Just how did you get into the world of Civ?

[drake]

It was fate that landed me into the world of civ. I was going to buy a game for my dad's birthday. He likes RPGS and strategy games. So when I saw civ, I thought it sounded pretty cool. Build empires, armies, blah blah blah. I knew nothing of it before I saw it on the shelf. I knew my dad would like it, even though it didnt sound particularly exciting. So I got it for him. Well, as often happened, I tried it before I gave it to him (shame on me I know). And I had such a great time playing it!

Guess what? Dad got a different game for his birthday and I kept civ 2 for myself. Upon playing the game to death, he finally got his belated present. Soon after he was hooked too! Behold the power of civ..........

So how did everyone else get into civ? Word of mouth? Good review in a magazine? Just picked out at a store? How?

 

[Cimfindriel]

It was my first year of university that I
found out there was a meaning to life; why
we are here, our function in this chaotic
world. I remember clearly the silver streams
of tears that freely flowed down my face
when first I heard the battle cries of my
warriors fighting off a force of barbarians
threating to destroy my precious civilization.

I have but one person to thank for this and
it is due time. Agharta, my first year
roommate, thanks to you I have seen the
light and am walking the chosen path.

Our stories may be different, but our love
for this game is not. <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/smile.gif" border=0>

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<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/ninja1.gif" border=0>"Engarde you silly fool!
You are no match for my so fine
rapier!"

He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes.
- Chinese Proverb

[This message has been edited by Cimfindriel (edited March 08, 2001).]

 

[Kev]

I was given Civ2 as a present by my (now) Ex-girlfriend's mother. I had never heard of it and didn't have the heart to return it or anything like that.

About a year or so later - like '96 or '97 - I saw it as I was cleaning out my computer room and put it in the CD ROM drive. I had no idea what to expect as I somehow misplaced the instruction book, so I played the tutorial. That's all it took.

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Diplomacy - the art of
saying "Good Doggie"
until you can find a rock

 

[Håkan Eriksson]

Once upon a time I were buying a computer Magazine prenumeration and a game I never ever heard off called "civilization" came with it. And the rest is history.

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<IMG SRC="http://w1.316.telia.com/~u31613053/sign.gif" border=0>

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

The first time I heard the name of Civilization was 1982 or 83. I was into board wargaming back then, so I quickly got the board game. It was loads of fun, and quickly became a great favorite. Moving ahead a few years, to 1994, I was looking to add some games for my SNES. I always was into strategy games, so that was what I was looking at, when lo and behold, what do I see but a game called Civilization! I grabbed that baby and got home as fast as I could. I started playing without even reading the manual (and loving it!), and before you know it, 8 o'clock at nite became 3 o'clock in the mourning! I was hooked, big time. I finally broke down and got a PC in 99, and civ-2 quickly followed. So for me, this odessy is nearing 20 years!

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<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/blast.gif" border=0><FONT COLOR="blue">All knowledge begins with the Phrase: I don't know</FONT c><IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/ninja1.gif" border=0>

 

[Frederick the Great]

I first saw Civ in a review of the SNES version in Nintendo Power magazine. I bought it. Kind of boring, but that's where I started.

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Frederick II, The Great, King of Prussia
First Servant of the State<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/king.gif" border=0>

 

[julian barker]

I have a confession to make!!!!!!

I owned a copy of Civ for 5 years without playing it. I didn't even open the box.

Some time later I moved In with a mate who showed me the game. Instant addiction!

We had to set up a rota for who got access to the computer.

Saturday mornings were the worst. We ended up getting up earlier and earlier just to get into the chair first.

Civ is the ultimate drug.

 

[vladmir_illych_lenin]

Well, I was at my older and smarter friend's house and I saw that his screen was covered in armour. I messed around with the cheat menu, and when I got home, I downloaded Civ 1 from the internet. After the initial boom of Civ 1, I bought TOT, but it sucked, so I downloaded MGE off a warez site. I wanted the authentic thing, so I spent 40 bucks buying MGE from a store.

 

[madman]

Well, I got into civ because at the time computers were just becoming gaming machines (89). The 386 was the craze, and man was it fast, with my turbo boost on I was screaming at 25 MHZ. Well the game selection was Sim City, Railroad Tycoon and the likes. I liked building things up, all those games offered it but they were lacking in many areas. Well one day I'm in a local Babbages and there she is, Civilization. "Build an empire to stand the test of time". That was the original quote from the box I still have. Well I took the game home and like others was up til the wee hours of the morning learning how to conquer and what not. Well, that is the long story of why and how I got into civ, now I've pulled back a little, but still love to play the game.
"I have not yet begun to fight"



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madman

 

[Thunderfall]

I didn't know anything about Civilization before 1997. Soon after I got my first computer in summer of 1997, my brother went to the stores and bought 2 games: Civilization II and Heroes of Might and Magic II. The reason he picked them was because both game received many awards, such as Game of the Year at GameSpot or Best Strategy Game of the Year. They are indeed excellent games. I have been addicted to both Civ2 and HOMM ever since...

