Sid Meier's Civilization

Custom world settings on average, 7 civilizations, played on Russia, difficulty chieftain, won by space race (1804 AD) and annihilation victory (1770 AD), MT-32 sound emulation.

The first Civilization game released in 1991 launched the relevant age for 4X turn-based strategy games. Civ pioneered many new ideas to be reimplemented and improved later on in other strategy games. Civ is also one of the few and possibly the oldest TBS franchise still developed today.

Easiest difficulty level was chosen for several reasons. I wanted to show as much of the game as possible, while not taking forever to do so. The game has a limited number of turns after which the game ends. On easier difficulty levels there are more turns to spend and at the same time research is faster etc. This makes it possible to get to the end of research tree and begin building the spaceship required for space race victory faster. I also show the annihilation victory, build a large spaceship and create a decent enough apocalypse with nuclear weapons, before launching to Alpha Centauri. While all this is probably not possible to achieve on highest difficulty levels because of the handicaps, might be be doable on average difficulty. That would've dragged the game on longer without affecting the challenge much. Computer opponents are not difficult to dominate even on hardest difficulty and I often find myself quitting because of poor challenge.

Combat is not the strongest aspect of this game. It is primitive compared to the sequels and other games that followed Civ such as Master of Magic and Alpha Centauri. For example nine armored vehicles can be destroyed by one lucky hit from a single knight. Civ 1 has a decent number of different units, but unit abilities are very limited. Usually players probably skip over many unit types to research and build higher strength units for a huge advantage. IMO the most fun part of the game is exploring, colonizing and deciding research paths. Terrain improvement construction and city build menu are essential parts of the game micro and take a lot of time to manage. It's fun at the beginning, but gets very repetitive after a while, because there are not that many different improvements to build.

Civ 1 can still be fun to revisit for a while, but is outdated by the sequels and other TBS games that feature improved graphics, expanded ideas and refined gameplay mechanics.

After exhausting research it is possible to start researching "future technology". This gives points, but does not lead to anything. New civilizations spawn on the map, had to defeat 11 for annihilation victory. Best way to get a good score at the end would be to go for annihilation victory on highest difficulty.


00:04:36 Game begins
00:07:14 The Germans
00:25:00 Assimilation of the Germans
00:35:37 Naval exploration begins
01:05:59 The Egyptians
01:25:58 The English
01:34:15 The Mongols
02:08:36 Sneak attack by Egyptians forces!
02:18:12 Invasion of England
02:28:22 2nd sneak attack by Egyptians forces!
02:29:40 The French
02:41:44 Invasion of Mongolia
03:08:05 Invasion of Babylon and America
03:09:40 Space ship construction begins
03:31:58 The Greeks
04:00:14 The Indians
04:04:04 Nuclear war and invasion of Egypt
04:31:23 Space ship launch followed by construction of wonders and late tech structures
04:33:13 Space race ending
04:34:53 Replay
04:36:26 Annihilation ending