Civilization is a series of turn-based strategy, 4X video games, many of them produced by Sid
Meier. As of 12 March 2008, the Civilization franchise has sold more than 8 million copies.
There are also several traditional Civilization games.
All titles in the series share similar gameplay, centered on building a civilization on a macro-scale
from prehistory up to the near future. Each turn allows the player to move his or her
units on the map, build or improve new cities and units, and initiate negotiations with
the computer-controlled players. In between turns, computer players can do the same. The
player will also choose technologies to research. These reflect the cultural, intellectual,
and technical sophistication of the civilization, and usually allow the player to build new
units or to improve their cities with new structures. In most games in the series, one
may win by military conquest, achieving a certain level of culture, building an interstellar
space ship, or achieving the highest score, among other means.
Over the years part of the crew involved in the developing the series became successful
in producing their own strategy games, such as Bruce Shelley of Age of Empires fame, Brian
Reynolds who went on to create Rise of Nations also received positive accolades and more
recently Soren Johnson with Spore.
History
In 1980, Francis Tresham designed the Civilization board game and published it through his company
Hartland Trefoil, and in 1981, Avalon Hill obtained from Hartland Trefoil a license to
sell the Civilization board game in the United States.
MicroProse, founded by Sid Meier and Bill Stealey, published Civilization in 1991, after
licensing the right to use the name "Civilization" from Avalon Hill to avoid conflicts over similarities
to the board game. Meier was also the game's designer. In 1993, MicroProse was bought by
Spectrum Holobyte, but the two companies remained separate. In 1996, MicroProse released the
lauded Civilization II, designed by Brian Reynolds. Also in 1996 Spectrum Holobyte consolidated
the company under the name MicroProse, but, in reaction to Spectrum Holobyte's decision
to fire the majority of MicroProse's staff, Reynolds, Jeff Briggs, and Meier left MicroProse
and founded Firaxis. Although Firaxis did not own the rights to
the brand name "Civilization", the company still went on to design the acclaimed Sid
Meier's Alpha Centauri, a "space-based Civilization-style game" released in 1999. Alpha Centauri uses
a game engine similar to the one used in Civilization II and its storyline continues from where
the Civilization franchise ends, namely the colonization of a planet in Alpha Centauri.
Litigation over brand name In April 1997, Activision acquired from Avalon
Hill the rights to the name "Civilization" on its PC games and seven months later Avalon
Hill and Activision sued MicroProse over trademark infringement because of the name "Civilization".
In response to the lawsuit, MicroProse bought Hartland Trefoil in December 1997. This move
sought to establish "MicroProse as the preeminent holder of worldwide computer game and board
game rights under the Civilization brand". In January 1998, Microprose counter-sued Avalon
Hill and Activision for false advertising, unfair competition, trademark infringement,
and unfair business practices as a result of Activision's decision to develop and publish
Civilization computer games. In July, Avalon Hill and Activision settled
their case against MicroProse out of court. Under the terms of the settlement, MicroProse
kept all the rights to the Civilization brand, Avalon Hill had to pay MicroProse $411,000,
and Activision acquired a license from MicroProse to publish Civilization: Call to Power.
Avalon Hill accepted the unfavorable settlement because Hasbro was already negotiating the
acquisition of both Avalon Hill and MicroProse. Less than one month after the settlement,
Hasbro finalized the purchases of both companies which consolidated the Civilization franchise
under Hasbro. Infogrames and Firaxis
In January 2001, the French company Infogrames bought the Hasbro subsidiary Hasbro Interactive
for $100 million, which included the rights to the Civilization franchise, the rights
to the Atari brand, and Hasbro's Game.com handheld game console. Following the sale,
Hasbro Interactive was renamed Infogrames Interactive, Inc and Civilization III was
released in October 2001 by the new company. In May 2003, Infogrames changed the name of
Infogrames Interactive to Atari Interactive. Take-Two
Take-Two bought the rights to the Civilization franchise from Infogrames in 2004 for $22.3
million. In October 2005, 2K Games, a Take-Two subsidiary, published Civilization IV, which
was developed by Firaxis with Soren Johnson as game designer.
Take Two bought Firaxis for $26.7 million including possible performance bonuses in
November 2005 which resulted in Take Two owning both the developer and the publisher of the
Civilization franchise. In 2010, on September 21 and November 23 respectively, the Windows
and Mac OS X versions of Civilization V were released.
Civilizations and leaders represented Throughout the various different Civilization
games, nearly 50 different civilizations and almost 110 different leaders have been represented.
The following tables below delineate the appearances of various civilizations and leaders.
Chronology Compilations
The Explorer, includes Civilization and the Colonization spin off.
Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition, includes Civilization II and its two expansions:
Conflicts in Civilization and Fantastic Worlds. Civilization III: Gold Edition, includes Civilization
III and the first expansion, Play the World. Civilization III: Complete, includes Civilization
III and its two expansions: Play the World and Conquests.
Civilization Chronicles, includes all the games from the main series from the first
Civilization to Civilization IV. Civilization IV: Gold Edition, includes Civilization
IV and its first expansion Warlords, as well as a bonus poster illustrated by artist Greg
Hildebrandt. Civilization IV: Complete, includes Civilization
IV and its two expansions: Warlords and Beyond the Sword.
Civilization IV: The Complete Edition, includes Civilization IV, its two expansions, Warlords
and Beyond the Sword, and Civilization IV: Colonization. It does not feature any DRM.
Civilization V: Game of the Year Edition includes Civilization V and all DLC prior to the Korea
and Wonders of the Ancient World packs released through Steam.
Sid Meier's Civilization V: Gold Edition included the original plus the Gods & Kings expansion
with all the DLC released between them both. Sid Meier's Civilization V: The Complete Edition
includes the original plus the Gods & Kings and Brave New World expansions with all the
DLC released between them. Other video games
Board and card games Influence
Scottish science fiction and mainstream author Iain Banks has noted that he spent much time
playing the game and that it was one of the inspirations for the concept of the 'Outside
Context Problem' central to his Excession novel - the appearance of invaders or travelers
who are so advanced that they are totally outside the society's frame of reference.
In an interview, Banks specifically compares this to having a Civilization battleship arrive
while the player is still using wooden sailing ships. One of the two viewpoint characters
in his novel Complicity plays Civilization compulsively.
References
External links
Civilization.com website Civilization and Freeciv wikis
Civilization series at MobyGames Playing the Game: Civilization , a list of
academic texts about the series GamaSutra history of Civilization