Play the World

Play the World is Civilization 3's first expansion, shipped in North America by Infogrames on Oct 29, 2002 at about $29.95, and its headline was multiplayer, which the 2001 game lacked: Internet, LAN, Hot Seat and play-by-email games in turn-based, simultaneous and new "turnless" modes. It also added eight civilizations (the Arabs, Carthaginians, Celts, Koreans, Mongols, Ottomans, Spanish and Vikings), the Elimination, Regicide and Capture the Flag game types, Workers' airfields, outposts and radar towers, stacked movement and auto-bombard, new units and the Internet wonder. Its online play launched badly, and GameSpot scored it 5. Today it is part of Civilization 3 Complete, and Conquests includes everything it added.

Quick facts

Multiplayer

Play the World gave Civ 3 its multiplayer. Its manual lists five game types: Turn-Based, Simultaneous Movement, Turnless, Hot Seat and Play by E-Mail, with Internet games found through GameSpy and LAN and direct TCP/IP games as well, and up to eight players, human or computer, in a game. Voice chat let players talk while they played. The base game had none of this: Jeff Briggs told PC Gamer that multiplayer "wasn't ready for launch" in 2001. See Multiplayer.

Turnless mode was the new idea. The manual explains that food, shields, research and production are counted in timed upkeep phases instead of turns, and Firaxis's Jeff Morris wrote that each unit and city keeps its own clock so that no one player can hold up the game (civ3.com). Infogrames' release called it a first "in a Civilization game".

2:20 New game types made short matches possible. Firaxis wanted multiplayer "meta-games" that end quickly, Morris wrote, so Play the World added Elimination (lose any city and you are out), Regicide (lose your king and you are out), Mass Regicide, Victory Point Locations (250 points a turn for each one held) and Capture the Princess, which Infogrames called Capture the Flag (10,000 points for each princess brought home), per the manual. See Victory Conditions.

New civilizations

Play the World adds eight civilizations, each with a leader, two traits and a unique unit. Firaxis chose the Spanish first and picked the Conquistador over the tercio because it replaces the Explorer, calling it "the ultimate pillage unit" (civ3.com). Conquests later changed several of these civilizations' traits; both sets are below. See Civilizations and Unique Units.

Source: Play the World manual, pp. 18-21 (which names the Vikings "Scandanavians" and their first trait "Military"); Civilization III Complete manual, pp. 28-29.

The unique units follow the base game's pattern: a stronger, cheaper or faster version of a standard unit. The official site gives the Berserk an attack of 6 against the Longbowman's 4 (civ3.com), and the Conquistador an attack of 3 where the Explorer has none (civ3.com); the manual adds that the Conquistador treats all terrain as road and the Keshik ignores the cost of crossing mountains. GameSpot's Tom Chick called the Celts "a powerful early-game force" in his review.

New units and improvements

Two new units are open to every civilization: Medieval Infantry (Feudalism, 40 shields, attack 4, defense 2) and the Guerilla (Replaceable Parts, 90 shields, attack and defense 6), and the Swordsman now upgrades to Medieval Infantry, per the manual. GameSpot welcomed them as an upgrade path for Swordsmen, useful "if you're missing the strategic resources" (review). See Units.

Workers got three new jobs, each of which uses up the Worker, per the manual. An Outpost (after Masonry) sees two squares on flat land and four from a mountain; an Airfield (after Flight) is a base for air units; and a Radar Tower (after Radio) gives your units within two squares an attack and defense bonus. New city improvements are Civil Defense, Commercial Docks and the Stock Exchange, and Wall Street now needs five Stock Exchanges instead of five Banks.

The Internet is the expansion's Great Wonder. It acts as a Research Lab in every friendly city on its continent and starts a golden age for its builder if that civilization has not had one, per the manual. See Wonders and Golden Ages.

Interface and rules changes

4:49 Play the World made moving armies less tedious. Units in a stack can be moved together (at the speed of the slowest), a city can be given a rally point to which every new unit walks, and auto-bombard and auto-bombing orders run on their own, per the manual. Many keyboard-only commands got buttons.

New setup rules came with it. The manual lists Culturally Linked Start Locations, Respawn AI Players, Preserve Random Seed, Accelerated Production (double food, shields and commerce) and Allow Cultural Conversions, on by default, under which culturally weak cities next to strong ones may defect. Barbarians gained "No Barbarians" and "Sedentary" settings.

