pyromaster:
Civ is a game that spans all the elements in history & gives you the key to the throne so you can rewrite history. Basically you start with a tribe 3000 BC, and plant them in the soil to found your first village. You then work the land to build irrigation for city growth and roads for travel & commerce. At the same time you send out your punk warriors with their rags for clothes and crummy axe for a weapon to explore the land around you. Find something you like? Send a settler out from your village and build another village, link them by road, and share the wealth - your empire is starting to grow.
Now, in the meantime, you take a look at these loser warriors, and huts for a village and ponder what easy upgrades you could do that would drastically improve your empire - great! But you gotta research them! Invent the wheel, map making, writing, math, code of laws, gunpowder.....flight....space travel! There's nothing better then sending in Stealth Bombers to take out another races spearmen....heh.
Then there's the whole diplomacy thing where you meet your neighbors and hold either verbal exchanges for technologies, and later pacts & alliances, or physical exchanges resulting in cities falling...or burning!
Don't expect some silly war either - this one is based on real world events too. Invented gunpowder, but haven't any saltpeter within your borders? Neighbor won't trade you any?
To arms! We shall take it! Or maybe the mutual protection pact you were in drew you into a major war against the world's biggest superpower. How do you win? Take out their resources, if they haven't any oil, they can't make tanks!
You'll find it's a great game, one of the best ever - no doubt. In fact, Time magazine called Civ2 the greatest game ever made in the early 90's. The next time I saw them proclaim a new greatest game was when Civ3 came out. This is a game for the ages - you'll find just as many players over 40 as you will those in their teens. Whether you play the warmonger, diplomat, isolationist, or whatever - you won't be let down.
A new release is due out soon that is supposed to include Civ3 & both expansions in one set. If you choose not to wait, then you can buy Civ3 (in the vanilla box) and the expansion Conquests (which includes the previous expansion: Play the World), to save some money.
After that, jump in these forums and talk to people. You will not learn more anywhere else. The people here are very knowledgable & welcoming to others.
Ehh...just do me a favor, huh? You ever take over London...burrrrrn it!
