I should have said more - by making a very tall, thin cylinder world you have to fight your way past some civilizations before you get to those furthest from yo

I should have said more - by making a very tall, thin cylinder world you have to fight your way past some civilizations before you get to those furthest from you, and they'll have developed quite a bit before you conront them, or even find out much about them. So there's a lot more suspense. The drawback to CIV back then seemed to me that often you could tell far too early that you were going to win (or lose) for sure; not much suspense. The early game of quick primitive development yielded to a middle game; but often the game was obviously over, for all practical purposes. Not so with a tall thin world. Lots of good wars at the end with modern armies and units. Great fun.