Civilization II

"Be as narcissistic as you please without any pesky societal repercussions."

''Your subjects spontaneously decide to recognize your many years of enlightened leadership by making a fine addition to your throne room.''

''Oh, thankyou my loyal subjects! You've taken my comfy fur and replaced it with a hard, broken, wooden chair! How thoughtful of you.''

Do excuse me, I was lost in the moment. Civilization II tends to do that to me. It's just so easy to become wrapped up in living the life of a universally adored leader, but I really haven't lost my sense of reality, and yes I do still know the difference between game world and real world. Game world is where you can avert a city revolt simply by having one of your little people become an ''entertainer''. Real world is where you spend all your time trying to forget about how insignificant you are. This conveniently ties in to my first point about this game, which incidentally is the main reason why I like it so much.

Civilization II is a game for dreamers. You want to be royal, but you can't. You want to be venerated by the entire population of the world, but again, you can't. You want to send legions and catapults and heck, even a few elephants out to destroy those who are against you, but unfortunately this is illegal. In the game world, all of this is completely possible and you don't even run the risk of being committed to some institution or other for even considering it. What better way to explore your tyrannical side than with a game specifically designed for this purpose? This is a game for the wannabe ruler, and you can even choose for yourself what kind of leader you would like to be, via a system of alternate government styles which vary from Feudalism to Fundamentalism, and provide an array of different effects on the various matters of state which you must attend to - both positive AND negative.

The transition from PC to Playstation was surprisingly smooth. Civilization was originally created for use on a computer rather than a console. I used to have the original version for my Amiga and I remember it with fondness. I have also played the PC version. In this context, I found it difficult to imagine that the conversion to console would be easy - this was a concern raised by many prior to this game's release. However, these concerns were ill-founded - the transition was smooth and the controls work amazingly well. The simplicity of the game's menu system means that you really don't need a mouse to play. Using the controller pad to perform these functions is easy and quickly becomes second nature, even if you have played on a PC before. This ease of operation leaves your mind free to focus on more pressing matters, such as hiking up the tax rate and creating more military units to crush your enemies, rivals, and anyone who gets in your way, really.

This whole experience is about power, and you have complete control over every aspect of the game right from the start. If you've never played this before, you'll need at least a cursory glance through the manual just to get to grips with what's expected of you. Before commencing a game, you will be prompted to select an option from each of several lists. The more important decisions you'll need to make initially are based around the level of difficulty, level of barbarian activity (they attack your cities randomly, but you can choose how many there are) and the number of AI controlled rival civilizations there will be. Perhaps the most interesting option is deciding which civilization you'd like to be - all the available options are actual historical cultures, many of which you'll immediately recognize.

''Today I would like to rule a large world.'' Before starting, you'll be prompted to choose the size of the world which you would like to create - the options are small, normal and large. Small is rather too small to be honest, but it's good to use for a quick game as practice. The normal size is more than adequate, and the large size is really for the most intrepid explorers who want more of a challenge. The world map is made up of squares of various terrain types, some of which have special resources. This adds an extra dimension of strategy to the game, as you must choose locations for your cities yourself. The key is to find the best spot for building a city which would include as much useful land as possible, and the different resources add a wonderful touch to the experience. There is a helpful chart included with the game manual which shows you exactly what each terrain type is worth, and which should prove invaluable to helping you through this aspect - a very nice and eminently useful touch.

During the actual game, you will be provided with an initial unit of settlers whom you must direct to build a city. Once your first city has been built, various new options will become available to you, and this is when the game really starts. You will only be able to obtain military units and settlers by ''building'' them on the city screen, so you must prioritize what you want to achieve in your cities in order to get the most from the game. You won't even be able to build more cities without first creating more settlers, such is the level of autonomy which you have here. You can also build various improvements for the city, which afford different bonuses to you. The best bonuses come from building ''Wonders'' - the original and historical wonders of the world. There are more than just the traditional seven available, as you will find out for yourself. This is a wonderful feature - they give you such excellent bonuses - and you must remember this when prioritizing. All this adds up to make an incredibly strategic game with an unsurpassed level of autonomy that'll keep you immersed in the story which you're creating for yourself for hours at a time.

As if that wasn't enough, you can also decide which scientific discoveries to pursue and when. Handily, there is a flow-chart provided for you so that you can see what the prerequisite discoveries are for all improvements, military units and wonders. You will need to make some very carefully considered judgments in order to get the most from this. Science is intrinsic to your continued success in the game world, and is perhaps the single most important aspect to a successful civilization. The key is to think things through and avoid being left behind by your rivals. An example is that if you declare war on a nation that has discovered mathematics before you have even discovered bronze working, then you will be fighting their catapults with your ill-equipped warriors, and this is more than a little one-sided.

So, with all this strategy there obviously has to be an ultimate aim. In fact, there are two aims - you decide which way you'd like to play. You can either aim to be the first civilization to complete a successful space travel program, or you can simply conquer all your opponents to become the only remaining civilization in the world. In both cases, you will need to really spend time on the game, thinking things through carefully and assessing your every move. The strategy here is the best I have seen in any game - you have total control.

The graphics are slightly below par, to be honest, other than in the special movies which you will see each time you create a new wonder. However, in a game where all that is necessary graphically is to be able to distinguish between terrain types and unit types, this is not a problem at all. Civilization II is certainly not the kind of game that you buy for its eye candy content - it's an intelligent game and the graphics tie in well with what is required of you. The control system is flawless in my view.

The sound consists largely of two separate elements - music and effects. There are a handful of different types of music which you can choose from, but all of them become tedious and repetitive very quickly indeed. It's nasty, synthesized faux ethnic music and although initially it's enjoyable in an ''Oh, that's new'' kind of way, it does get old very quickly. The effects are simple and relate to actions such as battles, and are unnecessary, so you can go ahead and turn the sound off with no fear of missing anything when the music all becomes too much for you.

Overall, this is an excellent game. The replay value is superb, since there are so many different styles of play you can adopt - lots of different difficulty levels, systems of government, objectives and so on. The length of the game is really up to you. A large world on which your objective is to launch into space, playing against seven civilizations can take weeks to complete, easily. A small world on the easiest setting against only three civilizations on the easiest setting can be over in a few hours.

The key themes are strategy and autonomy, and providing that's your thing, Civilization II will not disappoint. It's an absolute all-time classic.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/20/03, Updated 04/20/03