Have you ever wondered how YOU would fare as the leader of an Empire? Now’s your chance! What will it be: bloody military conquests?
conquer a new world in outer space? get a better score than your opponents at the end of the game? The choice is yours! Discover or rediscover the very first game of a series that has existed for over 20 years, going across many consoles.


Graphics: 4/10

The game isn’t exactly appealing to the eye. I don’t know how it looked on the PC, but the Super Nintendo version didn’t make much of the
console’s graphics (compared to, say, Star Fox). You see pictures of your units moving around the screen, and their color is the only way you can distinguish your own from other civilizations’.

The overworld map is overly simplistic. The water does flow a little, but solid ground details are basic. You see plains, grassland, mountains/hills and tundra that are uniformly colored. There are sometimes resources (shield, gold, gems) but they don’t add much appeal. Also, cities are merely represented by numbers indicating the population. The only detail that can be added is city walls, in
which case the square is fortified, and also a more solid color if  a unit is present. On a more positive note, the game can generate an infinity of maps, meaning no two game will be the same. 

But the worst part is the City menu. Having played Civilization II (on PC) first, I have to say I was extremely confused at first with the menu. Not only have I had a hard time figuring out where the food screen is (I’ve lost so many settlers because I didn’t rearrange production), but navigating between the different screens is so hard without a mouse.

Finally, you get tired of the “movies” very quickly that you usually turn them off. At first, it was refreshing to see those settlers creating a city, this parade celebrating your the mob denouncing your crappy rule. But since you see the video every single time you commit the actions, it gets tiring.

Music: 4/10

Let’s be honest: Until Civilization IV (for me), the series wasn’t renowned for its magnificent soundtrack. There are only 10 or so tracks in the entire game: Four for the overworld map (you have the same music for many, many turns), the city music (which changes for a festival/a riot), the space victory music and the intro.

However, the sound effects of modern units have a realistic feel to them. Starting with musketeers, gun units sound like they’re shooting,
and modern canons/tanks sound like they’re shooting some heavy shells. Otherwise, most units have the same dull sound when they attack (a simple pop).

Addictiveness: 10/10

This is where Civilization truly shines. Since building an empire is a very long term project, you will need to be patient to make sure it’s sustainable: Levy enough taxes, keep your people happy so they work, pay for enough research so your weapons are up-to-date and your scientists make your life easier with universities, banks and various Wonders that cheer up your people or send you to space.

You start the game with only two settlers and a completely dark map. Exploring is crucial so you can find the ideal terrain to build your city, find isolated tribes that will (hopefully!) give you gold or mercenaries and find opposing empires to either build ties or crush them.

Depth: 9/10

Civilization has created this wonderful tradition of exploring human history and reliving in acceleration. Discover The Wheel so you can build chariots and Stirrup so you can build roads over rivers. Make research in Monotheism so you can build cathedrals and the Sistine Chapel to make people happy or in Astronomy so you can build Copernicus’ Observatory and increase science in your city.

Think of most of humans’ greatest constructions (the Hanging Gardens, the Colossus, the Pyramids, hell even the Statue of Liberty) or
achievements (Darwin’s or Magellan’s voyages, the Manhattan project) and you have the possibility to accomplish them. Although their effects tend to expire too quickly (Shakespeare’s Theater effect is cancelled out by television), they still serve their purpose.

You can also choose among 14 of the greatest empires that have existed: France, England, Japan, China… It doesn’t seem to make a
difference whichever one you choose, though.

Difficulty: 5/10

Until Warlord at least, this game is a joke. With enough patience and a lot of resetting, you can have a militia (the very first attack unit you get) kill a tank. Plus, despite a hyperactive production, I’ve never gotten any pollution to clean up.

However, the game does get more difficult as the level increase. Your people get more restless (they get unhappy quicker), research develops slower and the AI gets more aggressive.

In short, despite less-than-ordinary graphs and music, Civilization is a must. Creating your own history is not something you can do every day. Let’s see if you can find the perfect balance between brain and brawn, between dove and hawk, unless you want to be destroy either because of your pacifism or your ruthlessness!

