Sid Meier's Civilization A Great PC Strategy Game

In the early days of PC games, just after the Earth cooled, there was a legendary strategy game known as Empire. The object of the game was to capture the opponent's cities, thereby conquering all of the territory owned by the opponent. In Empire, each city was capable of producing a different kind of military unit, from tanks to aircraft to battleships and transports so that armies could cross the oceans from one continent to the next.

Empire relied on a strategy familiar even to modern fans of real-time strategy game. The strategy is called a "tank rush." The actual term was probably coined around the time that the original Command and Conquer game was released. In Command and Conquer, the key to winning was simply to produce a massive clump of tanks and send it to the opposing base to hammer their buildings into non-buildings.

And so it was with early versions of Civilization. In the original Microprose PC game, developed by Sid Meier and released in 1991, the key advance was the automobile, because it allowed the production of armor (tanks) and allowed that player to construct a turn-based version of a tank rush. The end of a game of "Civ," as fans call it, was usually heralded by the arrival of enemy tanks near a particular player's cities, especially if they had not yet developed the automobile and could not defend their cities with similar units.

But Civilization had much more to offer than just one tank rush after another. Civilization added the ability to advance the production of technology from one discovery to the next. Players would start in the distant past, having only a few basics with which to construct their first cities. Unlike Empire, the goal of Civilization was to advance to the point where the player's cities could construct an interstellar spacecraft and land on a planet in another star system.

But it wasn't easy. The first advances available were very simple things like pottery, the alphabet and bronze working. By the careful balancing of trade, food production and scientific research, players could coax their small collection of cities along until more advanced discoveries became available. Some discoveries, like construction, would allow players to build aqueducts in their cities, increasing the population. Others, like navigation, would allow for the construction of ships that could cross oceans, much like the transports in the original Empire game.

This delicate balance is what gives Civilization all of its gameplay value. Computer games, like most other games, are essentially a series of interesting choices. In Civilization, the concept of the gameplay "choice" becomes an epic saga. Each game can have numerous opponents. Some are warlike and hostile, others are more interested in trade and diplomacy. How shall your civilization respond? the game asks. Do you pursue scientific knowledge at the expense of military defenses and hope your offers of discovery and knowledge will placate your aggressive neighbors? Or do you become aggressive yourself and crush your opponents before they do the same to you? Or do you take a more balanced approach, dividing your resources between defensive military units and a moderate advancement in science and technology?

Civilization provides players with the ability to make these choices on a turn to turn basis, and gives each player control of their nation down to the city and unit level, so that for example, coastal cities can concentrate on defense while inland cities can invest their incomes to pursue technological advancement.

With a sufficiently crafty opponent, Civilization is a game that is nearly impossible to conquer on a consistent basis. There are so many decisions that must be made and changed on a continuous basis that it takes an enormous investment of practice and knowledge about the game's rules in order to consistently improve the outcome of each game. There are great fans of this kind of game in general and Civilization in particular that are very happy to continue playing and trying to improve despite the fact they have failed to even once land their spaceship on another planet or conquer all of their opponent's cities.

Nevertheless, there are some general strategies that can be followed to help improve a player's position and strategy based on their opponent's strength, position and economic situation. There are also four different versions of Civilization, and although the original games remain among the great masterpieces of computer game design, most people will want strategies that will work with the two most recent versions of the game: Civilization III, which was released by Firaxis in 2001, and Civilization IV, released by Firaxis in 2005. Each game has had two expansions.

In the next part of this series, we will cover some of the best strategies for winning a game of Civilization, starting with basic exploration and building, then scientific advancement and finally military defense and conquests. It might take time and a little bit of effort to get better at Civilization, but the result is a far more rewarding and enjoyable game and who knows, with the entire recorded knowledge of human history at your fingertips, you might just learn something!