At a recent Atari press event, we had a chance to take a look at a recent version of Conquests, the upcoming expansion pack for Civilization III. Conquests will include a huge number of new features, both major and minor. You'll be able to play games on maps of completely random size with far more-specific victory conditions (including victory by successfully building a certain number of wonders of the world first) and more levels of difficulty (the new hardest difficulty level will simply be called "Sid").

　　Conquests will include seven new civilizations, including the Sumerians, the Hittites, and the Dutch, as well as all the new civilizations and features included in the previous expansion pack (Conquests will come complete with all the content featured in the Play the World expansion). The new expansion will also add new civilization traits, including agricultural, which gives bonuses to a civilization's food production, and seafaring, which gives bonuses to sea travel, in addition to the standard traits of industrious, scientific, and so on.

　　Conquests will feature a huge list of new technologies to research and new units to use, though many of these will be unique to the single-player campaign, which will consist of six lengthy missions based on a real-world historical period, such as the Age of Sail, in which you'll play either as an explorer from an Old World country intent on conquering the New World, or as an indigenous nation who must repel the European invaders. The conquests feature a huge variety of new technological advances and bonuses that are unique to each one, such as sacrificial altars that benefit the Native Americans in the Age of Sail.

　　However, the expansion will also feature numerous tweaks and updates to better balance the core game, such as the corragh, a primitive boat that any civilization with the alphabet technology and a coastal city can build to immediately begin exploring the high seas. The expansion will also introduce the feudalism government type, which will help benefit nations with smaller holdings. Apparently, most Civ III players generally stuck with either the republic or the democracy government type, which is why this and other government types, such as fascism, will be introduced in Conquests.

　　Conquests will even attempt to shore up Civilization III's multiplayer play with shorter battles and more-balanced gameplay features, such as improved diplomacy--your civilization must have researched the printing press to communicate with other civilizations, and must have researched navigation to trade world maps. The expansion pack is scheduled for release later this year.