Civilization definitely needed a tutorial to explain how to operate the game, especially when you need to distribute taxes, luxury and science or when you need to manage your city, like you already pointed out. It's not very difficult to learn if you play the game from the Chieftain level and experiment with the different settings and choices. Back in the 1990s before there were Civ 2 and other expansions, there wasn't anything to really go by on how to run the Civilization you choose to play. Thank god for technology and Civ expansions now xD.

One small thing I noticed in your review... Playing on a harder difficultly doesn't actually increase the amount of science needed to research a technology. As you challenge yourself to the harder difficulties, you actually distribute the earned "Trade" to Luxuries to maintain happiness. The amount of happiness decreases by 1 per difficulty and a lack of a unit in a city or if Republic/Democratic, happiness takes a big hit. To combat this loss of income (Science/Taxes) you need to set your focus on trade and roads. When you have a positive income, you work towards maintaining happiness while you grow and when you can squeeze out Libraries/Universities do so.

I quit playing Civilization when I achieved the highest rank with the highest score and a 150% rating, which isn't difficult to do if you did what I did. I played on Earth as the Chinese because the Chinese lands have an abundance of river/land/resource to use. Every time you play the Earth map, it'll be 95% similar; There are only a few small changes in the land. As the British, sometimes England connects to Spain or as the Egyptians, sometimes you get 1 to 3 nearby Oasis. While playing the Chinese on the Emperor difficulty, I chose to play with 3 Civs (Myself and 2 others). I was lucky enough to have Babylon and Rome as my 2 enemies. With a few units, I blocked these 2 Civs so that they could not build additional cities nearby my Civ and block me. This also forced their units to stay near their capital.

I built my cities so that they didn't overlap much unless it was a coastal city that shared tiles with another city. I built settlers from my new cities while I built Wonders in my Capital or high production cities. Usually, my Shanghai was a very high production city. As soon as I could acquire the Pyramids, I would build them and revolt for a Monarchy government. Having just started the game with less than 20-40 turns, you're not likely to have developed much land. When you choose a Monarchy, your units use some Material (Shields) and Settlers eat your food but you can counter this by Irrigating rivers and grassland. I liked to convert the Yellow Rings in the Grassland so that they were the Horse on the Ground. When irrigated, they earned 2 food and 3 shields so they were especially useful.

After I built about 4-7 cities and established my Civilization, I converted to a Democracy where the income was higher. You can't do this at the start of your game because Democracy has a high rate of unhappiness and your people need 20%-30% in luxuries to be happy. Larger cities are especially difficult if you lack funds and still need a Cathedral/Colosseum/Temple etc. At the early stage of the game, using 20% or more luxury is a complete waste of time. You won't research any faster and you'll still have about the same in taxes (Without Market/Bank or Library/University there's hardly a difference in your Trade). By choosing a Monarchy, you allow yourself to focus on growth.

After cradling your Civilization for many years and sending Settlers overseas (Navigation), you can control 95% of the map without many problems. Barbarians are never enough of a threat if you have a few extra units to deal with them and if you claimed all of the Houses (Square grey/brown Cabin Icon?) you could easily earn a dozen free units (No maintenance costs ever, unless you Home City them). By using this method I won a space race victory in 1810? I also researched 30-40 Future Tech for the record and I made sure my population was as happy as they could get (2 points per wealthy citizen/1 point per normal citizen/0 for unhappy?).

I can't remember if I made a game guide for this game or not. I think it may have been one of my more vague guides, idk. Anyway, yea... Great game, good review. I didn't really get into Civ until I played through Civ 2: Test of Time. Civ 2: Test of Time is unique because it gives a Science Fiction World/Fantasy World/Extended Original World/Original World and a Midgard Scenario. I never downloaded and played additional scenarios but I eventually learned and mastered the SciFi world, which was pretty epic. The fact that you could travel to 4 worlds was friggin awesome. The Fantasy World was a different kind of challenge. You had Atlantis, which were a race of people who lived on land and in the ocean. There are Buetos who live on the clouds and on the land. You also had Goblins and Stygians who lived underground. These different worlds were difficult to access unless you had the appropriate knowledge to build units that were capable. Also, I kind of enjoyed their music a little better on this version of the Civ franchise, it was a little more epic at the time.