source: Civilization III Complete manual, pp. 18-21, and the design diaries on the official site for each Conquest: Mesopotamia, Rise of Rome, Fall of Rome, Middle Ages, Mesoamerica, Age of Discovery, Sengoku, Napoleonic Europe, WWII in the Pacific.

How the Conquests work

The Conquests are reached from the main menu, not from New Game. The Complete manual (pp. 15 to 16) says the menu lists three Introductory Conquests first, each with a 0 at the start of its name, then the nine full ones; clicking a name shows its victory conditions, map and playable tribes, and a double-click loads it. The manual asks players to read each one's Civilopedia and tech tree first, because the standard rules, unit settings and wonder effects do not apply.

The Introductory Conquests teach the new rules on a small scale. The manual describes them as featuring "new tribes, along with Locked Alliances, Reverse Capture the Flag, new Tech Trees and more" and recommends playing them first. One is "The Three Sisters", which uses Reverse Capture the Flag: you return an artifact to a volcano (p. 33).

The Hall of Fame tracks the campaign. It lists each Conquest with your highest-scoring game and the difficulty you beat it on, a Next button launches the next one you have not won, and "Once you win all of the Conquests you are awarded with a victory video", the manual says (p. 17).

Each Conquest was built to show off a different way to win. Ed Beach wrote in his Middle Ages diary that "One of the key design goals of Conquests was to ensure that the nine Conquests highlighted all of the various game modes", so the Victory Point, Regicide, Elimination and capture-the-flag rules from Victory Conditions all appear in one or another. In his Fall of Rome diary he says the beta testers made sure "wins are possible from all starting positions in Conquests, even at mid-to-high difficulty levels".

GameSpot's Jason Ocampo, reviewing Conquests on Nov 18, 2003, called them "nine mini-Civilization games that aren't so 'mini' at all", and said their victory goals and turn limits "force you to play a much more aggressive game than you might normally play".

Mesopotamia

1:59 Mesopotamia is a race to build the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Complete manual (p. 18) says the map runs "from the mountains of Greece east to the hills of Persia and south to the Nile river", and the game ends when all seven are built, when a side reaches 5,500 Victory Points, or after 160 turns, whichever comes first, with Victory Points for wonders doubled.

Its seven civilizations are Babylon, Egypt, the Hittites, Mycenae, the Medes, Phoenicia and Sumeria, per Charlie Kibler's design diary. The tech tree is new, spread over a Bronze Age, an Iron Age and an Age of Empires (to about 200 BC), and no civilization starts able both to irrigate and to mine; only roads are open to all. Units are stronger than in the normal game (the Warrior is 2/1/1, the Spearman 2/3/1), and two late units, Companion Infantry (5/4/1) and Ancient Cavalry (5/2/2), cost 50 shields each. Kibler wrote that it was meant to debut Conquests' new "Wonder Victory" condition.

Rise of Rome

Rise of Rome is a war of two feuds: Rome against Carthage and Macedon against Persia. Kibler's design diary says those are the four playable civilizations, each starting at permanent war with its rival and with an empty army under its great leader (Hannibal, Alexander, Darius and Caesar Augustus); the Celts, Goths and Scythians in the north and Egypt in the south are not playable. Kibler calls it, in historical order, the first Conquest to start civilizations at war.

0:13 Rome gets the tools to build an empire. The diary lists a Legionary that upgrades twice (with Tactics and The Republic) and can build roads and forts, "super settlers" called Citizens that move faster and cost less population, and cheap Garrison units. Any city with ivory can hire Numidian Mercenaries. The one new Great Wonder, Bacchanalia, costs 500 shields and makes three citizens happy in every city. The diary gives the win as Domination, "being the first to amass at least 20% of the land and 50% of its population".

The editor gained a switch for this Conquest: conquered cities kept dropping to zero culture and losing their borders, so Firaxis added "Retain Culture on Capture" to the Scenario Properties screen, the diary says (see Editor and Modding).

Fall of Rome

1:32 Fall of Rome sets the barbarian peoples against an empire split in two. The Complete manual (p. 18) says Constantine has divided the Roman Empire, the West "beset with barbarians on all borders" and the East facing barbarians and Sassanid Persia, and "if either half of the empire loses eight cities, it will surely collapse".

The Romans start huge. Ed Beach's design diary puts Western Rome at 26 cities and Eastern Rome at 19, in a locked alliance, holding every Victory Point location and earning at least 250 points a turn, enough to near the 35,000-point goal by about turn 100. The Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals and Huns start with no cities, seven Migrants (Settlers at double speed) and 10 to 15 other units; the Franks, Anglo-Saxons, Celts and Sassanids are in between. The eight-city rule applies to every side, barbarians included.

