"Without exaggeration one of the best strategy games"

Civilization is a TBS game developed by MicroProse. The Civilization games are considered one of the best strategy games ever created. The first in the series is one of the best in my opinion, VERY complicated, full of various stuff you can do and generally very fun although it can become very tedious from time to time.

Gameplay: 9.5/10
Replay Value: 8/10

One of a kind! Civilization is a one of a kind game. It is original, innovative and very, very complex. You select a race amongst many that don't really mean anything apart from the naming of cities. Upon starting the game you have a Settlers unit that you can either use to create a new city or construct roads, farms and many more. Upon creating a new city, (you can give a name if you want). And then select what the city will start training, like military units, structures and many more. Around the city you can assign the people inside to gather food or minerals from the surrounding area. Each terrain type of course has some different attributes, like more food, less minerals or only food or just a bit of minerals, etc.

A city with each turn generates food that enables the increase of the population, minerals that are needed for the various buildings and trade income. The trade income can generate money, science and luxury, these 3 are very important and telling the game how the Trade income should be divided between these 3 means different things each time. At your first steps the most important is the science which help you research new technologies like Alphabet, Religion, the Wheel, Chemistry, Nuclear power and many, many more that enable more structures better army units and many more. You can alter the government system something that changes many things like the general income, how happy your people are and how good your military power is.

So you've started building cities and exploring the world, what else is there? First of all there are races like you that explore the world and are very likely to attack you, so you must build an army fast, expand your civilization and be careful when meeting someone. Each military unit has different pros and cons, some are better to keep in your city and others are good for offense and exploration and some for siege. Apart from the pure fighting you can meet emissaries where you can reach an agreement like for example to pay them in order to become your allies and attack a certain race together, or pay them just to hold them from attacking you for a while. You can also use spy units that can enter a city and see what's going on in it or sabotage it and many more.

The game is endless!!! You can do many, many things in order to win. Want to conquer the world? Want to just become the most powerful nation in the world? Want to expand like crazy or just create a powerful and untouchable nation? All these are possible and if all these weren't enough you can start building a starship and sent people to explore the universe and create a new Civilization!!! The game is extremely complex, a bit hard to get the hang of at first, but after a couple of hours you'll love its addicting and extremely diverse gameplay. The only flaw is that the game is veeery slow… each turn you check your cities, change the settings, move your units and many more, something that can become a bit tiring after a while. Nevertheless Civilization is a great game, of course not for the people that prefer fast paced RTS games, but without a doubt a classic!

Graphics: 7.5/10
Design: 6.8/10

Civ keeps it nice and simple… but still nice, very nice! Almost everything in the game apart from some certain images are very small, tiny to say the truth, something needed because of the game's nature, but while everything is small don't worry you're eyes will be fine since the overall design is very good and easy to see what is what. A nicely designed game world, with various types of terrain to break the monotony and nice details that make it look even better like complex roads, polluted areas and many more. Apart from the world map the rest of the game is filled with LARGE boxes filled with text like information about your civilization, the world, etc. Finally once in a while a nice image is shown like for example when you meet a foreign emissary where you see the leader of his country, (Alexander the Great, Caesar and many more), and on the background a different scene depending on the political system\government.

Sound: N/A
Music: N/A

Sound effects and music in here don't add to the game, but they also aren't bad, in fact you'll forget about them while playing the game. There's nothing more I can tell you about that section…

Positives:
-Very complex, addictive and innovative gameplay
-Quite possibly one of the best TBS games

Negatives:
-Slow gameplay

Also Play:
Civilization (Series) (PC)

Overall: 7.9/10

Nevermind the score Civilization is a true classic. Very innovative and entertaining, a game like no other despite its age. If you consider yourself a strategy fan just buy it!

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/09/09

Game Release: Sid Meier's Civilization (US, 1990)