Civilization

I feel that I've been rather neglecting Civ recently. I happened to find the original game a few days ago, and I'd forgotten what an inspired game it was. I don't think any other game can claim to span as long a time as 5000 years and still remain consistent throughout (if we ignore the occasional absurdity like villagers armed with hoes and pitchforks being able to defeat a legion of tanks.)

I was first introduced to the game when my dad got it for my tenth birthday, clearly so that he could play it himself. I hardly understood it at all at first, but after watching him playing it on his laptop when meant to be working (in fact, my manual remained at the RGU for about five years until I rediscovered it in a drawer while visiting) I eventually realised its greatness. It was also thanks to it that I was the only pupil in my school class to know what a trireme was and when the Hoover Dam was built - in 1000BC by the Greeks according to most of the games I played, seeing as I never really got off the easiest setting.

Jumping ahead a bit, Civ 3 confused me. They seemed to alter a lot of rules for no reason at all, and introduce absurdities like luxuries not being part of the tax rate but instead placed on the map. They also separated the Settlers unit into Workers and Settlers, meaning that my tactic of Build Outwards As Fast As Possible was severely hindered. Especially when moving them across a jungle, resulting in them all getting diseases and dying.

Civ 4 seems to be heading in the same direction if you ask me, with the whole thing just being overcomplicated with not only research and resources, but religion and special citizens as well. Ironically they claim that this results in a "faster, more streamlined game experience", but I don't think that this is what the game should be about - it's a game that you can turn on while half-asleep, stab an arrow key now and then, and suddenly realise that days have passed and you haven't eaten. I can't deny that it looks amazing, though.

The version of Civ that I have is "Civ 2: Test of Time", which I still believe to be the best of them as it hardly touches the classic rules but adds features such as a multiplayer mode - it's a mystery to me why no other Civ does this. The only trouble with it is that it seems to be the most bugged game ever. (Not including Fallout 2, of course - making halves of your car disappear when you reload the game will always be difficult to beat). The Notes and Cautions section of the readme is a hilarious read, and seriously, many of the comments in it wouldn't seem out of place in a computer science practical that had to be handed in in a rush. Two examples:

In the fantasy and Midgard Civilopedia, you'll notice several terrain types whose names we've prefixed with a "z". These are unused and duplicated terrains, and rather than have them mix in with the others, we've added to "z" to exile them to the end of the list. Please ignore these entries entirely.

Wouldn't preventing them from mixing in with the others be better accomplished by using the Delete key?

In the fantasy games, you might notice the Raganarok advance mysteriously appearing and disappearing from the Goblin or Stygian bodies of knowledge. Don't fret. It's being used by events as a flag and is only following instructions. The Ragnarok advance has no value whatsoever.

I'm rather at a loss to imagine why they decided to use a technology advance as a flag for other events. Even if it was absolutely necessary, it would have surely been easy enough to keep it hidden no matter whether it was there or not. In fact, given some sparesly documented source code, I'm fairly confident that I could go in and fix this myself within about four minutes.

Add this to the fact that a huge number of leftover files from the original version are present in the program folder, and it just looks a bit tatty. They even seem undecided about the name of the game - there are two very distinct logos on the box/manual and the game, and it's called "Civilization Conflicts" in some places and "Fantastic Worlds" in another.

Despite all that, though, dozy empire-building is sounding good at the moment. I may have to give up on writing this project report soon and spend a few days taking over the world again.