Preamble: This isn't a review. It doesn't contain critical analysis, just the subjective opinions of one person. The intent is to remember the games I've come across in my life and share the nostalgia, nothing more. And some of those games I didn't play in great depth.

Let the nostalgia continue! Although the strange thing about the original civ is that people still play it today, especially with all the community based projects such as FreeCiv. This is one of those games which changed the gaming industry forever and is heavily imprinted in the memories and imaginations of millions of 90's kids.

Sid Meier's Civilization

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Game: Sid Meier's Civilization
Developer: MicroProse
Platform: PC
Release Year: 1991

Basic Plot

In Civilization you take on the role of a leader of a great civilization. Each game is different, but the objective is always to do what you need to do to become a great empire, starting with a single village.

Gameplay

Civilization is a turn based empire building strategy game.

This game has one of the most complex sets of mechanics out there (perhaps excluding EVE Online) so I'm not going to try and tackle all of it, just highlight the major points of difference.

At the beginning of the game there is a world which is unexplored. You start with a settler who can found a city, and one other unit to protect it. It is the Stone Age (depending on the game speed you choose).

The graphics are simple but well designed for the game.

Once you found a city it starts with a population of 1 and immediately you can choose a unit or building to start producing from it. Cities are one major component of your empire. They are your production, they house your population, and they also require maintenance and attention. Cities have buildings which provide various bonuses but also incur maintenance costs. There are special buildings called "wonders" which take a very long time to build but often provide a powerful advantage. Only one of each wonder can be built.

The next major part of an empire is its units. These consist of settlers (which can be used to found a city) as well as soldiers and other specialist units (spies, diplomats). These are usually used to defend yourself against another civilization or to lay war upon them.

Throughout the game the player can research science, starting from the very primitive (agriculture, horseback riding) right through to the advanced (nuclear fusion, robotics). Each "tech" takes a number of turns to research. A more populous empire with the right infrastructure (libraries, universities etc) researches technology faster. Technology allows you to build new units, buildings, tile improvements, and also choose new religions and government policies.

There is also diplomacy. Inevitably you'll come face to face with other empires. Depending on your relative military strengths you may end up going to war, becoming allies, or bribing each other to stop an all-out war. You can make trades for technology, gold, resources, or even peace.

The land itself can be upgraded and improved to help your civilization whether that be building mines, roads, farms, or railroads; all of these help the empire. The world is divided into "tiles". Each city can use a certain number of tiles depending on its population. An improved tile may provide more production, gold, or food (which are the three primary resources).

There are several ways to achieve victory:

Military domination - simply controlling the majority of the world and eliminating your enemies by force.
Space race - be the first to build a ship and travel to Alpha Centuri.
Points - have the most points at the end of the Modern Era.

Positives

The complexity of the game and the huge number of interacting mechanics make this game hugely replayable. There is a large degree of skill which can be obtained by studying or trial and error, and there are vastly different play styles which can be experimented with.

There was nothing as detailed and complex as this at the time. It provided that satisfaction and detail involved in some of the very detailed board games with the automation and simplicity of a video game.

Negatives

I can't really think of any. It's a pretty specialized genre and its not for everyone, but for those that like this kind of thing the game is excellent in every way.

Memorable Moments

I've re-played this game many times over the years, the latest being in 2005. In more recent years I've switched over to Civilization IV Complete which is a worthy successor to this brilliant game.

I didn't play this game to the depth many others did. I know there were strategies and discussions online, the game has been analysed in a thousand different ways. I remember reading one strategy where you essentially mass catapaults for the win - locking in at a certain technology, and only separating your cities by a small margin to keep their population growth small (or something like that). I never tried it myself, but the idea was you could take a domination win before anyone could tech up enough to stop you.

What were your experiences with the original Civilization? What strategies did you employ?

hypercube

Hungary2735 Posts

September 19 2012 21:46 GMT

With Freeciv people figured out that the best strategy was to just keep your cities as small as possible and take advantage of the fact that you always have production on the city tile. This gave size 1 cities 2 tiles of production, size 2 3 etc. So you kept on massing settlers and built cities close to each other. Then started using settlers to build roads both for logistics and the +1 trade.
edit: plus the city tile counted as irrigated with road, if I'm not mistaken.

