I wonder if there is any special reason why the executable is missing for Play the World. The GOG shortcut automatically starts up Conquests.

Is it so? the main screen says Civ III Complete, I assumed it was the whole package.

EDIT: I checked on wikipedia and the eight new civilizations appearing in Play the World are present in the game, so I'd say everything is included.

I checked with the manual coming with the retail CD version.
In the chapter Welcome to Civilization III: Conquests, it says "Civilization III: Conquests includes the Civilization III: Play the World multiplayer expansion pack."

Then is GOG version missing Play the World intro?

The reason why it matters to me is that Conquests introduced two new civilization traits. The one that the Egyptians get is something like an extra food in every space that produces one. In most games I played in Conquests it ended up being broken. When I want to play Civ 3, it is always Play the World.

I have Civ3 Complete on cds and the PtW exe is included when installed. For some reason this is excluded both on the Steam version and on the Gamersgate version. I bought this on GOG yesterday hoping it would be "complete".

It would be nice if GOG decided to include this with a patch. The DIY is to install the last PtW patch and use a XXcd executable.

On my main screen there is the option to Play the World. Not sure why it does not show up on yours

By "main screen" do you mean your monitor or in-game menu? There`s no option to select which version of Civ3 you want to play from the main menu of Conquests and this also applies to the cd version.

If you did install Civ3 and both expansions separately from cds you probably would have three separate shortcuts on your desktop, or "main screen". The Complete version, both digital and cd version, just puts one shortcut on the desktop that launches Conquests. To play either vanilla or PtW you have to navigate to the game folder and launch them from the appropriate executable. As these executables are missing in the GOG version only Conquests is playable.

The Conquests expansion is known for breaking some of the AI's movement behaviors, and making vast changes that go against the intention of Civ3's game design. You can look for in-depth articles by the expert player Sulla detailing how the new additions in C3C are not always for the better. This means for many players, there are very real reasons to play vanilla or PTW versions of Civ3 instead of C3C.

@gog.com can do a lot of good by adding the vanilla and PTW executables to Civ3.

I have the CD for VIC3 Complete. From the readme.txt file:
"GAME SELECTION:
Civilization III, Play the World, and Conquests are all installed when you
install Civilization III: Complete Edition, however, clicking "Civilization III:
Complete Edition" from the Start Menu will launch the Conquests executable. In general, we
recommend launching the product using this method. However, if you wish to play
Civilization III Classic or Play the World, you must navigate to those folders directly and
launch the appropriate executable."

From the above

"cuccucNew User
Rep: 1
Registered: Dec 2011From China, People's Republic of
Posted February 27, 2017
8
The Conquests expansion is known for breaking some of the AI's movement behaviors, "

You can actually change AI movement behavior back to pre-conquests by changing AI patrol to "1" in conquests.ini