14 ms·

The History of Civilization

228 points by gdubs 12y ago

a3089268 12y ago
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 12y ago
  It's... it's like a really, REALLY long chess game... that's AMAZING!!!
  - sspiff 12y ago
    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 12y ago
      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.
- twobits 12y ago
  "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." So you are still a noob? :-) :-P
Tloewald 12y ago
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.
- bryanlarsen 12y ago
  They admitted that Civilization's co-designer, Shelly, had played the board game extensively.
- smacktoward 12y ago
  > 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.
  - contingencies 12y ago
    After reviewing the list, of which I've played over half, I think the stand-outs are Pirates! and Civilization. In case he reads this: Congratulations on a great career Sid, bringing fun, knowledge and appreciation of history to hundreds of millions of people around the world is a brilliant legacy. Keep up the good work!
  - Tloewald 12y ago
    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.
xiaoma 12y ago
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.
- 4k 12y ago
  I am really looking forward to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization:_Beyond_Earth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization:_Beyond_Earth Its supposedly spiritual sequel to Alpha Centauri.
  - luckyno13 12y ago
    You and I both. I have never played a Civ game, but have played other 4X games and this game has be absolutely itching to play it. Its been a while since I have anticipated a game release this much. Oct. 24th isn't too awful far though.
- kitsune_ 12y ago
  Galactic Civilizations II, released in 2006. Gal Civ III will be released soon-ish. Then not turn-based, and not necessarily 4X, but the Paradox games like Crusader Kings 2 or Europa Universalis IV can be fun too.
  - deciplex 12y ago
    I can't recommend Distant Worlds enough, if you are looking for a 'Paradox game' in space (it's not produced by Paradox though). There is also Stardrive which is similar, though also much simpler.
- a3089268 12y ago
  Have a look at Paradox Development Studio games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_Development_Studio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_Development_Studio I'd recommend EU4 if you're new. Next to it, Civilization looks like a game for kids.
roschdal 12y ago
http://play.freeciv.org http://play.freeciv.org - play Freeciv in the browser.
schnoerkel 12y ago
Civ is definitely my 'alltime most played game' (though Portal2 comes close). It's awesome to see such a good writeup.
- dlhavema 12y ago
  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..
- bayonetz 12y ago
  Civ Rev has been my most played game on Xbox 360 and Pirates was my most played game on original Xbox. Even for these so called "stripped down / dumbed down" versions of the games, "one more turn" was very much still in effect! I'd love to buy Sid a beer some time.
- mihaifm 12y ago
  my favorite game as well, although I always wanted more from the AI
pdknsk 12y ago
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
ErikRogneby 12y ago
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 12y ago
  Me and my friends did that with CM (Championship Manager, now known as Football Manager)
markbnj 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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 12y ago
      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)
    - padobson 12y ago
      RT2 is actually my favorite of the group, I just mentioned Railroads! because I wanted to stay on topic.
short_circut 12y ago
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 12y ago
  "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.
  - short_circut 12y ago
    I agree with you in as far as it makes a great multiplayer element. In the vs the computer game it is a bit of a crapshoot though. Working with different world leaders is not something that is possible. You can't sit there and strategize over several votes. Futhermore the later in the game you are the more frequently they meet. By the information era they are meeting every 10 turns.
    - jonnathanson 12y ago
      Agreed. Against my better judgment, though, I still try to hammer out "diplomacy," or some moderate semblance thereof, in my games against the AI. Mods are almost necessary in doing so, as the vanilla AI and rule set are optimized towards conquest. (Some AI personalities are more treacherous or aggressive than others, but virtually all of them will pursue military expansion over real diplomacy, provided the risk/reward calculations favor their odds.) Again, I'll have to take your word for the annoyance of this element in Civ5. In Civ4, the UN is the closest equivalent. I found it to be somewhat enjoyable, if inconsistent in its decision making. It can throw a real spoilerish element into the gameplay that I like in my games. For instance, if I'm over-relying on my nuclear arsenal as a source of military power, and the UN suddenly bans nukes, the playing field is leveled toward factions with bigger conventional forces and fewer nukes. I have to adjust accordingly, or else pray that the issue comes up again in another UN session and is reversed. I dig that.
personjerry 12y ago
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 12y ago
  And maybe that the article is from 2007.
  - personjerry 12y ago
    That may be true. But why does that affect someone's interpretation of the word "civilization"?
WalterBright 12y ago
> 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 12y ago
  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/title/A-Mind-Apart/ http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/26419/... Is there anything comparable these days?
  - WalterBright 12y ago
    There was another game called Empire, and from reading the article I suspect it refers to the other one.
NDizzle 12y ago
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.
tlo 12y ago
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_playing_the_same_game_of_civilization_ii/ http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uxpil/ive_been_playi...