The editor and scenarios

Play the World's scenario editor, Civ3XEdit, came with "two new terrain sets" (Infogrames), and the expansion added feudal Japan and World War 2 unit packs (GameSpot). Its scenario folder was "brimming with maps, artwork, scenarios, and fan-made modifications", GameSpot wrote, but it was unorganized and "almost completely undocumented", and the fan mod Double Your Pleasure shipped without its graphics (review). See Editor and Modding.

A rocky launch

The expansion's online play was broken at launch. Tom Chick of GameSpot scored it 5 on Nov 9, 2002 and wrote that "the multiplayer is also an unmitigated disaster": lag even in turn-based games and frequent crashes with more than two players, while LAN and Hot Seat worked better and Turnless clashed with Civ's pacing (review). Its Metascore is 61, against 90 for the base game.

Patches followed. Version 1.27f, dated Mar 3, 2003, fixed "online matchmaking, unit movement delays, player exploits, and out of sync errors". When Conquests came out a year later, GameSpot's Jason Ocampo recalled Play the World's multiplayer as "broken, bug-ridden, and virtually unplayable out of the box" and called it "a forgettable afterthought" (review, Nov 18, 2003). See Patches and Updates.

Play the World today

0:00 Play the World is no longer sold alone. It is part of Civilization 3 Complete on Steam and GOG, and Conquests includes "all the features and content" of Play the World (GameSpot), so most players meet its additions inside Conquests. Its online games ran through GameSpy until 2014; Steam took over in Mar 2015. See Complete Edition and Where to Buy.

Frequently asked questions

What does Play the World add to Civ 3? Civilization 3's Play the World adds multiplayer (Internet, LAN, Hot Seat and email, with a new turnless mode), eight civilizations, Regicide, Elimination and Capture the Flag games, airfields, outposts and radar towers, stacked movement and the Internet wonder, per Infogrames.

What civilizations does Play the World add? Civilization 3's Play the World adds eight: the Arabs, Carthaginians, Celts, Koreans, Mongols, Ottomans, Spanish and Vikings, per its manual.

When did Play the World come out? Civilization 3: Play the World shipped in North America on Oct 29, 2002 at about $29.95.

Do I need Play the World if I have Conquests? No: Civilization 3's Conquests includes "all the features and content" of Play the World, per GameSpot, and Civilization 3 Complete has both.

Was Play the World any good? Critics were cool on Civilization 3's Play the World: it holds a Metascore of 61, and GameSpot scored it 5, calling its online multiplayer "an unmitigated disaster" in Nov 2002.

What does PTW mean in Civ 3? PTW is short for Play the World, Civilization 3's first expansion from 2002.

Sources

• Infogrames Ships Major Expansion Pack for Sid Meier's Civilization III, Infogrames, Oct 29, 2002
• Civilization III: Play the World announced, GameSpot (Trey Walker), May 8, 2002
• Civilization III: Play the World manual, Infogrames and Firaxis Games, 2002 (Internet Archive)
• Civilization III Complete manual, Atari and Firaxis Games, 2005 (on Steam)
• Civilization Multiplayer: A Fresh Approach, Firaxis Games (Jeff Morris, civ3.com, archived), 2002
• Selecting New Civs for Play the World, Firaxis Games (Jeff Morris, civ3.com, archived), 2002
• Play the World profile: Vikings, civ3.com (archived), read Oct 22, 2026
• Play the World profile: Spanish, civ3.com (archived), read Oct 22, 2026
• Support, civ3.com (archived), read Oct 22, 2026
• Civilization III: Play the World Review, GameSpot (Tom Chick), Nov 9, 2002
• Civilization III: Conquests Review, GameSpot (Jason Ocampo), Nov 18, 2003
• Civilization: Conquests enters golden age, GameSpot (Tor Thorsen), Oct 24, 2003
• Civilization III: Play the World, Metacritic, read Oct 22, 2026
• The complete history of Civilization, page 3, PC Gamer (Fraser Brown), Apr 6, 2020
• Civilization III Multiplayer Update Now Available, 2K on Steam, Mar 16, 2015
• Sid Meier's Civilization III Complete, Steam, read Oct 22, 2026
• Sid Meier's Civilization III Complete, GOG, read Oct 22, 2026
• How To Start Playing Civ 3 Online Multiplayer With The Civplayers Civ3 League, Suede, Nov 30, 2018 (video)
• The overlooked genius of Civilization 3, Suede, Oct 30, 2024 (video)