The barbarians get their own branch of the tech tree, closed to Rome and the Sassanids by a very costly entry technology, Barbarism. The diary lists its units: the Raider (2/1/1), Marauder (4/2/1), Pillager (6/2/1) and Warlord (8/2/1), the last two able to enslave, and the Scourge of God, which creates a Warlord every five turns.

Middle Ages

7:17 Middle Ages runs from 843 to 1453 and is played under Mass Regicide. The Complete manual (p. 19) lets you play one of four Christian kingdoms, one of four Viking powers, one of four Arab powers, or the Byzantines. Ed Beach's design diary counts 18 civilizations on the map, 13 of them playable; playable ones start with three king units and AI ones with two, and a civilization collapses when its last king is captured.

Holy relics are the shortcut to victory. Each of the four Western Christian nations starts with a relic (the Franks have the Crown of Thorns), and returning one to Jerusalem is worth 10,000 Victory Points, a third of the 30,000 needed to win; enemies can capture relics and score them too. The tech tree has 37 technologies over three eras, with units such as the Longship, Crusader, Assassin and Inquisitor and wonders from the Domesday Book to the Magna Carta, and the Black Death arrives late in the game, the diary says.

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica lets you play the Aztecs, the Maya or the Inca, with the Olmecs, Toltecs and Moche as computer opponents, per Robert Waters' design diary. The map covers Mexico, the Yucatan, Central America and equatorial South America; forests east of the Andes are impassable. The diary calls it a 175-turn Conquest.

3:13 Its signature rule is sacrifice for culture. Each civilization's unique unit can enslave the enemies it defeats, and with the Ritual Sacrifice technology captives can be sacrificed in a city to raise that city's and the civilization's culture; Sacrificial Altars double the gain, and a late government, Blood Cult, turns the economy to war. GameSpot's review adds that cities can be built on mountaintops and jungle squares count as grassland, among resources such as exotic birds, tobacco and llamas.

Age of Discovery

11:43 Age of Discovery opens in 1490, just before Columbus, and is about bringing New World treasure home. The Complete manual (p. 20) offers England, France, Spain, Portugal or "the real underdog ... the Dutch", who set up plantations and mines in the New World and Africa and carry the treasure back past privateers for Victory Points and gold. Ed Beach's design diary explains that buildings needing New World resources create treasure units every few turns, and that English Sea Dogs and Privateers can capture laden ships.

The harder choice is to play the Aztecs, Incas or Maya, who win by holding out long enough for a one-city cultural victory, the manual says. Beach's diary lists the history built in: Dias' Voyage starts Portugal in a golden age, the Navigation School adds two moves to ships, Luther's Theses and a Protestant government face Catholic Jesuit Colleges, and Magellan's Voyage creates a Frigate every five turns. He calls it the trickiest Conquest to tune: the first one started and the last finished, after about eight months.

Sengoku

4:45 Sengoku, subtitled "Sword of the Shogun", is a war among Japan's feudal clans to become Shogun. The Complete manual (p. 20) sets it between the Onin War of 1467 and the Tokugawa shogunate of 1603, with gunpowder arriving through the Portuguese in 1543. Firaxis's Michael Fetterman wrote in his design diary that the goal is to "Unite feudal Japan under your rule" in "an arms race to gunpowder", and that it began from the Japanese unit art made for Play the World.

Its kings fight. Each clan's Daimyo is a king unit as in Regicide, but with an attack value and upgrades, so "The once-vulnerable King unit can now potentially become a player's greatest warrior", Fetterman says. Strategic resources sit on mountains guarded by Ronin barbarians, mercenary Ronin can be hired like Privateers, and Ninja can pick a single target out of a stack with a new "Stealth Attack". GameSpot's review notes that Sengoku, unlike most of the nine, has you build an empire from scratch.

Napoleonic Europe

Napoleonic Europe runs from January 1800 to the end of 1815 in two-month turns, 96 in all, per Charlie Kibler's design diary. The playable nations are France, Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Spain and the Ottoman Empire; Britain, with Portugal, the Netherlands and Naples in a locked alliance, starts at permanent war with France and its ally Denmark, and the Complete manual (p. 21) leaves the rest "unaligned".

France starts ahead, with Nationalism already known (for its Voltigeur infantry) and leaders including Napoleon and Davout, so diplomacy decides the rest. The diary sets victory at 60,000 Victory Points, from 24 Victory Point locations in Europe's cities and from destroying enemy units, or a Domination win of 40% of land and population; otherwise the side with the most points at the end of 1815 wins. In multiplayer the minor allies are folded into France and Britain, because "a multi-player game can't feature more than eight nations". GameSpot's review notes the map starts fully revealed.

