Playability: 3.5. This scen can be played in totally different ways. The scen starts with an attack on your Town Center and your ally's Town Center. Your ally P2 instantly goes on the counterattack and his forces are rolling South toward downtown. You have about 5 seconds to decide if he goes in alone or if you go with him. If you both go, you may be almost evenly matched with the enemy. If you let him go in alone, he will be wiped out, but you will be left on your newly found island to build up for a massive revenge later. I played it both ways. I think going in with P2 I was wiped out 5 out of 6 times but was victorious once. Same thing with staying safe on the island for a build up, 5 out of 6 times I was blooming along just fine with the enemy remaining static on the home island, but each time any one of his units caught sight of me, he instantly rolled everything he had North and wiped me out. The game plays out differently each time because P2 has different attacks and differing success each time. Sometimes P2 takes out the towers by himself, sometimes with my help. Sometimes he takes out all the galleys. Sometimes his troops spend their time poking a storage pit with their spears while catapults are killing them. Hints at the end of this review.
Balance: 3.5. I was wiped out a lot but won using different strategies. However after a few tries it was apparent that some tactics guaranteed a win.
Creativity: 3. The selection of initial Fixed Forces, with the choice forced upon P1 to go in with P2 with less than optimal odds against a successful attack on a fortified position, or to let P2 go in against overwhelming odds, is quite creative.
Map: 2. Pretty basic, extra added resources didn't look very realistic, but serviceable for the purpose of the scen.
History etc: 1. Meager and useless if not deceiving. Fails to inform you that if your scout dies, you lose. Also if P2 scout dies, he loses. The History does not explain why you and P2 have built your TCs next to the enemy towers and then left them totally undefended. This could be easily explained by a story that P3 was your ally and agreed to protect your village with his towers and troops, so that you could send your troops North to colonize the neighboring island and tribute him later. And of course as soon as your TCs were undefended and his towers were built, he went enemy on you, one of the oldest tricks in the human trick book.
Recommended for download, both for trying the initial joint assault and also for finessing the build up without being seen and wiped out early in the game.
Spoiler: Every attack by P2 results in different damages. You can tell by the Achievements screen if he has taken down both towers, because you will see he has 2 Razings. As I noted in my previous comment, P3 cannot create any new units because he is over pop cap and has no houses and no villies. But here's the catch: If you and P2 destroy enough of his units and he goes under pop cap, he will create a villie who will immediately build 2 houses and then P3 is off to the races! Another factor is that he usually won't attack unless he sees you first. You can tell by the Achievements screen if he has any villies. I made sure that the first thing he saw in my assault was a squadron of triremes off his coast blowing his TC to pieces. That drew all his troops to the shore, and of course then I rolled my army across the shallows for the ground assault.