Anyone else pick this up? I’m having a great time with the Sengoku: Sword of the Shogun scenario. While it starts out somewhat similar to normal Civ (start off with just a settler, worker, a warrior, and your special Daimyo unit but no cities) it’s rapidly morphed into something different. The unit mix feels very different – I’m not sure how much of it is just good use of renaming along with good art, but it feels very different to me. In addition to Samurai, Samurai Archers, Samuri Spearmen, and Samurai Calvary, the Warrior Monks and Ninjas also change things quite a bit – most of the Tech tree is also totally different. The addition of the Daimyo unit also makes things interesting. The Daimyo unit represents “you”. With upgrading it’s always better than the best non-Daimyo unit, but if it ever loses … game over. I was using it quite a bit when I first started playing, but after losing a couple games early due to losing the Daimyo against hordes of barbarians, I’ve gotten cautious.
The game seems to start out relatively peacefully, but with some 18 factions all in close quarters, it’s turned into a huge swirling fight with factions making and breaking peace constantly. The monks (which treat all terrain as roads and have decent defense, but very poor attacks) are constantly getting behind the lines and burning and looting (destroying roads to critical resources and grabbing unwary peasant workers). My cities are constantly rioting due to loss luxuries and war weariness. Workers can’t repair roads without armed escorts. “Sengoku Jidai - The Age of the Country at War” indeed – there is no peace for my poor wartorn land.
The only complaint I have is that the Foreign Relations interface is very poorly set up for handling more than 8 factions. It’s very difficult to tell which factions are at peace and which are at war, without some major clicking.
Overall a big thumbs up from me. And that’s just one of eight scenarios – improvements to the original game, while minor, look good as well.
I haven’t gotten to that one yet, but I’ve done six out of the nine scenarios and they all present unique rules and units and tech trees. It very much breathes new life into the game. The standard game has quite a few new things, too.
My favorite part though is that Conquests includes all of the features and content that was included in Play the World, except now it all works. Which is good, becuase I didn’t buy Play the World because it didn’t work.
Matthew, which ones have you tried? Any favorites. I was thinking of trying the Napoleanic scenario next. But I’m a bit worried it won’t work very well. I don’t see how England can prevent an invasion from France as there is no concept of “blockading” in Civ and it looks to me like France should be able to cross the channel and deposit troops in England all in one turn before the Royal Navy can respond.
I’ve done six, and I’m playing them in order. The most recent one I played, Age of Discovery, was a bit poorly paced, as in the end you’re doing nothing more than sending galleons back and forth to the Americas, picking up goods to be taken back to your capital. As long as you had a couple of man o’ wars escorting each galleon, there was nothing much else to do except “move as stack”. The scenario sort of petered out. Though it was funny how the map ended up looking a lot like the 13 Colonies and the Guyanas. Except this time, it was all mostly French instead of mostly British.
The five before are all really well made. The Fall of Rome is a long, long scenario though. Or was it the Rise of Rome? One of them was something like 12 hours long. The point is, one scenario is two Max Payne 2 playthrough’s worth of game.
I’ve only played the Napoleon scenario so far, but it was spiffy dandy. I played the French, and I had trouble invading Britain due to the constant threat of war from the continental powers. Having my principle land forces tied up on an island (England), with at least a 2 turn delay as they cross the channel, was quite a deterent to a British invasion. Stupid faithless Prussians and Spanish.
By the way, I find the changes to the main campaign to be pretty substantial, actually. And for the better. The new traits (seafaring and agricultural) both have a pretty strong effect on gameplay, and I’ve gotten tons of mileage out of 2 of the early new units: the curragh and medieval infantry. Plus, the two unit-producing Wonders of the World are really, really nice.
Well that’s good to hear. Maybe I’ll try that one next.
I wonder if they got the idea of unit-producing Wonders from Rise of Nations (or did it show up in an RTS before that?). Be interesting if it did come from RoN – Brian Reynolds adds to the Civ3 design from his post-Firaxis job.
Just finished up the last scenario, so if anyone is looking for strategy hints, ask away. Loads of fun, by the way, if anyone is left with a bad taste in their mouth by Play the World, this should wash it out.
Hey Matthew, so what’s your opinion on the various scenarios? What are your favorites? So far I’ve finished the Sengoku scenario (my winning game took 35 hours!) and the Napolean scenario and am about 2/3rds of the way through Rise of Rome (which I expect I’m about to lose on points). I’ve really liked all three a lot.
I’ve been really happy with how the scenarios all are very different from each other and also feel different from the original game. I liked the way the Napolean scenario had different calvary and infantry units for all the different nations. Rise of Rome’s upgradable road-building Legions were also very cool. However, of the three, I think I liked Sengoku the best – it was the most involved (although Rise of Rome is pretty big as well) and I also just enjoyed the subject matter.
How long does the WW2 scenario take? I heard it’s quite long.
The WW2 scenario isn’t much longer than any of the other long ones, though if Sengoku took you 35, it might be long. Mesoamerica was by far the shortest, I finished that in under three.
I can’t really pick a favorite though. They’re all good, even Age of Discovery.
Not to knock Civ3 because i do think its a great game (haven’t played this expansion though), but reading your description I’d swear you were playing Shogun Total War.
I’ve enjoyed both Shogun Total War and Medieval Total War. Your comment isn’t altogether off. You can think of Civ3 Conquests as providing a gussied up version of the Total War strategic engine without the tactical combat. It all works suprisingly well.
So just out of curiousity, anyone track how long a complete campaign of Total War takes? I’m assuming it has to take much longer than my 35 hour long Shogun Civ3 Conquest, but maybe I’m wrong. I know I put in a huge number of hours into Medieval Total War and got to the point where I thought I pretty clearly was going to win before stopping. But I’ve never come close to finishing a Shogun Total War game (which I suspect should be a bit shorter than Medieval Total War).