So the rule was changed to need 20 food to reach size 2 instead of the original 10.

DRTnOOber

New Zealand476 Posts

September 19 2012 21:55 GMT

On September 20 2012 06:46 hypercube wrote:
With Freeciv people figured out that the best strategy was to just keep your cities as small as possible and take advantage of the fact that you always have production on the city tile. This gave size 1 cities 2 tiles of production, size 2 3 etc. So you kept on massing settlers and built cities close to each other. Then started using settlers to build roads both for logistics and the +1 trade.
edit: plus the city tile counted as irrigated with road, if I'm not mistaken.

So the rule was changed to need 20 food to reach size 2 instead of the original 10.

That sounds like you could have some savagely expansive empires containing hundreds of small cities! I always wanted to play a really long full length multiplayer game of Civ IV but never got to. Damn Starcraft 2 sucking up all my multiplayer time. And Minecraft.

starfries

Canada3508 Posts

September 19 2012 22:09 GMT

I loved Civilization, but after playing Master of Magic, I always felt like there was something missing. If you like Civ I, it's definitely worth checking out.

cristo1122

Australia505 Posts

September 19 2012 22:22 GMT

yeah probly civ 4 i used to rush for religon and use that to leverage an advantage now im trying the same strat in civ 5 though itas not as effective but still can lead to interesting results.

N.geNuity

United States5112 Posts

September 19 2012 23:33 GMT

Unfortunately I never really played civilization until civ 3 and then mainly played civ 4. Tried civ 5 but it's not quite as good, for a variety of reasons. Played the Game of the Months for a while on cfc (the civilization fansite).

Also, never gave alpha centauri a whirl but that definitely is supposed to be worth a shot.

nanoscorp

United States1237 Posts

September 20 2012 00:05 GMT

Between this game, and SimCity, the number of hours I spent on, "Just one more turn" is probably in the thousands. Most of my games followed a similar pattern: rapid expansion, followed by fast tech, super-city development with wonders, and then win however I felt like closing things out. One of the fun parts for me was setting up different roles for different cities. A walled city on a hill near a choke could hold off invading legions, a forest/hill rich plot with a barracks could push veteran units out to all my cities, and the spots with more expansive farmland and rivers focused on population growth. I'm not sure which iteration in the Civ series it was, but the extra natural resource pattern in one game was such that you could grab 4 for one big city if you placed it right. Racing for wonders with other civilizations was fun too, I have to admit to reloading from a save after getting blindsided by "Soandso have completed the X you were trying to build!"

I picked up the iPhone version a while back during a free promotion and it made for a fun return to the series.

DRTnOOber

New Zealand476 Posts

September 20 2012 00:23 GMT

In Civ IV complete I once did a cultural victory. You do it with 3-5 cities (I think) and have to get certain wonders and tech, and then at a certain point in the game you put all your production and incoem into culture growth. It's amazing - I was able to take maybe 5 cities simply because my borders were expanding so rapidly. I think that was my most memorable game. I also enjoyed playing with religions, and corporations.

cristo1122

Australia505 Posts

September 20 2012 00:53 GMT

On September 20 2012 08:33 N.geNuity wrote:
Unfortunately I never really played civilization until civ 3 and then mainly played civ 4. Tried civ 5 but it's not quite as good, for a variety of reasons. Played the Game of the Months for a while on cfc (the civilization fansite).

Also, never gave alpha centauri a whirl but that definitely is supposed to be worth a shot.

try it with the expansion it completes it in so many ways its like a whole new game!

surfinbird1

Germany999 Posts

September 20 2012 08:52 GMT

#10

I was five years old when this game came out and I played the living shit out of it (Also it was in English and :D). I had no clue what I was doing but it was so new and fresh and exciting to simulate a whole civilization and the monuments and trading and growing stuff. Oh man, nostalgia overwhelming. I should definitely get this one installed again.