
The History of Civilization - gdubs
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/129947/the_history_of_civilization.php?print=1
======
NDizzle
Another interesting thing from Civilization was the copy protection. Every so
often it would ask you to guess the correct symbol off page N of the manual.
If you got it wrong, rather than end your game, it simply removed all of your
military units.

Being that I was in 6th grade when Civ (DOS version) came out, and the rich
kid down the street had it, I played for about 6 months before my parents
bought me the actual game as a christmas present.

By that time I got a legit copy of the game I was a master of all things
Civ... All things except the fact that you could fortify units INSIDE towns.
Imagine me, positioning 8 units in an array around a town and having those
units disappear every N turns due to getting the copy protection wrong.

Once I got to keep my units and I fortified one inside a town on accident, I
turned into a Civ monster. Once CivNet came out I proceeded to crush all
comers in my small town.

Good times.

------
a3089268
Freeciv players might enjoy [http://longturn.org](http://longturn.org) \-
Freeciv games where one turn takes a day. Games usually last half a year.
We've been playing it this way for ten years now, since around 2004.

~~~
ramayac
It's... it's like a really, REALLY long chess game... that's AMAZING!!!

~~~
sspiff
I started this comment trying to explain how Civ was not like chess at all,
but concluded that the two have much in common.

There's an opening, where there are a few tried-and-true, well studied
strategies, and the goal is to claim territory.

Then there's a mid-game, where all available land is claimed, and competing
players start trying to steal territory from each other, and capturing the
others pieces (or cities).

I can't seem to find a parallel in the end game though, it doesn't require
nearly as much planning and cunning in Civ to finish of a wounded opponent as
it is in chess.

~~~
T-hawk
There is a parallel in the end game: Military advancements. Civilization lets
you research new technology for significantly more effective military units,
to ease the mop-up phase. The equivalent military advancement in chess is
queening a pawn.

The difference is that chess requires continued tactical execution to get
there, while Civilization lets you sit back and get there on a superior
economy.

------
WalterBright
> Meier was also a big fan of an early computer game called Empire, which
> combined Risk-like world domination with intricate city management. "At one
> point, [Meier] asked me to make a list of 10 things I would do to Empire to
> make it a better game," says Shelley. "That was some of his research on
> Civilization."

I'd always suspected that was the case. It's nice to hear an acknowledgement,
and I'm happy Empire was an inspiration.

[http://www.classicempire.com](http://www.classicempire.com)

~~~
zeristor
Speaking of Empire I've always loved this article about someone who was
addicted to playing Empire and developed coding skills to process the email
reports to win out:

[http://www.the-
scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/26419/...](http://www.the-
scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/26419/title/A-Mind-Apart/)

Is there anything comparable these days?

~~~
WalterBright
There was another game called Empire, and from reading the article I suspect
it refers to the other one.

------
Tloewald
Interesting story but I'm a bit offended by the description of the board game
as "linear". Having played the boardgame extensively and then played the first
couple of versions of the computer game to death, the inspiration was pretty
obvious (the similarity between cards representing societal achievements and
similar mechanics in the game is utterly striking; and the boardgame has a
really clever trading game which the computer game in no way equals), and the
idea that Meier didn't even play the boardgame until after designing the
computer game seems to me to be disingenuous.

Sid Meier's career was _built_ on producing computer-versions of classic
boardgames.

~~~
smacktoward
_> Sid Meier's career was built on producing computer-versions of classic
boardgames_

What? No it wasn't. It was built on flight simulators and wargames. Look at
the list of games he worked on:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier#Games](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier#Games)

Before 1991 (the year the first _Civ_ came out), it's nearly all flight sims,
with some original IP ( _Pirates!_ , _Railroad Tycoon_ , _Covert Action_ ,
_Sword of the Samurai_ ) near the end of that run, as he began to grow away
from his partner Bill Stealey's focus on flight sims into a designer in his
own right.

~~~
Tloewald
No-one remembers Sid Meier's flight sims.

 _Sword of the Samurai_ (haven't played it) looks like an adaptation of
_Samurai_ an Avalon Hill (actually bought from another game company whose name
escapes me) which itself was essentially _Kingmaker_ reskinned for feudal
Japan. _Civilization_ was clearly inspired by _Civilization_. _Pirates!_ was
-- as far as I know -- pretty original (and my favorite of the lot). Covert
Action looks awful but I've never played it and hadn't heard of it before
looking at the wikipedia list.

