Study The Past - a series retrospective

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: We all have differing tastes in Civ Versions. Please keep this thread about Studying The Past and not turn it into arguing over what your favorite version of Civ is and why.

 

[Plotinus]

- Espionage with spy units

Civ I had that!

Really, the more I think about the Civ series (and bearing in mind I’ve only played I and III), the more I appreciate how truly groundbreaking and genre-defining the original game itself was.

 

[Leyrann]

Civ I had that!

Really, the more I think about the Civ series (and bearing in mind I’ve only played I and III), the more I appreciate how truly groundbreaking and genre-defining the original game itself was.

That does make me wonder... are there any turn-based strategy games, as in games that are clearly part of the genre, which predate Civilization I?

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

That does make me wonder... are there any turn-based strategy games, as in games that are clearly part of the genre, which predate Civilization I?

The original Civilization board game, which inspired Sid, was one. Lots of other tabletop board games from SPI, Avalon Hill, etc. from the late 1960s onwards would qualify as turn-based strategy games, too. Computer-based games, I'm not sure.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

The original Civilization board game, which inspired Sid, was one. Lots of other tabletop board games from SPI, Avalon Hill, etc. from the late 1960s onwards would qualify as turn-based strategy games, too. Computer-based games, I'm not sure.

What made Civilization the computer game unique was that it wasn't 'just' a Strategy Game, it was a Grand Strategy - Build Your Empire and Government and Industrial Base as well as Build Your Army/Military game. The earlier board games were all much more specific to individual wars/campaigns, like Tactics II, Afrika Korps or Waterloo, or they were strategy-only games like Blitzkrieg and Strategy I which only modeled building your military and deploying it.

I played a lot of board games from 1961 to 1985, roughly, and don't remember any that tried to simulate/model all the aspects of building a civilization, including religion, culture, government, military, etc until Civilization the board game came out in 1980 (in the US) and Advanced Civilization in 1991. Played the heck out of those, then dropped pretty much all board games when Civ II came out on the Mac and hooked me.

The earliest 4X computer/video game with military, economic and 'civ-building' elements that I have heard of was Reach For the Stars, which came out for the Apple II in 1985, but I only saw ads for it but never bought or played it, so can't say if it was a real "Civ Predecessor" or not.

 

[reddishrecue]

Civ I had that!

Really, the more I think about the Civ series (and bearing in mind I’ve only played I and III), the more I appreciate how truly groundbreaking and genre-defining the original game itself was.

Ahh... you mean the diplomat? Yeah that was quite a unit.

 

[GeneralZift]

Yeah except for
-global happiness
---the penalty when it drops below zero
---arbitrary limitation per city
---'fill a bucket' golden ages
---extra penalty for cities
-increasing science and civic costs per city built
-national wonders that can only be built if you completely freeze your expansion until you've developed all your cities sufficiently
---oh yeah and as a bonus their production costs also scale per city
-connections to the capital grant gold, so surely building roads is a good idea to boost your finances, right? Nope, roads cost gold to maintain, screw you!
-building improvements is incredibly one-dimensional, as there is no competition for tiles at all, unlike in either Civ IV or Civ VI
-the social policy trees are wildly imbalanced in favor of 4-city gameplay and no expansion beyond that
-and I could keep going for another 15 minutes but if I were to do that I'd be late for an appointment, so I'll stop here.

Half of your complaints are explicit "anti city spam" "anti super wide" mechanics

Look what happened when they took them out: Civ6 wide is the only way to play.
You need some anti wide mechanics in Civ or you will be doomed for eternal city spam.

That covers like 80% of your complaints.
You can argue Civ5 overdid it - I would agree.

By the way, connecting your Cities via city connection provides far more money than the Roads cost by Upkeep. So it's always worth it.





EDIT: I wrote and posted this post before seeing Moderator Action!!

 

[Leyrann]

EDIT: I wrote and posted this post before seeing Moderator Action!!

Whoops, and I almost replied, having forgotten about the moderator action.

I've got a bunch of other, unrelated-to-tall complaints about the game as well, but I won't list them here to respect it.

