Category: The Portly Politico

Sid Meier’s Civilization Series Review

I decided to become a history teacher in the tenth grade after giving a presentation in an English class about water transportation in nineteenth-century America.  Why I was giving such a presentation in English is unclear–we were probably talking about Mark Twain–but that presentation gave me the teaching bug (and, apparently, a lifelong vow of poverty).

Even before that, though, history had captured my young imagination.  I grew up poring over atlases, textbooks, books, almanacs, encyclopedias, etc.  Part of what sparked this youthful interest was, of all things, video games, specifically the classic Sid Meier game Colonization, in which players colonized the New World and, ultimately, fought for independence.

Colonization, sadly, did not evolve significantly further as a series.  However, its inspiration, Civilization, now spans six installments, with a seventh on the way.  I vividly remember playing Civilization II on a cousin’s computer sometime in the 1990s, and I was hooked.  The first time I plopped a settler on a rickety trireme and dropped him successfully on a far-flung continent, I knew this was the game for me.

All of the Civilization games fall into the “4X” genre, in which players eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate (I suppose they could be called “4E” games, but that doesn’t sound quite as cool, does it?).  While not all Civilization games are created equal, each brought new innovations to the series that have, overall, improved and deepened the experience, while still being very accessible to new players.

My first exposure was to Civilization II, which I then received from my aunt that Christmas; I spent the rest of the day reading the 200-plus-page manual.  Civilization, the original installment, was already dated by that point, but I picked up a copy of its online-enabled version, CivNet, on a band trip in high school.  My neighborhood friend and I spent many hours playing “hotseat” games of CivNet, which had players taking turns at the same computer.  Later, that same friend and I would play hotseat for years in college (usually via e-mail) on Civilization III.

Civilization II is the best of the “classic” era Civ games.  It included a number of graphical and gameplay improvements over its predecessor.  Civilization III is, perhaps, one of the weakest entries in the series, suffering from a number of balance and performance issues.  However, it introduced a number of intriguing gameplay elements, like cultural borders and the need to negotiate “rights of passage” treaties to traverse another civilization’s territory.

The series entered the modern era of gaming with Civilization IV, which featured a brighter and more cartoon-y color palette.  It preserved the cultural borders mechanic of Civ III while also introducing religions to the game for the first time.  That has become a staple of the series, and there are few things more satisfying than converting the entire world to your religion (one of the several ways players can win the game).  I’ll never forget converting the entire world to Judaism in my first game of Civ IV, playing as the Americans.  There is, perhaps, something oddly prophetic about that.

Civ V brought an Art Deco aesthetic to the games, and shifted away from a square-based grid to hexes.  That changed military combat substantially; no longer could players create massive stacks of units that could grind a city into dust in a turn.  Instead, only one military unit could occupy a hex at a time, making conquest of cities more protracted and strategic in nature.  Terrain, which had always modified defensive bonuses based on the type (for example, a unit defending on a hill enjoyed a defensive advantage versus a unit defending on a flat plain), now became even more important.

It feels as though Civ V barely got its footing before the exquisite Civilization VI hit the scene.  This latest iteration included many of the elements of prior Civ games, but true to the series, it slowly ladled out key mechanics across two expansions–a particularly annoying but lucrative business model that has plagued almost every version of the game.  Regardless, Civilization VI and its expansions introduced, among other elements, climate change, which players can contribute to and/or mitigate through various means, and which gradually changes the map.  To be fair, Civilization II introduced “global warming,” which could have horrendous effects on the map, but Civilization VI approaches it in a more elegant and nuanced way.

Now with Civilization VII on the horizon, fans of the series are clamouring for more.  But which is the best?

In my assessment, Civilization II is the best of the “classic” era of the game.  Compared to modern versions it is quite basic, but there is something about its color palette and its gameplay that are timeless.  Civilization III struggled with various bugs, but I also enjoyed sinking hours of my life into it.

In the modern area, Civilization VI takes the cake for me, although its two predecessors were excellent games in their own right.

Usually, newer does not equal better, but in the case of the Civilization franchise, it does seem that player suggestions are implemented more thoroughly, and the games become more interesting and refined through each generation.  That is a positive legacy of the series, and one that will hopefully continue with Civilization VII.