~~~
avmich
> No-one remembers Sid Meier's flight sims.

Don't say so :) . One of early books of Victor Pelevin describes "a problem"
one avid player of F-19 had because he played too much.

Some players still remember that F-19 had an interesting "unreal" bug, which
allowed to fly without fuel arbitrarily long (and quite slow). Upside down. It
was possible to start playing the first mission (say, Russian North) ranking
as lieutenant and land the first time in the highest possible rank with all
imaginable awards. F-19 was, in a sense, interesting enough to be remembered.

------
markbnj
As someone who lived through those times as an avid gamer, and spent countless
hours suffering from "one more turn" syndrome, I really enjoyed this piece. I
wish I could tell clearly when it was written. As for this line: "Meier began
coding Civilization on the IBM PC in early 1990, soon after MicroProse killed
a sequel to Railroad Tycoon that he and Shelley had been working on," all I
can do is /sob.

~~~
padobson
You can get the Railroad Tycoon collection, including Sid Meier's Railroads!
on Steam:
[http://store.steampowered.com/sub/326/](http://store.steampowered.com/sub/326/)

And you should!

~~~
crapshoot101
Sadly, they dumbed it down a lot - as someone who loved 3, Sid Meier's
Railroads was a disappointment in that they handicapped the economics an d
make route laying a lot "simpler", and not in a good way. I would kill for an
updated version of RT 3.

~~~
Erwin
I was in Hamburg earlier this year, visiting among other things:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniatur_Wunderland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniatur_Wunderland)
and I thought to myself, wouldn't it fun to play with those train routes
again? I bought the "Railroads!" again on Steam, and had a lot of fun for
20-30 hours. Then I read the Railroads! wiki page and found out Sid Meier
wrote it exactly because he visited the same Wunderland 7 years before.

Like me, he just wanted a fun train game, not a ruthless economic simulation
and i think Railroads! has filled that niche well.

(It's not quite trains, but if you want a resource management game where you
have to be careful, try the city builder Banished, built by a single
developer)

------
schnoerkel
Civ is definitely my 'alltime most played game' (though Portal2 comes close).

It's awesome to see such a good writeup.

~~~
dlhavema
same here, i think its probably one of the only franchises where i have played
all of the sequels. playing Civ 5 a bit now until beyond earth comes out.
Alpha Centauri was really fun and had some really cool features, i hope beyond
earth really is a "spiritual successor" as they claim..

------
xiaoma
I really enjoyed 4X games back in the genre's heyday. Not only Civilization,
but also Colonization, Master of Magic and Master of Orion 1&2.

Have there been any new turn-based 4X games in recent times? I remember
looking for a 4X flash game in 2010 and coming up empty handed. I don't really
have time to play that kind of game anyway, but those were good memories.

~~~
ekianjo
Colonization beats hand down Civilization for me, anytime. It's more realistic
and coherent (the tech trees in civ feel completely artificial) and it's great
fun to play as different nations. The manual itself was also a great read,
teaching you many thing about how the actual colonization took place. One of
the best games by Sid Meier.

