"Addictive and very fun, even after you've won it several times."

I have been on the wagon for five years now, and I strongly believe I deserve some sort of pin, it having nothing to do with the fact that after one less-than glorious summer my university cleared this game from a server, I had no computer at college, and I'm very cheap anyway. But that one summer, between silly Linear Algebra and Calculus III classes, I discovered this game on a server, and I even resorted to supplying my ''fix'' with a book from the library on the game. I am sorry to say that I became rather well-known around the computer lab as one of several people who maybe play Civilization too much(there were others. But first, I got to be an expert on it and second, I have regularly shower and work out since [before] college and beyond!) This review, a tribute to the closest silicon may ever come to a controlled substance, will either be a final catharsis of all that wasted time and perhaps even provide an inspiration to some other unfortunate who plays any game in the Civilization series more than he'd like, or it may be the beginning of a rapid relapse, leaving me finding myself two months hence impatient that that granary in Vladivostok isn't getting built quickly enough. But on to the game.

You get to start off as one of fourteen ''great'' civilizations, and barbarians can appear at random and create their own. You can have multiple human or computer players(who have leaders based on civilizations,) you can set difficulty levels, the map(a grid) can be random or roughly like the world, and you even have entertaining ways to cheat. In the beginning you have no technologies and just a settlers' wagon. You build a city(you get to name it, too!) with the settlers' wagon and then, when you're big enough, you can maybe build another wagon to make another city and so forth. In the meantime you need to decide how best to allocate your resources--military(you can take over other civilizations or cities. It's not a good way to make friends, of course), technology, expansion, or just waiting? There are advantages to expansion and exploring(there are huts in the wilderness that will help you increase technology rapidly) but you still need other things to progress your civilization. There is also a set list of technologies; to get one you need a few others, and you need to spend more resources for each successive technology. For instance, a catapult requires Mathematics and The Wheel. You can also build Wonders of the World including and beyond the original seven, which will earn you civilization points(there are humorous comparisons to various famous world leaders for various civilization point levels) or even have a political revolution, which will change how resources are calculated. You need to watch your cities so they do not starve or have everyone go on strike(do make sure they're reasonably protected too!) although it's also fun just to watch your cities grow as the granary overflows. The ultimate goal is to create a space program, although killing off all the other civilizations will also be a ''win.'' You'll feel good about it, anyways, and you'll probably enjoy getting there. The game even provides a few history lessons which are a neat one-time rest from all that planning.

For the gameplay, you just click on a city and its stats pop up--you can change what it's building next, what squares to use around it, how much to tax or spend on luxuries, and what to do with the military, settlers, etc. it has built. Using your mobile units can use mouse or keyboard. To attack something, you just move your piece onto it. You also frequently have the option of using a mouse or the keyboard to edit things, which is very nice. In the early days of Windows this was a rather novel idea and since Civilization is more complex that simple file management this may be one thing that people ''appreciated'' for longer continuous periods of time than they would ever devote to study or, after college, work. Although the space shuttle launch part falls a bit flat, there is so much else to do that getting there is 99.99% of the fun.

As for the technologies you can build, they are relatively logical if a bit optimistic. It's a bit too easy to clean up global warming(although it's neat that they considered it), and having the Cure for Cancer as a Wonder of the World seems a bit over-the-top. For exceptional(or dishonest) Civilization players you can get future technologies which are unspecified but are perhaps one of the few things the game does not nail down. There are also no slow-progress Middle Ages in Civilization, so the overall time scheme is a bit warped as opposed to the real world. Admittedly, it's hard to hit accurately, and they really did a pretty good job, especially with starting at 4000 BC and slowly having each turn mean fewer years until 2000--after which you can still play, but your score is not ''official.''

The graphics are really very clever. The continents are on a 2-d grid and the shorelines are realistic, and there is no confusion as to what does what. There are lots of big events in the game that don't seem to get old even when animated--and even if they do, you can cut them off pretty quickly. When a leader sends an emissary, they will either be smiling or frowning(it's funny to see Abe Lincoln or Gandhi looking a bit upset!) The pictures of Elvis and the Taxman(in the city, when you are deciding how to spend/collect money) are a nice light touch, and it is fun to watch things added to your city as it builds up. Even the Discontent in City X is neat, as is its opposite--which I will not spoil.

There's a lot I've left out in this review. If you play the game, beware that your first time solving it will leave many unfinished questions, so if you're a curious but busy person there is definitely a risk that this game may take your priorities out of whack. And if you look through a FAQ, you will find things you want to try, or things that didn't happen(for instance, if you are winning badly, you may be able to get an enemy city to break away from its empire and join you.) Stuff like the difficulty levels will make any game challenging after the first time, and even when you get good, you may get greedy and try to see outright how much you can build, how big your cities can be, and so forth. I would give this a perfect score, but it is a bit too addictive, and although this was a unique concept there really aren't any unique puzzles or locations(they're in the world, so you've seen them all!) or plot. Still, it does quite a number on computer Risk, a decent game in itself.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/26/00, Updated 10/26/00