How was playing civilization on 1991?

[Theov]

I had no idea what the trade arrows meant.
I also had no clue about corruption.
So we just shipped caravans around for cash and built palaces everywhere because you could sell them for 200 gold.
We mostly just focused on military and exploration. But it was an immersive game that you could play and continue later. That was pretty new - that you could transform the whole game and then continue with your project.

 

[tupi]

We had a strange "patriotic" pirate translation here in Russia back then. Like, The Apollo Program was translated as Vostok Program and the Manhattan Project was renamed Kurchatov's Project. And Shaka was renamed Patrice Lumumba. At least I thought that Gagarin has more sense for "see all cities" gimmick.

 

[Blake00]

I have many memories of sneaking out on a highschool night to turn on my computer and play Civ1 back in the early to mid 90s. Got busted by mum a few times haha.

Also have fond memories of using the multiplayer Civ1 hack with friends for hotseat games in the late 90s. That actually brought us back to Civ1 from Civ2 for a while.

 

[Tancretus]

Had the game new back in 1991. Was only 8. Older brother was a d---, lost the manual. I had no idea of any functions, just guess work. I could win games up to Warlord but Prince and beyond was too hard. I only beat King in 2019 with the help of this forum. Eventually signed up!

Wasn't first DOS for me though, played Sorcerian ('90) which I still have to beat , but the maps are extremely convoluted and I lose interest, and then King's Bounty ('90) which I never beat Hard level until about a decade ago

KB's manual has a pretty nice story read, added more excitement for little old me! https://mocagh.org/nwc/kingsbounty-manual.pdf

By the way, you are in good company when you claim that the more recent games are more accessible. I'm at a loss as to why so many people say that.

Because they are easy. There's not a major game the last 20-25 years that's truly difficult. Starcraft? Halo? Quake? COD? Warcraft? Fallout? Blah.

Noting KB above, just try to beat the Impossible level (200 days). It's equivalent to Emperor for Civ, but I don't recall anyone succeeding Impossible on DOS.

I beat Halo 2 Invincible solo in a work week for example, so there's that.

Even today, when the hackers here have civ basically disassembled down to the core, we still don't know everything about it. And that's an almost 30-year-old game that fits on two floppies.

Fascinating isn't it?

I wonder why no one has gone back and given Civ I a facelift? They're pixel art, right? Can't a mod make it prettier?

I still enjoy the aesthetics, but that would be neat to have a facelift!

 

[BadAtUsernames]

Now many years later, i play civ1 on my Phone and i really enjoy it, as a time killer, while wating for apoinments or things like that.

How do you play it on your phone?? I've never tried the original Civ, I'd love to check it out.

 

[Gundus]

Some friend showed it to me in 1995 when I did military service. I didnt understand much even though he tried to explain several important details. So after a couple of test plays I set it aside and went to play Transport Tycoon and MarioKart instead. Fortunately I carried it home with me on a 3.5 floppy disk and when I picked it up again a year or two later things started to click and I think its a great game, neither too complex or too simple. None of the later Civ versions have attracted me at all, I remember disliking Civ 2 because of the 3-D view and units having a damage scale instead of simply winning or losing the battles.

 

[Theov]

Some friend showed it to me in 1995 when I did military service. I didnt understand much even though he tried to explain several important details. So after a couple of test plays I set it aside and went to play Transport Tycoon and MarioKart instead. Fortunately I carried it home with me on a 3.5 floppy disk and when I picked it up again a year or two later things started to click and I think its a great game, neither too complex or too simple. None of the later Civ versions have attracted me at all, I remember disliking Civ 2 because of the 3-D view and units having a damage scale instead of simply winning or losing the battles.

Civ3 is more similar to 1 than 2.

The other versions can not interest me either

 

[rhaul]

I don't know the exact reason but I never really liked the civ2. Perhaps one of them, is because the terrain is narrow and with too many lakes to found towns.

 

[Osvaldo Manso]

I first played Sid Meier's Civilization in the Fall of 1993.
I was in College and a friend of mine gave me the diskette but warned me to wait until the exams season ended before playing the game.
He was so damn right...

It took a while to get interested because the first couple of trys I wasn't understanding anything of what's going on.
My first breakthrough came after reading «175 Tips, Hints, and Tools for Ruling Your Civilization» (I can't recall how I discovered this guide).
The game got easier after reading this and since I used to play Chieftain level things started to work.
However I remember being hard to understand how to turn citizens into specialists (entertainers, tax men or scientists).
The guide and even game tips (Chieftain) told me to do it but I couldn't figure it out until one day I accidentally discovered (those were not the days of smartphones and touch panels and we were not used to just click everywhere).
I also remember building every single building available in my cities, so my expenses were huge and had to increase taxes many times.
It took me a while to know about Government types, Trade routes and this kind of advanced stuff.

 

[Osvaldo Manso]

It also took me a while to realize that the best defense (even if going peaceful) is to attack.
I just kept building defensive units like Phalanxes, fortifying them and then losing cities to Barbarians.
A major breakthrough happened when I found out that I could strike first from inside the city using a good ofensive unit like the Catapult.

 

[Theov]

It also took me a while to realize that the best defense (even if going peaceful) is to attack.
I just kept building defensive units like Phalanxes, fortifying them and then losing cities to Barbarians.
A major breakthrough happened when I found out that I could strike first from inside the city using a good offensive unit like the Catapult.

that's true all the way through Civ3.
In Civ3 the AI calculates your military strength by offensive power, not defensive. So building a bunch of offensive units will keep the AI from attacking.
Sometimes.
If you're lucky.