~~~
joeclark77
There was a hysterical review of Civ IV: Colonization by Ben Fritz that was so
over the top with political correctness it almost had me rolling on the floor
laughing. Seems his blog has gone offline, though. Some excerpts here:
[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/84721-Civilization...](http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/84721-Civilization-
IV-Colonization-Called-Morally-Disturbing)

~~~
eropple
"Political correctness"? Ben Fritz was _completely correct_ to ask why people
are celebrating the colonial era with entirely unchallenging entertainment
products. Colonization as a historical event was absolutely horrific and to
make a _game_ , something just for entertainment, in it without acknowledging
this is straight-up wrong. Meier consciously skated away from the fact that
_colonials enslaved and exterminated other human beings_ in order to sell a
game, and fucking well should be faulted for it. I mean, for god's sake, if
you have a mission in a settlement and you start shelling it with artillery
the natives will _flock to your mission for protection_. Do you, like, not see
how shitty (not to mention ahistorical) that is? Or is it just that it didn't
happen to white people so it doesn't matter?

And that isn't to say it's a bad game when divorced from the failure to accept
and reasonably present the historical context that Meier wanted to play in.
It's a tremendous game. I still think _Colonization_ is a more fun experience
than _Civ_ , and the _Religion and Revolution_ mod for Civ4Col is absolutely
fantastic. But the game cannot be divorced from the astonishingly shitty
historical context. RaR also does a lot (not as much as it could, but a lot
more than anything Meier or MicroProse or Firaxis ever did) to make you answer
those questions, too, and is a much, much better game for it.

~~~
ekianjo
> Meier consciously skated away from the fact that colonials enslaved and
> exterminated other human beings in order to sell a game,

I don't agree. Colonization as a game clearly shows there were different
methods to colonize the new Land based on the nations' strategies. The French,
for example, were rarely known to exterminate locals, on the contrary usually
forged alliances and friendship with local populations. That's what you see as
well in "The Last Mohican": french colons being very close to Indians, and
there are many sources to confirm that point. So Colonization was not all done
the Spanish way, and most of the deaths the locals endured came from viral
infections spreading in non-immunized populations and certainly not slavery or
battle. There were reports from Spaniards entering cities in south-America,
expecting resistance but instead finding most of the people dying from
infections.

~~~
eropple
The French certainly did, you're right, and _Colonization_ even namedrops the
_coureurs de bois_. But (as far as I can tell) there is not a single use of
the word "Africa" in the game. The only mention of "slavery" that I can find
in the game--which I have installed, because _aside from its super problematic
presentation of history_ it's a really great game--is in the little
Colonopedia blurb about Bartolome de las Casas...where they then elide that he
_advocated enslaving Africans instead_. (And, certainly, he later recanted
that position. So say that too! But paint the whole picture.)

So, sure, you're right, #NotAllColonizers--but seriously, do you think that
the ability to play in that way obviates the duty to actually present history
as it, like, _was_ , and not as will make your purchasers feel comfy?

Art is hard. Come correct or don't come at all.

~~~
ekianjo
> But there is not a single use of the word "Africa" in the game.

OK, I'll grant you that, but at the same time, massive slavery scale occurred
mainly after 1600-1700 (see Wikipedia reference below) so while slave trade
started earlier it was not prominent in the early colony days, and it was
first led by Portuguese and Spanish before other nations opted in.

> It is estimated that more than half of the entire slave trade took place
> during the 18th century, with the British, Portuguese and French being the
> main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted from Africa.[44]

Certainly the game is not perfect on that aspect, but since it's an American
game, it would probably be very sensitive to touch upon that subject in the
first place. I can't even imagine how that would be sold there if slavery had
been integrated.

~~~
eropple
_> OK, I'll grant you that, but at the same time, massive slavery scale
occurred mainly after 1600-1700 (see Wikipedia reference below) so while slave
trade started earlier it was not prominent in the early colony days, and it
was first led by Portuguese and Spanish before other nations opted in. _

The game ends in 1850 if you haven't completed the Revolutionary War before
then. And Simon Bolivar is available as a "founding father". He was born in
1783. The 18th century is very much in play.

 _> Certainly the game is not perfect on that aspect, but since it's an
American game, it would probably be very sensitive to touch upon that subject
in the first place. I can't even imagine how that would be sold there if
slavery had been integrated._

You are really underselling it. It's not "not perfect", it's _bad_. And I am
an American, saying this. If honesty won't sell, fine. Don't make it. That's a
better alternative than to whitewash history.

------
roschdal
[http://play.freeciv.org](http://play.freeciv.org) \- play Freeciv in the
browser.

------
ErikRogneby
When playing the first Civ, my friends and I would start a game on one
computer and then share the save file as a way to compete. Outside of MUDs and
BBS games, I am trying to think of the first multiplayer game we played on
token ring? Probably the Doom mod that let you do multi-player and run your
own maps.

