[Ancient Egyptian MIDI music]
[typing]
When I think about games that have
sucked the most man hours from humanity over the years,
Civilization is darned near the top of my list.
There are very few games that can reliably
turn the early morning into late night with you barely noticing,
and it all started with Sid Meier's Civilization,
released by Microprose Software in 1991
for MS-DOS PCs.
"Build An Empire To Stand The Test Of Time,"
and bury giant Egyptian sarcophaguses underneath twentieth-century cities simultaneously.
While "Civ," as it's often called,
went on to appear on most every popular system of its day
and spawned its own little gaming civilization of sequels,
its origins are pretty humble.
Back in the 1980s, game designer Sid Meier
wasn't exactly a household name yet.
Sure, he'd made some pretty sweet military combat simulations
and left his mark on the industry with his game Pirates!
But it wasn't until Railroad Tycoon in 1990 that Meier
and fellow designer Bruce Shelley cemented themselves
as game design royalty.
A top-down sandbox game taking some cues from SimCity
and combining economics with asset management,
Railroad Tycoon was fantastic and really set the stage
for something more ambitious.
That something turned out to be Civilization,
a game partially inspired by the Avalon Hill board game of the same name,
along with even more elements drawn from the 1987 computer game
Empire: War Game of the Century.
Instead of ruling an industry, the goal in Civ was to rule the world,
starting in the Stone Age and working your way through the rest of time.
It not only helped establish strategy and god games even more than Railroad Tycoon,
but it went on to sell millions, spawn a huge franchise,
win tons of awards and ensure the name Sid Meier
was synonymous with quality gaming.
Inside the box, you get the game on two high-density 5¼-inch floppy disks,
technical supplements and addendums specific to the system you have,
and a nice thick instruction manual
covering everything you need to know about the gameplay,
historical context for the real-life stuff found in-game,
and a fold-out technology tree
showing all the sweet crap you'll get to research.
Once you start the game, you're given a main menu
consisting of options, letting you start a new game,
load a saved game, view the high scores,
play on an approximation of Earth,
and customize your own planet.
Though there are a variety of customization options,
you'll play on an Earth-like planet no matter what you choose,
though the layout will be randomized each time you play.
When you're done playing God,
Civ begins at the beginning–
the very beginning–
not long after the planet came into existence
and the continents began forming.
It then proceeds to unnecessarily tell you the story of how life formed.
How things evolved and what the first vestiges of civilization were.
I say "unnecessarily" because it really has no bearing on the game itself,
but it's still nice to look at, and even a bit educational.
Although it's not exactly Carl Sagan.
Plus it's a chance to enjoy some of the memorable soundtrack by Jeff Briggs.
[MIDI music plays]
After approximately three to five billion years have passed,
it's 4,000 B.C., and it's time to choose your difficulty level.
This not only changes requirements for advancement and AI complexity,
but also when the game ends for scoring purposes.
Next, to decide how many computer-controlled civilizations
you want crowding up your world and fighting for resources,
then choose the historical tribe and leader you'll start as.
Personally, I'd choose someone with an awesome beard
and proceed to give them an equally awesome name
worthy of such an impressive facial manscape.
Your starting tribe also determines what technology you'll have knowledge of,
so there is some strategy here
beyond who would make the best testosterone-infused lumberjack.
You're then provided with some insight into what each part of the screen does,
which is incredibly useful for new players.
In fact, despite how complex the game is,
Civ is surprisingly noob-friendly
with its frequent hints and tips,
as well as things like the Civlopedia
and easy-to-understand tech tree.
But basically it's a top-down, turn-based 4X strategy game
that plays a bit more like a board game than a computer game.
Although the 4X term came after this game had been around a couple of years,
it mantra of "explore, expand, exploit and exterminate"
most certainly applies here.
While the game is an open sandbox that lets you do what you want,
most of what you do comes down to exploring the map,
expanding your territory,
exploiting resources
and exterminating rivals.
You start with a single settler unit,
and using either the keyboard or the mouse,
you'll need to find a suitable spot to found your capital city.
Note that every time you use up the allotted moves for your units,
you need to end the turn and allow some time to pass
before you can move again.
Go ahead and start your first city, name it whatever you want,
watch your settlers move in and do their thing,
then choose the next course of action.
There are any number of possible things to look at here in the city management screen,
but since each city can only do one thing at a time,
and it uses up valuable turns and resources to produce units,
it's pretty important that you choose wisely.
