Civilization

Lore & Background

Civilization was designed by Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley following the successes of Silent Service, Sid Meier's Pirates! and Railroad Tycoon. The game was originally developed for MS-DOS running on a PC and has undergone numerous revisions for various platforms. The player takes on the role of a civilization's ruler, starting with one or two settler units, and builds an empire in competition with two to seven other civilizations. The game includes civilizations such as Americans, Aztecs, Babylonians, Chinese, Egyptians, English, French, Germans, Greeks, Indians, Mongols, Romans, Russians, and Zulus.

The game begins in 4000 BC and can last through to AD 2100, with technologies ranging from pottery and the wheel to nuclear fission and spaceflight. Players can build Wonders of the World, each providing unique benefits, and can win by conquering all other civilizations or by winning the space race to Alpha Centauri. The game requires micromanagement of cities, exploration, warfare, and diplomacy, with barbarians occasionally harassing towns.

Reader's Guide

Civilization has sold 1.5 million copies since its release and is considered one of the most influential computer games in history due to its establishment of the 4X genre. The game has been deemed pedagogically valuable for its presentation of historical relationships and has been called one of the greatest video games ever made by several publications. A multiplayer remake, Sid Meier's CivNet, was released for the PC in 1995. Civilization was followed by several sequels starting with Civilization II, with similar or modified scenarios. The game's technology tree concept has been adopted in many other strategy games.