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There are some sick people out there, kids. And it’s all the fault of your computer. I know that is a pretty stupid thing to say, just like saying that listening to creaky old metal bands turns you into a foaming Satanist, but I reckon it could be true.

A certain type of game has arisen that stirs up some very unpleasant emotions in us human beings, and it encourages us to indulge these feelings. It tells us that it is right to be cruel, power-crazed maniacs, and that it is the only way to win. It is the "God game", and by Jiminy, here is the biggest so far.

There are a small minority out there in Amigaland. A wandering band of nomads. They are the ones who felt that Powermonger didn’t give them enough power, that Populous 2 left them with an appetite for more, Mega-lo-mania wasn’t mega enough, and that Sim City just didn’t kick butt.
Civilisation is a game written just for them. Sickos that they are. The scope of this game is pretty uncanny. Just create a civilisation. That is all you have to do. Build towns, develop society, and basically advance your civilisation from the Stone Age right into the future. Tsk, is that all?

You start with just one unit - some settlers to be exact. You know nothing about your surroundings, your fellow civilisations, or even what is going to happen. Use the settlers to wander around the map to begin with, revealing the landscape as they go. Any unexplored land is shown as black, but as you traverse it reveals itself. Clever, eh?
Once you have explored as far as you can, tell the settlers to, well, settle and they will found their very first city. Name the city, and then you can get on with building stuff. Military units perhaps, or if you fancy a peaceful existence, start to build the essentials for a comfortable existence.

To begin with, things will be pretty basic, but by instructing your scholars to work on certain skills, you can advance as a civilisation. For instance, if they discover bronze working, you start to build better weapons, if they discover navigation you can build ships to explore the rest of the planet. On the other hand, you can work on the social aspects, by developing different ways of thinking – communism, the republic monarchy and so on – and learning how to build libraries and universities.

Help your cities thrive and grow, keep ahead of your neighbours by constantly developing new sciences, and most of all surround your towns with plenty of hefty military units.
You see, you are certainly not alone in this game. There are the other civilisations for a start. Before you begin playing, you can set how many others there will be, but if one civilisation gets wiped out then another rises in its place. That way, there will always be the set number of civilisations. Thanks a bunch. And on top of all that, you will probably have run-ins with barbarians.
They tend to be a bit hard, but unlike you they cannot develop new weapons as quickly or found cities. So you can soon kick their hairy heads in.

Make friends with other leaders, declare wars on others, exchange or steal ideas, build a bigger and better civilisation until the game ends. This happens in one of three instances. Your civilisation being crushed is the most obvious (and most frequent), or maybe you could crush all the others (highly unlikely and very violent). The third way to end the game is the most intriguing and one that shows you just how much depth Civilisation has. The first civilisation to master space travel and to reach Alpha Centauri is automatically declared the supreme Big Cheese. Space travel? Yes! Apparently, if you can get your civilisation brainy enough you can conquer the stars. Yowsers.

So that, in a very edited form, is the idea behind the game. But, I hear you cry, “What is it like to play, Uncle Daniel?”. It is very good indeed.
Admittedly, it looks crap and there is no animation to speak of, and it is pretty slow moving to start with, and there is a hell of a lot of information to digest. But once you start playing, I guarantee you will be hooked. The game has been cleverly designed, so it is almost impossible to turn it off.
All the time, there is something in the pipeline, you start telling yourself “I will turn it off when I have developed Alphabet” and then it is “Ooh, I will wait until I have finished this boat” and then “I will just have a look around this island” and, well you get the idea.
In fact, you are lucky to be reading this review at all. Every time I started playing I ended up losing half a day to the flippin’ thing. It is addictive. Dangerously addictive, in fact.
It is not helped by the fact that the game looks really dull. “1985 strategy game” is what the graphics bellow. If any of your mates see you playing this they will think you have cracked up. Only when they decide to have a go themselves they will see the folly of their ways.
I am a sucker for games that let you do whatever you feel like dong. And that is why Civilisation is currently occupying my every waking hour.
Ever wondered what would happen if America was a Communist state? Or if England was invaded by Zulus? Or if the Chinese invented nuclear weapons in the Middle Ages? Well, this game lets you find out. It is a bit like Mega-lo-mania meets Sim City via Populous Avenue.
The PC version wangled loads of awards last year, and quite rightly so. I hesitate to wander so far into the realms of cliché, but every game of Civilisation I have played has been completely different.

The only downers are the over-long intro that cannot be skipped, and the spooky way that you cannot move from one space adjacent to an enemy city to another adjacent space. Still, an essential purchase for any self-respecting fan of strategy games. More depth than Oliver Reed’s wine cellar.
Daniel

Title Civilization
Publisher Microprose (1991)
Game Type Management Sim
Players 1
HD Installable Yes (CD version also available)
Compatibility All Amigas (AGA and ECS versions available)
Game data/utils numerous speedup and save-game editors - search aminet for 'civ'
Submission Dennis Smith Profiled Reviewer

Review
Sid Meier's classic turn-based strategy game hardly needs an introduction.
This game of world domination is one of the best computer games ever
written, and it's impossible to explain exactly why - if you don't already
have it the best way to find out why is to go out and buy it now. The game
takes place from the humble beginnings of your civilisation as a wandering
tribe in 4000BC to your bustling cities of the present day - if you make it
that far (unless of course you are good enough to complete the game before
then). As you progress, you expand your tribe, build more cities, build
armies, explore and conquer the world. You can choose to play on an
Earth-like map or on a randomly generated one - the latter giving Civ more
long-lasting appeal, as exploring new territory is one of the great joys of
the game.

You come into contact with other tribes, other civilisations, and how you
deal with them affects how they behave towards you - if you are submissive,
they may be peaceful for now - but don't trust them for a minute! If you're
more belligerent, they may be cowed into submission themselves, or you may
find yourself at war. Too much arrogance can lead to you being at war on
several fronts, so a little peace is often a good thing, though the game
does seem to reward a more aggressive attitude. There are two ways to win -
either by total world domination or by being the first civilisation to
spread out to the stars in an end-game space-race. The latter is the easier
way to end the game, though as the years tick by it's a race against the
clock as well as your opponents (scoring ends at a year determined by the
difficulty level); out-and-out war is more difficult and depends more on
luck but allows you to win earlier in your civilisation's time-line,
bringing many more points than you'll ever earn from the space-race. If you
think you can invent nuclear arms before the end of the sixteenth century
you could stand a pretty good chance!

The only problem with the Amiga version of the game is that it is very
slow. There are patches which speed up screen update but even so it crawls
compared to the game on even a basic PC. Fortunately, being turn-based
strategy, it's easy to forget this when you really get into the game. A
little patience brings considerable reward. This is a top-class game -
unless you really have no time for 'thinking' games, you must have this in
your collection.