Anyway, interesting to learn that Civilization was ground-breaking in terms of establishing a genre as well. Looking forward to seeing what's coming next.

 

[bbbt]

That does make me wonder... are there any turn-based strategy games, as in games that are clearly part of the genre, which predate Civilization I?

The text based game Hammurabi was probably the original in terms of something like economic management.

M.U.L.E and Seven Cities of Gold both have a lot of elements. Interestingly, the designer of those games was originally thinking of adapting the Civilization board game.

 

[Spoonwood]

Civ I had that!

Really, the more I think about the Civ series (and bearing in mind I’ve only played I and III), the more I appreciate how truly groundbreaking and genre-defining the original game itself was.

I remembered civ II having espionage with spies also (nuclear weapons). But now I remember bribing cities with diplomats in civ I also.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

The text based game Hammurabi was probably the original in terms of something like economic management.

M.U.L.E and Seven Cities of Gold both have a lot of elements. Interestingly, the designer of those games was originally thinking of adapting the Civilization board game.

Oh, wow! I had almost forgotten about Hammurabi! (Damn rats.)

 

[AriochIV]

That does make me wonder... are there any turn-based strategy games, as in games that are clearly part of the genre, which predate Civilization I?

Whether you consider it in the same genre is open to debate, but the basic format of the turn-based game of overhead map with cities producing units was first (to my knowledge) pioneered by Empire in 1977. It didn't have technology or diplomacy or model population, but in terms of the unit mechanics you'd easily recognize Civilization's roots here. Originally written in FORTRAN for minicomputers, it was ported to DOS in 1984 and got a graphical overhaul in 1987.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1812891635254194684

Civ V. I will update the OP later

Mentions leaders speaking their native language (approximately)
Hexes
Great Works and Archeology
Trade Agreements with England (they've really latched on to this meme)

Does not mention 1UPT or city-states. I'm surprised about that. City-states are one of the best features introduced by Civ V, in my opinion.

 

[BackseatTyrant]

Weird that they didn't point out that great works & archaeology weren't implemented until 2013. Or that this was the game where city states were introduced

 

[OzzyKP]

Weird that they didn't point out that great works & archaeology weren't implemented until 2013. Or that this was the game where city states were introduced

Or one unit per tile.

But then again, there were lots of new concepts introduced, they can't feature them all.

 

[GeneralZift]

1UPT isn't the most marketable feature. It isn't like the trailer would say "2010: the arrival of more restrictions on the map"

I wouldn't say that means it's not coming back. I have an inkling it will. City states be missing is very interesting though

 

[Xandinho]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1812891635254194684

Civ V. I will update the OP later

Mentions leaders speaking their native language (approximately)
Hexes
Great Works and Archeology
Trade Agreements with England (they've really latched on to this meme)

Does not mention 1UPT or city-states. I'm surprised about that. City-states are one of the best features introduced by Civ V, in my opinion.

Natural wonders were also not mentioned, which was a great inclusion.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

1UPT isn't the most marketable feature. It isn't like the trailer would say "2010: the arrival of more restrictions on the map"

I wouldn't say that means it's not coming back. I have an inkling it will.

I think 90% of it is just them trying to avoid having their social media accounts inundated with "1UPT sux" messages

 

[Leyrann]

I gotta say, both with Natural Wonders and City States I find the implementation in Civ V rather poor compared to the one in Civ VI. I like them both a lot, but they're not an argument for me to play Civ V instead of Civ IV or something like that, if I'm not in a Civ VI mood.

Also, a thought I had: Could this be a very sneaky way of revealing the leaders early by featuring all the ones that are in the Civ VII base game in a manner that would make people overlook it?

Probably not but it might be worth making a list anyway...

 

[BackseatTyrant]

1UPT isn't the most marketable feature. It isn't like the trailer would say "2010: the arrival of more restrictions on the map"

I remember quite a lot of people liking this particular switch, as it "made the combat less of a numbers game and integrated navigation into the strategy" and I honestly kind of agree. Again, the problem was way too often, there just wasn't enough room to navigate in.

But yeah, the marketing team probably didn't want to bring up the most controversial topic within the civ fandom for these videos