When I reviewed Civilization III last year, I thought the game was a must-have and that the world should play it. The new Play the World expansion set should also be played by the world - just not now.
One of the most commonly requested features of games is multiplayer mode and Civilization III did not have it. That was fine by me, because it is such a long game and few people can spare a week from their lives to play a game with me.
The developers of the expansion pack felt the same way, so they introduced many new ways to play the game. One of their design goals was to allow people to be able to finish a game off in a lunch hour.
These quick play games can be brutal: in Elimination mode, once you lose a city - any city - you are out of the game; Regicide mode means that once you lose your king, your civilisation comes to an end; in Victory Point mode the highest victory points determine the winner.
The new multiplayer games are by LAN, Internet, play-by-e-mail and hotseat mode, in which two players take turns at the same personal computer.
I have played by LAN with a friend in the normal 'conquer the world' fashion. It was a lot of fun and, after about three hours of play, we finally managed to build a road that connected our two empires. Another three hours after that we were 'visiting' our neighbours with a parade of catapults.
Our LAN games have completely turned me off from play-by-e-mail and hotseat. Frankly, I am not convinced that a play-by-e-mail game could be finished before Civilization IV is released and hotseating sounds like way too much exercise.