You have advisors that'll give you an idea of what needs to be done,
but it's totally up to you as to whether or not you want to listen to them.
Near the beginning, it's pretty straightforward, though.
Scout the area, make sure your cities are protected.
There you go.
Eventually you'll run across native settlements,
barbarians or other civilizations.
Settlements are often helpful
and can provide things like extra units and resources,
though, sometimes, they'll unleash a horde of barbarians instead.
Barbarians are just trouble
and will cause no small amount of aggravation until you exterminate them.
And other civilizations...
well that's, uh, that's up to you to handle as you please.
They can be a bit testy.
Along the way, you'll have your civilization's smart people doing things,
researching everything from the wheel to engineering
to the freakin' Manhattan Project.
And managing your cities also becomes quite vital to your game,
since they'll need roads, mines, walls,
markets, entertainment,
and who knows what else to make sure the people stay fed,
wealthy and not in the mood to start an uprising.
You'll also have a chance to apply taxes on luxuries,
as well as upending your existing government with a revolution
in order to bring something like monarchy, democracy or communism into play.
And what would any worthwhile civilization be without some wonders,
which not only look wondrously cool,
but bring in extra prestige and wealth for your cities,
since there can be only one of each type.
For a while, this constant march forward in time,
researching stuff like philosophy and being ancient hippies,
is all well and good.
You even get to choose upgrades for your own personal palace
when your people decide you're awesome enough.
But eventually push will come to shove
and someone will want to crap on your parade,
usually in the form of arrows to the face
and burning down your precious hippy empire.
The combat side of things is pretty straightforward.
Research upgrades, make units in your cities,
and send them on their merry, pillaging way.
Units can attack adjacent units,
and generally whoever has the better overall stats wins.
The only two ways to win the overall game, though,
are to stay alive until the colonization of space begins
or wipe out all other civilizations completely.
Depending on which goal you have in mind,
you will either want to beat them into submission with your military
or use diplomats and diplomacy to make peace
and maybe send in spies to steal their technology in the meantime.
Or if you don't really give a crap and just wanna play and see what happens,
then go right ahead.
That's the beauty of Civilization.
Although there is a quote-unquote "goal" or ending,
the game doesn't end unless you are totally annihilated
or you put a stop to the game yourself.
Since everything hinges on looking forward
to that one next move or set of moves,
there's a strangely compulsive attribute to the game
that pushes you to play just *one* more move.
If you're strategically-minded even slightly,
Civ tends to engage you on a level that few other games are able to.
You always want to see what the addition of a new technology will mean to your people,
or how things would be if you could just take one more settlement over on your island.
And for me at least, the appeal of taking over the world
as the Aztecs or the Russians
is highly appealing,
since I love playing with what-if scenarios and alternate history.
I mean, just the idea that the Germans could have had nuclear capability
in the 18th century is just twisted and awesome at the same time.
And there are few games that let you play with such ideas.
And the element of randomness in the game is implemented in such a way
that it really doesn't feel random, it just feels natural somehow.
Every game ends up being completely unique
and it's not really done in a forced way,
so it's always a pleasure to play again and again
just to see who can take over ancient Egypt with battleships first.
Sure, there are some things that could use ironing out to make a better game.
For instance, it's too easy to lose early water units
by using the Go To command since their pathfinding is stupid,
and the AI sometimes seems to cheat its way to getting wonders first,
even if they seemingly don't have enough production.
There's also a major lack of diplomacy options,
so there really aren't too many choices
if you don't want to play a very aggressive game,
especially on higher difficulties.
But these and other complaints are things that were addressed in later Civ games,
so whatever.
For the first game in the series, I'd say it's pretty extraordinary.
When I first played this back in the mid-'90s,
I was blown away with how awesomely unique it was
and how huge the game felt.
And even going back and playing it today,
I find it to be very satisfying to play for hours on end.
Even if it's a lot simpler than the modern Civ titles,
there's something to be said for simplicity,
and that something keeps me coming back to this one.
And I really was surprised at how accessible it all still is,
especially for an old DOS strategy game.
Since games in this genre can often feel overwhelming
with their giant rule books and huge tech trees,
Sid Meier's Civilization is just awesome,
and I'd highly recommend giving it or any of its offspring a shot
if you haven't already.
If anything, it's worth playing just to answer the age-old question
of what life would be like
if a bearded Babylonian Duke Nukem took over the world.
[MIDI music plays]