World War II in the Pacific

10:13 World War II in the Pacific starts in December 1941, with Japan's carriers within range of the American fleet at Honolulu, as the Complete manual (p. 21) describes. Charlie Kibler's design diary gives it 50 one-month turns, ending after January 1945, with Japan at war against a locked alliance of the United States, the Commonwealth, China and the Netherlands.

Japan can win, but only fast. Kibler built in a Victory Point win for a Japan that quickly takes and holds Victory Point locations and destroys enough Allied units, "probably in 1943"; the Allies must be patient and then counterattack. There are no Settlers, so every gain is by force, and the units are period ones: the Zero and the F4F Wildcat, Kamikazes that cost a population point, a Heavy Cruiser, and the Atomic Bomb with the Fission technology.

Make your own

The Conquests were built in the same editor that ships with the game, and the menu's Civ-Content section also holds variants and "Fan-Created Content", the manual says (p. 16). For the tools and the rules files, see Editor and Modding; for the 31 standard civilizations, see Civilizations.

Frequently asked questions

How many scenarios are in Civ 3 Conquests? Civilization 3: Conquests has nine full scenarios, called Conquests (Mesopotamia, Rise of Rome, Fall of Rome, Middle Ages, Mesoamerica, Age of Discovery, Sengoku, Napoleonic Europe and World War II in the Pacific), plus three Introductory Conquests, per the Complete manual (pp. 15-21).

What do you get for beating all the Conquests in Civ 3? Winning all nine Civilization 3 Conquests unlocks a victory video, and the Hall of Fame records the best game and difficulty for each (Complete manual, p. 17).

How do you win the Mesopotamia scenario in Civ 3? Civilization 3's Mesopotamia Conquest ends when all seven ancient wonders are built, when a side reaches 5,500 Victory Points, or after 160 turns, and wonders score double Victory Points, so building wonders is the main road to winning (Complete manual, p. 18).

Which civilizations can you play in Rise of Rome? In Civilization 3's Rise of Rome Conquest you can play Rome, Carthage, Macedon or Persia, each starting at permanent war with its rival, per Charlie Kibler's design diary.

How long is the Napoleonic Europe scenario? Civilization 3's Napoleonic Europe Conquest runs 96 two-month turns, from January 1800 to the end of 1815, and is won with 60,000 Victory Points or by controlling 40% of land and population (design diary).

Can you play the Conquests in multiplayer? Yes: a Civilization 3 Conquest can be loaded as a multiplayer game (Complete manual, Chapter 14), and the Napoleonic Europe diary says its multiplayer version merges the minor allies into France and Britain because a multiplayer game holds at most eight nations (design diary). See Multiplayer for how online play works today.

Who made the Civ 3 Conquests scenarios? Most of Civilization 3's Conquests were designed at BreakAway Games by Charlie Kibler, Ed Beach and Robert Waters, and Sengoku by Michael Fetterman of Firaxis, according to the design diaries on the official site.

Sources

• Sid Meier's Civilization III Complete manual, 2K Games and Firaxis Games, May 27, 2005
• Design Diary - Mesopotamia (archived), Charlie Kibler and Michael Fetterman, BreakAway Games and Firaxis Games, 2003
• Design Diary - Rise of Rome (archived), Charlie Kibler and Michael Fetterman, BreakAway Games and Firaxis Games, 2003
• Design Diary - The Fall of Rome (archived), Ed Beach and Michael Fetterman, BreakAway Games and Firaxis Games, 2003
• Design Diary - Middle Ages (archived), Ed Beach and Michael Fetterman, BreakAway Games and Firaxis Games, 2003
• Design Diary - MesoAmerica (archived), Robert Waters and Michael Fetterman, BreakAway Games and Firaxis Games, 2003
• Design Diary - The Age of Discovery (archived), Ed Beach and Michael Fetterman, BreakAway Games and Firaxis Games, 2003
• The Making of 'Sengoku - Sword of the Shogun' (archived), Michael Fetterman, Firaxis Games, 2003
• Design Diary - Napoleonic Europe (archived), Charlie Kibler and Michael Fetterman, BreakAway Games and Firaxis Games, 2003
• Design Diary - World War II in the Pacific (archived), Charlie Kibler and Michael Fetterman, BreakAway Games and Firaxis Games, 2003
• Civilization III: Conquests Review, Jason Ocampo, GameSpot, Nov 18, 2003
• Civ 3's "Conquest" scenarios ranked completely (un)objectively, Suede, Nov 30, 2021 (video)