228 points by gdubs 12y ago

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 12y ago
It's... it's like a really, REALLY long chess game... that's AMAZING!!!
- sspiff 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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.
twobits 12y ago
"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." So you are still a noob? :-) :-P

Tloewald 12y ago

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.

bryanlarsen 12y ago
They admitted that Civilization's co-designer, Shelly, had played the board game extensively.
smacktoward 12y ago
> 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.
- contingencies 12y ago
  After reviewing the list, of which I've played over half, I think the stand-outs are Pirates! and Civilization. In case he reads this: Congratulations on a great career Sid, bringing fun, knowledge and appreciation of history to hundreds of millions of people around the world is a brilliant legacy. Keep up the good work!
- Tloewald 12y ago
  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.

xiaoma 12y ago

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.

4k 12y ago
I am really looking forward to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization:_Beyond_Earth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization:_Beyond_Earth Its supposedly spiritual sequel to Alpha Centauri.
- luckyno13 12y ago
  You and I both. I have never played a Civ game, but have played other 4X games and this game has be absolutely itching to play it. Its been a while since I have anticipated a game release this much. Oct. 24th isn't too awful far though.
kitsune_ 12y ago
Galactic Civilizations II, released in 2006. Gal Civ III will be released soon-ish. Then not turn-based, and not necessarily 4X, but the Paradox games like Crusader Kings 2 or Europa Universalis IV can be fun too.
- deciplex 12y ago
  I can't recommend Distant Worlds enough, if you are looking for a 'Paradox game' in space (it's not produced by Paradox though). There is also Stardrive which is similar, though also much simpler.
a3089268 12y ago
Have a look at Paradox Development Studio games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_Development_Studio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_Development_Studio I'd recommend EU4 if you're new. Next to it, Civilization looks like a game for kids.

roschdal 12y ago

http://play.freeciv.org http://play.freeciv.org - play Freeciv in the browser.

schnoerkel 12y ago

Civ is definitely my 'alltime most played game' (though Portal2 comes close). It's awesome to see such a good writeup.

dlhavema 12y ago
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..
bayonetz 12y ago
Civ Rev has been my most played game on Xbox 360 and Pirates was my most played game on original Xbox. Even for these so called "stripped down / dumbed down" versions of the games, "one more turn" was very much still in effect! I'd love to buy Sid a beer some time.
mihaifm 12y ago
my favorite game as well, although I always wanted more from the AI

pdknsk 12y ago

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

ErikRogneby 12y ago

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 12y ago
Me and my friends did that with CM (Championship Manager, now known as Football Manager)

markbnj 12y ago

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 12y ago
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 12y ago
  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 12y ago
    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)
  - padobson 12y ago
    RT2 is actually my favorite of the group, I just mentioned Railroads! because I wanted to stay on topic.

short_circut 12y ago

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 12y ago
"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.
- short_circut 12y ago
  I agree with you in as far as it makes a great multiplayer element. In the vs the computer game it is a bit of a crapshoot though. Working with different world leaders is not something that is possible. You can't sit there and strategize over several votes. Futhermore the later in the game you are the more frequently they meet. By the information era they are meeting every 10 turns.
  - jonnathanson 12y ago
    Agreed. Against my better judgment, though, I still try to hammer out "diplomacy," or some moderate semblance thereof, in my games against the AI. Mods are almost necessary in doing so, as the vanilla AI and rule set are optimized towards conquest. (Some AI personalities are more treacherous or aggressive than others, but virtually all of them will pursue military expansion over real diplomacy, provided the risk/reward calculations favor their odds.) Again, I'll have to take your word for the annoyance of this element in Civ5. In Civ4, the UN is the closest equivalent. I found it to be somewhat enjoyable, if inconsistent in its decision making. It can throw a real spoilerish element into the gameplay that I like in my games. For instance, if I'm over-relying on my nuclear arsenal as a source of military power, and the UN suddenly bans nukes, the playing field is leveled toward factions with bigger conventional forces and fewer nukes. I have to adjust accordingly, or else pray that the issue comes up again in another UN session and is reversed. I dig that.

personjerry 12y ago

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 12y ago
And maybe that the article is from 2007.
- personjerry 12y ago
  That may be true. But why does that affect someone's interpretation of the word "civilization"?

WalterBright 12y ago

> 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 12y ago
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/title/A-Mind-Apart/ http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/26419/... Is there anything comparable these days?
- WalterBright 12y ago
  There was another game called Empire, and from reading the article I suspect it refers to the other one.

NDizzle 12y ago

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.

tlo 12y ago

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_playing_the_same_game_of_civilization_ii/ http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uxpil/ive_been_playi...