 

[Cedric Greene]

Back in either 1994 or 1995 (maybe '93 my memory is foggy) my uncle got a brand new 4x creative labs cd-rom drive and with it came a cd (of all Microprose games) with the games F117, Silent Service(or Scope? submarines anyway), Railroad Tycoon, and Civilization. F117 was pretty good (I still play it from time to time), I couldn't figure out where the enemies were in SS so I gave up on that and played a couple games of RT but didn't like it. Civ on the otherhand I liked from the start, I spent most of my weekends sleeping over my uncle's just to use his comp to play Civ. I then copied it to my best friend's comp when he got it and he fell in love as well. (Unfortunately the cd has disappeared and I do not have a copy of Civ 1 on my comp <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/frown.gif" border=0> though I did get Civnet in November from KB Toy Works for $9)When we (My friend and I) heard that Civ 2 was out we both took our allowances for the week (16y.o. at the time) and combined it and begged my mother to bring us to the mall so we could get it. He paid the tax so he got to keep the manual and poster while I got to keep the cd.
I then bought FW about 3 months after it came out for $20. Last month I finally upgraded to MGE for $8.99 + S&H. Also on a side note until I got Civ 2 I had no idea that the trade arrows had any relation to the light bulbs (science) or coins (tax), should've probably read through the manual <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/wink.gif" border=0>

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"I could give you that advance, but then I'd have to kill you." -CivNet chat macro

[This message has been edited by Cedric Greene (edited March 08, 2001).]

 

[SunTzu]

Well my friend first rented civ2 on SNES and he told me to come over and we played it for like 10hours strait each day on the weekends.
So i was like AWESOME! So i went to Wal-mart the next day and bought Civ2 Gold

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Civilization God of War & Economic Prosperity
http://www.civfanatics.com Staff and forum moderator

<IMG SRC="http://www.homestead.com/house_of_lux/files/suntzu1.gif" border=0>

Well, it must be close to the Armageddon. Lord, you know that I won’t fly by that lesson you taught me, to pull out my Wesson you brought me, and i’m not stressin’ it softly. Get ‘em up off me, ‘cause all we wanted harmony, been bombin’ ‘em. Yell up outta my ghetto, “I won’t settle,” get on my level.

 

[Loaf Warden]

Back in the very early '90s, when my whole family was sharing the same computer, I just kind of found the game. I don't have any idea where it came from--maybe it came with a CD-ROM or something?--but there it was. A CD containing two games from Microprose, "Mantis Experimental Fighter" and "Sid Meier's CIVILIZATION." So I tried it out for the heck of it. I never did try Mantis--still haven't, don't even know what it is--but Civilization sounded interesting. "Build An Empire To Stand The Test Of Time." How could I resist?

So I tried it out. Took me a while to figure out what was happening, but once I did . . . I was hooked. I played it all the time after that, and so did my sister. We both became major Civkies very quickly. We kept upgrading. First CivNet (not that great in and of itself, but we liked the multiplayer option once she got her own computer). Then Civ II. Blew us away. Then the scenarios. Then MGE. (Then TOT and CTP, the false Civ, but we didn't care for either.) And soon, Civ III, and whetever else may follow.

 

[Flatlander Fox]

I started playing AH's Civ in 1985 or '86. I was a big boardgamer back then and when my Dad got a 386 computer in the early 90's and brought home a few games, one of which was a threepack with Civ I, Pirates!, and Covert Action. I played it continously (along with Pirates!) for five years or so until one day in a bazaar in Tuzla, Bosnia Herzogovinia I saw a copy of Civ II classic. I still have that copy to this day. I bought the CD without owning a computer so I would put it on my computers at work (A big no-no) and "work late" so that I could play

. I even bought the Playstation version just so that I could get my Civ addiction. Now that I have my computer at home, I wonder how I keep my marriage together while I am vanquishing those cursed Mongols or Zulus. Somehow I manage

.

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It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at THAT man.

 

[Fry002]

hmmmm... well, i saw the review of civ1 in a gamers booklet. i found that i was interested in the game, so i bought it. i bought civnet, the multiplayer edition. later on, after playing the game, i got little bored of it, and wanted to try something simliar to it. so i bought civ2. i played the game for about 2 years. when i got the internet, i bought civ2 gold to play multiplayer. once civ3 comes out, don't be surpised to see the first person to buy it, me!

 

[willemvanoranje]

It was a sunny summer day, somewhere in 1996. I was 10/11 years old. We went to the 'Amsterdamse Poort' (a great mall) to buy Red Baron II. Then I saw it. It looked nice and it was very cheap. So my father bought it for my sister and me. After a few months playing, my dad saw on the internet that Civ II already exsisated. So I saved some money for about two months (you don't get much pocket money when you're ten) and I bought it. End of the story.

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Concordia res parvae cres****.