~~~
presty
Me and my friends did that with CM (Championship Manager, now known as
Football Manager)

------
short_circut
It is interesting to hear them talk about the game getting complex. I think in
the latest version they hit that wall with the world government. It is
probably one of the most unfun and distracting features that Civ games have
gotten.

I do think they can add more complexity in other areas hough.

~~~
jonnathanson
_" It is probably one of the most unfun and distracting features that Civ
games have gotten."_

It's controversial, but not without its benefits. Really depends on the type
of gameplay you're going for, IMO. I enjoy a very diplomatic game of Civ4, for
instance, and I try to squeeze every ounce of quasi-emergent diplomacy and
even policy gameplay from what little I feel is there. But I realize I'm in
the minority on this. Most Civ gamers seem to prefer a purely military game.
In fairness to them, that's the clearest objective of the game. But I like
that Civ allows you, albeit with a great deal of against-the-tide effort, to
play a different type of game.

I never made the leap to Civ5, due to what I perceived as oversimplification,
and a trend away from precisely those features I liked (but which everyone
else seems to hate). So I can't really comment there.

~~~
vacri
I have very strong opinions on Civ 4 vs 5. Civ 4 is the kind of game that I'll
install, then uninstall a week later after too many 3am or 4am nights. Civ 5
has the same 'just one turn'-ism, but it's not _fun_ , which is weird. Any one
city site is much the same as another - that feeling of finding an awsome site
in Civ 4 is gone. I also miss the feeling of moving borders from 4 - the first
owner of a hex has it permanently. You can have a massive city, but if a tiny
village got the hex first... culture means nothing.

It was weird when it came out, that people were lauding a hex map as perfect.
In reality it adds very little (given diagonals, it's less freedom of
movement). But the strangest thing was... why go for a cell structure _at
all_? In an age where you can calculate real distances, it's a massive
throwback. Civ games are about resource management - cell-based maps are not
fundamental to this.

Not to mention that they really gouge for the most minor DLC. But llike you, I
perceive myself in a minority - Civ 5 is one of the most-played games on
Steam.

~~~
espadrine
> _why go for a cell structure at all? In an age where you can calculate real
> distances, it 's a massive throwback._

Would a game of chess be any better if it featured pixel-sized cells and real
distances? Some games, especially turn-based, are more fun with a limited
number of acceptable actions, because they require you to think in a certain
way in order to win. In a game, you may end up weighing complex pros and cons
of placing a city between two adjacent cells; that gameplay element would be a
lot more hand-wavy with pixel-sized cells.

That said, Rise of Nations might be for you, if that is what you are looking
for.

~~~
vacri
Well, I already mentioned that the placement of cities is largely meaningless
in Civ 5 anyway. Unless you're putting them right next to barren land, they're
all pretty similar.

Keep in mind also that chess is an extremely abstract version of combat,
whereas Civ is trying to emulate civilisations. Likewise, chess has six
different kinds of pieces, all of which play very differently. Civ effectively
has three: 'ranged unit', 'melee unit', and 'air unit', without much
difference between ranged and melee. There simply isn't the scope for clever
arrangement or movement of pieces like in chess - civ combat is more
simplistic like checkers... a game which very few people enthuse about.

------
pdknsk
[http://www.civanon.org](http://www.civanon.org)

The subpage with the video (feat. Sid Meier) is offline now, but the video
itself isn't.

[http://www.civanon.org/movies/trailer.mov](http://www.civanon.org/movies/trailer.mov)

------
tlo
A guy played Civ 2 for 10 years, the result is a world like in 1984:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uxpil/ive_been_playi...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uxpil/ive_been_playing_the_same_game_of_civilization_ii/)

------
personjerry
I think it might be good to indicate that this refers to the video game rather
than human civilization (even though Gamasutra is a good clue)

~~~
MProgrammer
And maybe that the article is from 2007.

~~~
personjerry
That may be true. But why does that affect someone's interpretation of the
word "civilization"?

