Game Review: Sid Meier's Civilization next up previous Next: Identification Game Review: Sid Meier's Civilization Brian Palmer ● Identification ● Story-line ● Features ● Design ● Success ● Bibliography ● About this document ... Brian Palmer 2001-02-22 http://www.stanford.edu/~bpalmer/review/ [2/23/2001 3:19:18 PM] Identification next up previous Next: Story-line Up: Game Review: Sid Meier's Previous: Game Review: Sid Meier's Identification The subject of this review is Sid Meier's Civilization (hereafter Civilization or Civ), a game released in 1991 by MicroProse as an adaption of Avalon Hill's board game Civilization. The computer game was a smashing success and has been a gaming classic ever since. The most prominent designer of the game, Sid Meier, was also the programmer. The other chief designer was Bruce Shelley; but more than a score of other people helped with the game. A complete list of the game credits is given in [10]. Brian Palmer 2001-02-22 http://www.stanford.edu/~bpalmer/review/node1.html [2/23/2001 3:19:59 PM] Story-line next up previous Next: Features Up: Game Review: Sid Meier's Previous: Identification Story-line Civilization has elements of historical simulation within it, but is predominantly a ``4X'' turn-based strategy game. The term ``4X'' is explained by [1] as standing for the phrase ``eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate'' -- these four verbs provide a sketchy overview of the game. The player begins the game viewing a map with control over one or more `settler' units (a unit is a small figure which can be moved around the world map representing a specialized group of people). Settler units are capable of founding cities, which is where more units are produced. Founding a city eliminates the settler unit, but a city can produce many new units. In order to produce units, cities require a number of resources, such as food and a population. The size of the population and the citizen productivity determine how quickly new units and city improvements are built (the larger the city's population, the quicker the production). The game's units include peaceful units like the settlers and many more military units. Each unit has a distinguishing feature from others; military units are used to explore and attack enemy civilizations, while other units add abilities to the player's civilization. Performance in the game is tracked by various statistics, such as the economic affluence and happiness of the civilization. These factors may be linked to each other and to data like the type of government a civilization currently has and the improvements placed within its cities. Money is directly convertible to and from various improvements to cities. Happiness affects productivity, and may interfere Suiting a game of world-spanning score, there are two possible methods of winning: ● Defeat all rival civilizations by occupying their cities. This is perhaps the most popular option, as borne witness by the large variety in military units. ● Build a spacecraft to travel to Alpha Centauri; the first civilization to reach the stars triumphs. success. To produce the spacecraft, a civilization must have discovered almost every technology. The spacecraft then requires a combination of three expensive; once the first of these units is produced, the ruler can send a mission to the stars at any time. Even here, a choice is possible, since a ship may embark with less than perfect chance of success in order to try to beat rival civilizations. A game involves a human player and up to six other civilizations controlled by the computer. The civilizations are chosen from a list of fourteen historical civilizations; each one starts out the game with a different set of initial technologies. The starting technologies are very loosely mapped to technologies that a particular civilization is associated with (e.g., Romans start with road-building), with some adjustment for game balance. In general, cities produce units independently of one another. Once trade is developed, cities can help http://www.stanford.edu/~bpalmer/review/node2.html (1 of 2) [2/23/2001 3:20:04 PM] Story-line combine their efforts to produce city improvements that will help the entire civilizations (called `Wonders'). These improvements are historically significant items and produce much more visible effects than a normal city improvement; however, they represent a significant investment of resources and can be captured by rival civilizations (e.g., the Pyramids add a granary to every city in the civilization that possess them). Improvements in technology can render the effects of Wonders obsolete while allowing a civilization to progress towards winning the game. At the heart of the game is the belief that advances in technology drive civilization forward; a player must balance revenue-gathering taxes with research and entertainment expenditures to balance the needs of the now with the needs of the future. next up previous Next: Features Up: Game Review: Sid Meier's Previous: Identification Brian Palmer 2001-02-22 http://www.stanford.edu/~bpalmer/review/node2.html (2 of 2) [2/23/2001 3:20:04 PM] Features next up previous Next: Design Up: Game Review: Sid Meier's Previous: Story-line Features Civilization was not a game that pushed the technical requirements of computers. It could be played with a wide variety of display types, ranging from sixteen color EGA (Enhanced Graphics Adapter) to 256 color VGA (Video Graphics Array); note that VGA adapters had been out for some years already in 1991. For input devices, the game can be played with a keyboard alone, which may be supplemented with a mouse. The interface is primarily point-and-click regardless of the input device, which helps make the game easy to play. For sound, the game supports options ranging from no sound at all to PC speakers to some of most popular sounds card of the time (for example, Creative Labs' Soundblaster). The sound is fairly minimal, as can be expected for a game occupying only 2 MB of disk space. It serves its purpose of accompanying game information without distracting unduly. The game's interface is fairly clean, which is a must given the small resolutions it was targeted at. Simple icons represent units; the currently active unit blinks. City views allow you to see a visual display of the city, and icons inform the player of his city status. Animated features interrupt game-play periodically when grateful citizens reward a benevolent player with modifications to the player's ``palace''; the player gets a choice of which architectural style to use in the addition. Similarly, an animation celebrates the player's victory when a winning condition is met. The game is a turn-based game, which means that periodically, the player gets the chance to move his forces and change his commands to cities; then the machine calculates what happens next and displays the changes on screen. To compress 6000 years of history into a playable time-frame, turns initially move in increments of fifty years (i.e., the player first issues commands at 4000 B.C, and then issues commands at 3950 B.C). The time-frame compresses as the game progresses, so that at the end a turn corresponds to one year. A typical game will last between 4 and 8 hours. As the game does not allow for multi-player options, the AI is a critical part of the game. This is where the game falls down; the computer AI is notoriously not able to stand up to an experienced player. In an effort to help compensate for the weak AI, the designers chose to cheat; there are some restrictions on units that the AI-controlled units get to ignore which apply to units the player controls (e.g., computer-controlled triremes can go any distance in the water, whereas human-controlled ones must stay along the coastlines) next up previous Next: Design Up: Game Review: Sid Meier's Previous: Story-line Brian Palmer 2001-02-22 http://www.stanford.edu/~bpalmer/review/node3.html [2/23/2001 3:20:10 PM] Design next up previous Next: Success Up: Game Review: Sid Meier's Previous: Features Design The game's design helped cement its designers' reputations in the strategy game world ([3]). As testimony to this, Civilization was a perennial favorite game of the critics. For example, [8] refers to it as the ``top strategy game of all time'' five years after its publication, and the game was listed in GameCenter's 1997 Hall of Game: Innovation feature ([4]). The game does its best to reiterate its historical theme at every opportunity, while not allowing reality to impinge upon its game-play. When the game first begins, a picture of a swirling cosmos is depicted, granting a godlike perspective to the player; then the game begins and the player takes the role of an immortal leader. One of the game's central elements is its ``Civilopedia'' which describes almost every aspect of the game. Most notably, upon discovery of a new technology, a message describing the technology's effect on the real world is displayed. This serves both as inspiration for the player and to add an educational element to the game. Leaders are historical figures of the civilizations they represent, and the cities are given default names of famous cities in their civilization. Civilization is eminently replayable, due in large part to the depth of the choices it proffers the player. From the outset, the player is confronted with choices about skill level and, more intriguingly, which civilization to start with. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses visible in its starting technologies.