 

[shadowdale]

I really have no idea on how I got to play Civ!!! In my memory it has just always been there - I know that I got my first Civ2 game more or less as it came out, 10 years ago, on my Amiga 500 but how and when exactly I don't know.
Civ is just part of me, it always has been and always will be!!!!

Long live Civ!!!

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Veni Vidi Vici.

Coolbook:
Håkan Eriksson, Stormerne, vladmir_illych_lenin, Cunobelin Of Hippo, Woke23.

 

[Cimfindriel]

I know that I got my first Civ2 game more or less as it came out, 10 years ago, on my Amiga....

Hahaha....my friend had a Amiga. We were
making a 2D RPG like Dungeons and Dragons
for the Nes but we could never get the
screne to scroll. Well, I should say he
could never seem to get it working...I was
mostly involved in the creation of the bobs.
It was a lot of fun and I hadn't really
thought about it until you mention that old
system

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<IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/ninja1.gif" border=0>"Engarde you silly fool!
You are no match for my so fine
rapier!"

He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes.
- Chinese Proverb

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

I work with computers every day, but never bought one for my home until last year. For Father's day, my wife and kids basically said "Go get yourself a game for the computer."

Now I had played a few games on other people's computers and I liked the 1st person blow'em up games like Wolfenstein/Doom/Descent but never faired real well on games that relied on quick reactions and itchy trigger fingers.

But I remembered back when I was 14 (this was a LONG time ago), my sister and her then-husband (who worked for Hewlett Packard) let me computer-sit for their HP "desktop" computer while they went on vacation. It was about the size of a suitcase with a 3 or 4 inch (no kidding!) green-screen monitor built in. (This was also when I tought myself to program in BASIC). About the only game on it was a text-based game called "King". You were the King of an island and had to control things like taxes, money left for food, tourism, and industry to help your population grow. You had to worry about emigration (essentially unhappyness), revolts, starvation, and the like. I had a blast playing that game.

So when I heard about turn-based strategy games, they seemed like the same thing on a much larger scale - and no worry about "who can fire 17 rounds with a plasma cannon first." I looked into which one had the best reviews and went out to get my copy of Civ2 MPG.

I played a game on cheiftain, and won fairly easily, despite the fact that didn't know what I was doing. By the time I was done I had read one or two strategy guides and tried one more chieftain game to try things out: waging wars, different governments, different units, having a pet city, building a spaceship and so on. But I didn't finish that game before football season started. Once that happened I put civ aside for the better part of 4 months. Once football was done I got it back out and have been absolutely addicted ever since.


HEY LOOK! I'm finally a Phalanx!!!
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There are some who call me...Tim

[This message has been edited by TimTheEnchanter (edited March 09, 2001).]

 

[RedWolf]

Originally posted by Cedric Greene:
Back in either 1994 or 1995 (maybe '93 my memory is foggy) my uncle got a brand new 4x creative labs cd-rom drive and with it came a cd (of all Microprose games) with the games F117, Silent Service(or Scope? submarines anyway), Railroad Tycoon, and Civilization. F117 was pretty good (I still play it from time to time), I couldn't figure out where the enemies were in SS so I gave up on that and played a couple games of RT but didn't like it. Civ on the otherhand I liked from the start, I spent most of my weekends sleeping over my uncle's just to use his comp to play Civ. I then copied it to my best friend's comp when he got it and he fell in love as well. (Unfortunately the cd has disappeared and I do not have a copy of Civ 1 on my comp <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/frown.gif" border=0> though I did get Civnet in November from KB Toy Works for $9)When we (My friend and I) heard that Civ 2 was out we both took our allowances for the week (16y.o. at the time) and combined it and begged my mother to bring us to the mall so we could get it. He paid the tax so he got to keep the manual and poster while I got to keep the cd.
I then bought FW about 3 months after it came out for $20. Last month I finally upgraded to MGE for $8.99 + S&H. Also on a side note until I got Civ 2 I had no idea that the trade arrows had any relation to the light bulbs (science) or coins (tax), should've probably read through the manual <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/wink.gif" border=0>

Oh my god. That is EXACTLY how I got Civilization. My parents bought me that CD Drive kit for christmas (I was in grade 9)came with the cd drive, a sound card, speakers, and tons of obsolete games. One of those was a 3 game CD with Silent Service, Railroad Tycoon and F117.

I loaded up Civilization one day without having any idea what it was. The first thing I saw was a lone settler unit on small little green area. the rest of the screen was black. i said "What the hell is THIS crap? Next." And I turned it off and never touched it again.

One day when I was bored and needed a new game I reluctantly picked up the Civilization manual and skimemd through it. i had played Railroad tycoon (also by Sid Meir so i was thinking "if he made civ as well it can't be all bad") The more I read the more excited I became. This game sounded SO cool!

So i sat down to play one saturday.. I spent the entire day in front of my computer. I think I played as either the Russians or French.. not sure now. But it was the start of my fascination with the civilization series.

So when Civ II came out I think that i bought it probably the first month it was in stores.



[This message has been edited by RedWolf (edited March 09, 2001).]