A Review: Civilization, DOS 1991

Civilization, or Sid Meier's Civilization, is a 1991 turn-based strategy game developed by MPS Labs and published by MicroProse for MS-DOS, Amiga, PC-98, Atari ST, Windows, Macintosh, Super NES, Sony PlayStation, and Sega Saturn home gaming systems. A 4X game (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate), Civilization puts the player in the role of a ruler for one of a collection of different nations. The player is then tasked with leading that civilization over the course of several millennia by controlling various areas such as urban development, exploration, government, trade, research, and the military. The player can control individual units and advance the exploration, conquest, and settlement of the game's world. The player can also make such decisions as setting forms of government, tax rates, and research priorities.
 

This is easily the first game that I can remember ever having put over 60 hours into over the years. I spent days after days just playing this game to its end point and then restarting over and over, and I loved it for the most part. The gameplay was solid and so addictive and engaging that it spawned a phrase that is still used today: “Just one more turn!”. Which refers to the habit of Civ players to say that they're only going to play one more turn before going to bed or stopping for the day. I can remember this game nearly causing relationship breakups; it was so mind-meltingly engaging and addictive. I loved the simple controls and endlessly deep gameplay that was hidden behind a seemingly simple premise. Taking my army's and romping over the world and wiping out rival nations was an amazing experience for me and something that was completely new at the time. I will say, though, that there were issues with this game that I had to remove the rose-tinted glasses to talk about. The first is that this game has a big problem with death spirals. If you fell behind technologically, even by a small margin, the computer will surround you and wipe your civilization out in a matter of a handful of turns. This was very frustrating and was really a big problem on the more aggressive difficulty settings. I, for one, got bored playing the easier computer opponents but found that there wasn't much of a middle ground; it was very much all or nothing. I also found that this game really struggled with larger civilizations and would lag like nobody's business as you grew beyond a certain point. I liked to have huge army's and such roaming, but this seemed to cripple the frame rate and meant that some of my end turns would take up five minutes. I would have liked a larger unit selection too, and maybe even some that were nation-specific, as this would have helped to diversify play a lot more, in my opinion. I loved the little city screens and felt some pride looking over my larger city's when using this screen. I found that there was a lack of a mass command option for your units that made moving the larger army's mind meltingly dull. It was a big problem against the computer as it could easily move multiple units far quicker than was possible for any player, and I found that this threw balancing off majorly, in my opinion. The battle mechanics also annoyed me, and I raged more than once as a barbarian spearman or horseman destroyed one of my tank units. The first time that happened, I just sat with my mouth open, staring at the game, thinking, 'What the hell!?'. It was a bigger problem when fighting the computer, as it seemed to lean in favour of your AI opponents a little too often for my liking. That being said, the amount of information and detail that went into this game is absolutely incredible, but that doesn't mean that it is at all flawless.

Visually, this game presented itself rather simply. I liked the simple colours and obvious icons that were used; this made management very easy. The city screens were nicely detailed, and I really liked the little screen that popped up when you first built a new settlement. The menus and such were clean and easily navigated, which made learning about the various units and tech much more pleasant than having to read a door wedge of a manual. The little lines and markings for roads and civilization improvements were really nice for the age of this game. The seas, rivers, and coasts looked pretty good, and the farmland and irrigation squares were clear and pretty in their own way. Seeing the various wonders on the city screen was nice, and they were clear and obvious as to what they were. The throne room screen was pretty cool, and I really liked the player and NPC portrait screens. This game looked simple, but it hid so much more than a casual glance could ever make out.

Overall, this was a really good game, but at the same time, I don't think that it was flawless, and I certainly feel that there were games that were better than this one. Still, this is a piece of gaming history and should be enjoyed or tried at least once by any self-respecting strategy gamer.

6/10 – Good Fun!
Signed Off – Leonardo – PSJ