How did you get started playing Civilization?

[wtiberon]

I started when a friend left his Civ2 (for playstation) game at my house...I was bored one day and thought it might be like Risk or Axis & Allies that I loved playing so much...Soon I found my self drooling after damn near two straight days of non stop playing...I actually went out and bought a computer so I could buy the Civ2 multiplayer Gold...Anybody else?

 

[Chieftess]

It started in 1991 when I got my Creative Labs Sound Blaster/CD-ROM kit. There was a CD with Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, Silent Service, and some jet fighter game (F-14?).

 

[fret]

On the Commodore Amiga. It came on 4 floppies and when you started a new game it took about 20 minutes to 'build' the map/world.

While you were waiting you got this picture of the globe with a story about the 'founding of a new planet' blah blah flashing up above the world line by line.

It really p1ssed me off the amount of time it took to actually start a game but once the game had started I was hooked like a crackhead

 

[Chieftess]

The delay never bothered me... then again, it was when IBM 486s were just coming into the picture, and Pentiums were cutting edge things to come.

 

[sealman]

i got a free copy of the orginal shorlty after the release of civ 3. played it two times and went out and bought 3.

 

[Ronald]

I can't recall the exact year, it was in the second half of the 198x.
I have been playing civI, civII, SMAC, and finally civIII. civ is the only computer game which was able to keep my interest replaying it over and over and over and.......... again.

Ronald

 

[Gothmog]

This is a bit of a strange story, I have always been a gamer but my intro to civ well...

Back when I was a college student (the late 1980's) I was too poor to have a PC (well I had an apple 2+ but that was out of date even then). But my father had one. He was involved in a study of addiction (he is a psychiatrist) and had a copy of civ as an example of how a computer game can be highly addictive! I found out about it through my brother (who was still living at home), and played it one fine Chrismas holiday. I was hooked immediately (no pun intended).

 

[fret]

I was only 18 at the time and not earning too much, I had a crappy 386/16SX but it was only CGA and couldnt handle any decent games so I had to make do with the Amiga version,

Now you mention there was a delay on 486's as well I'm glad I never bought one specifically for Civ (and DooM).

 

[Kenric af Grashen]

when i was 12 my dad brought a new computer and we got Test of time free. i went out and brought civilization 2 for the playstation i have always been playing one civ game or another since then

 

[bewebste]

My brother and I were at CompUSA looking at games and came upon a bundle pack that included both Unreal Tournament and Civilization 2 (I guess CompUSA had excess inventory and was trying to get rid of them). The bundle actually cost less that Unreal Tournament by itself, but my brother already had a copy of Civ 2, so he decided to buy it anyway and give me the copy of Civ 2. I got hooked on it very easily and it was all downhill from there.

 

[Mojotronica]

Friend introduced me to Civ 1 back in 1992. Played the Babylonians on the Earth map at Chieftain level on his 386-16MHz PC, but was beaten by the accursed Russians. I didn't know what I was doing at all, but I was hooked. I bought a 486-25MHz PC later that year, and a copy of Civ, and have played it and it's sequels and rip-offs ever since. It's highly addictive, like crack for geeks... Slightly less devastating to one's social/school/working life though.

 

[Czarina]

Target had a CD only set of Civ 2 for $9.99, and I was bored with SimCity 3000, so...........one thing led to another, and now I'm debating (but will probaly purchase) PTW acquisition.

 

[alamo]

A friend had Civ2 and gave me a brief tutorial. He spoke grave warnings about a hypnotic trance that would consume the player, something about a dreaded 'one-more-turn' syndrome. I gave him my smile of deepest pity, oblivious to my peril.

 

[cgannon64]

I played Colonization, fell in love. I didn't play Civ for a while, but then I got Civ2, got back into it. Soon after. Civ2 came out, and here I am.

CG

 

[DaDoo]

I first saw my friend play civ1 at his house way back around 1990. I played it at his house for a few days and then convinced my parents to buy a computer for me(for school works, of course *cough*) and bought my own copy of civ1. Been hooked on it ever since. Civ1, civ2, RR, Colonization, SMAC, SMAX, and now Civ3...

Pirates was good too!

 

[JonathanValjean]

I first played the game back in the Spring of 1997 when one of my college buddies let me borrow Civ II. After three all-nighters of engrossing gaming with the most amazing game I had ever played, I deleted it and gave it back to him. I told him not to let me near it ever again while I was in college, for I had a GPA to protect. Well, I was able to stay away from Civ until the Spring of 2001 when I gave in and bought Civ II MPG for a mere $9.99. I spent my entire spring break week away from work playing the game. Realizing that if I continued to do so I would no longer have a job, I deleted it from my hard drive. There was a seed planted, however, when I was in the midst of that wonderful civ-filled week: I saw online that Civ III was to be released in the Fall of 2001! So, the very day it came out, I bought Civ III, but because I was overloaded with work, I knew better than to load it up and play it. So, eleven months passed, and finally, when my workload had become manageable, I decided that I would take the Civ III plunge. Wow! As good as Civ II was, I am even more mesmerized by Civ III (especially since I had the benefit of immediately patching it to 1.29f in order to avoid all of those bugs that plagued it at the time of its release). I spent an entire month playing the game nearly incessantly. During the past month and a half, I have been able to exercise greater self-control, thankfully. During my first month, however, I was totally obsessed with learning the nuances of the game and with at least winning on Regent level. Now, after playing for about 2 1/2 months, I'm ready to tackle Emperor level. After I have won at that level (hopefully I can do it), I plan to start participating in the GOTM. (Since some of the games there are at Deity level, I decided I'd save myself from some humiliation and at least win at Emperor first...) I suppose my post is getting quite lengthy and that I've gone away from the subject a bit. The bottom line is that Civ III is the best game I have ever played, and I'm loving every minute of it!

 

[Raijer]

I started when I got a promotion at work, moving me upstairs from the warehouse to a graphic arts position. Once I started working on computers, I thought it'd be cool to get a game, since I didn't have a computer at home to goof around on. Went to Frye's, and out of the pathetic selection they had for Mac games, there was one cool looking one for $9.99: Civ II. Things kind of snowballed from there...

 

[Silverflame]

My dad got it for me around March for pulling off another 4.0 GPA (no gloating intended). And thats about it.

 

[ssmith619]

He gave you CivII (or III?) for getting a 4.0 GPA. Okay, wait, wait, I know what comes next! You spend all night/day playing, your grades drop tremendously, and now you're on the streets whoring yourself so that you can buy time at an Internet cafe and play? I just knew it. ;-)

 

[wysiwygger]

my uncle bought civ2 for me because he had it at work. I hated it. I bought civ3 anyways and loved it.