We were fortunate enough to attend a Firaxis press event at which the company's president, Jeff Briggs, and the company's chief creative director, veteran game designer Sid Meier, announced a new partnership with Atari Games (the publisher formerly known as Infogrames) to develop and publish new PC games. According to Meier, the new agreement gives Firaxis the right to revisit such classic properties as Colonization, Covert Action, Silent Service, F-15 Strike Eagle, and F-19 Stealth Fighter. Briggs and Meier went on to formally announce the next product in the Civilization series: Civilization III: Conquests, a new expansion pack for the award-winning 2001 strategy game.

　　Civilization III: Conquests will feature a brand-new single-player campaign that will model eight different famous historical campaigns, including the battle for Mesopotamia, the battles between the Mayans and Incans, the struggle for control of feudal Japan, and even World War II. The expansion pack will also feature a whopping eight new civilizations, as well as a great many other additions, including new military units, new diplomacy options, new government types, new wonders of the world, new victory conditions, new resources, and new luxuries. The expansion will be released later this year.