When did you first play Civ?

I got that pack when I bought my first real PC! Whatever happened to Elite?

 

1995 - during my second year at school. My grades dropped quite a bit that year.

 

I got it from a friend in 91 or 92. I remember his advice... don't discover Ceremonial Burial, because your people will want temples and become unhappy and riot. So I'd put that tech off as long as I could... to the severe detriment of the game. So I just kept making "Elvi" as we called them to appease the people.

When I saw there was a Civ II... I went and bought it very quickly.

 

I got it in 1991 on Amiga when it first came out, and I've been hooked to Civ ever since. I've recently found a PC version I'd forgotton I had, so I'm enjoying it all over again

 

1991 - the moment it came out in Germany. I already had waited for some months, having high expectations after playing Pirates! and Railroad Tycoon from Sid.
I got a first glimpse in a preview from a magazine which contained some EGA-screenshots of graphics that weren't used in the final game, e.g. the ruler in an throne room sitting on his throne in full figure, not just a bust like in the final version.

Arrgh, I still can't understand where this magazine went to!! I never saw these screenshots ever again in any preview or on the net. Does any of you have any sample shots?

I was so much impressed by the intro (remember the stone age man hurling rocks at the mammoth?) that it took me some weeks to shortcut it but rather watch it to the end. ;-)

In the first game I played the Germans (of course) on Earth map and was very astounded to find the Romans just four or five tiles south of my location. I expected a HUGE world. In the end of the game I tried to conquer a city defended by tanks with hordes of my riflemen and wondered why all my units lost ...

Until today, if I want a challenging game I choose on of the European civs on Earth map (English being the toughest). For some high scores I choose the Aztecs or Americans - only one competitor for the next 5000 years or so (if at all). Once he's conquered you get a whole continent to expand ...

 

I must have started with Civ I around 1991 or 1992. Moved to Civ II around 1995-96. And just recently tried out Civ III.

 

Me? I had the Super Nintendo Version, then got Civ 2. SMAC, and Civ 3.

I got the SNES Version as soon as it came it... gosh.. when was that.. 1994?I must've been Eight. Been hooked on Civ ever since...

 

in 1992, I was twelve, I bought my first computer(an amiga 500) and I traded a copy of civ for a copy of a good jump'n run I had. I had only played jump'n runs and stuff before, this was my first complex game. My very first civ1 game went something like that :
Civ : Rome, Level Chieftain, 4 Civs, Earth
- 4000BC ooh, I just built a city. cool. Now, what to produce...barracks sounds good, makes your military units stronger. What are these warrior thingies? Hm, doesn't matter, I'll build them later.
- 3750BC Oh! The Germans have contacted me! So that's what a warrior looks like. And you can move them, too! Ok, trade technologies.
-3700 BC Hey! You can't declare war on me, Germans! Oh, they just walked into Rome. Hm. "Insert Disc 3". Wonder what happened. Am I going to battle them now?
- "Jahrhunderte später entdecken..." - "Centuries later..." - game freezes, because Disc 3 was corrupt from the beginning. Only spaceship winning worked.
After figuring out that you have to defend a City with units, I got a lot farther the second game
I was hooked since, and in summer, I often only got out of my room for lunch, for the bathroom and for snacks...

 

My dad had a friend from work that had the game. I loved it when I first played it - and got addicted to it. That old version unfortunately was on a computer we gave away to a relative. But I still have Civ 2 and I got Civ 3 just recently.

 

@jediliz, you can play Civ1 on new comps too. Just use a DOS emulator like dos-box.

 

It was in 1992, and I was 20...

A friend of mine gave me a copy, but my computer could not run it (it was an XT).
So I started to go by night to the place where my mother worked by that time. ("borrowing" the keys)
I played on 286 only barely able to run it (had to learn how to optimise DOS memory space), and the opening sequence took ages.
"In the beginnings, the earth was void ...."
I played with all lights shuts, and minimal luminosity because I was not supposed to be there.
There even were people bringing pieces of furnitures once,
and I was sweating like mad hiding in a closet...

I never played on earth, and I quickly went to emperor.
I kept milking my games, making very high scores, but spending LOT of time.
(535% my max)

I've spent more hours on the civ games than on anything else,
And I'm playing CIVIII nowadays.

 

Way back in 1991. I did ok, except that I always irragated everything, and never liked to overlap city tiles much, or at all. I remember thinking, "Wow! Babylon's got super-high city sizes! -- probably size 40) when I was at size 8. Then there was when I switched governments just because I got one.

 

The first time I played Civnet was when I got my first PC back in 1996, it came on a CD with some other stuff.

It's still around here somewhere... aha! On it there was...

• Civnet
• Civilization 2 Demo
• IONA Demo
• Thinkin' Thinks 2
• Sammy's Science House
• Trudy's Time & Place House

Needless to say all I did for a year or so was play Civnet or the Civ2 Demo All that remains of that PC now is the FDD

 

IN 1995, I Played on Earth every time...nice....still like it today...

 

I started playing ti in 1991 when it was first released. My dad introduced it to me, after a guy he worked with gave it to him.

I can even begin to imagine how manyu hours of my you life I spent playing that game. during summer vacation, it was nothing for me to stay up until 5:00 am playing.


Ahh... the good ole days....

 

It was mid-1993. I was five years old. By the time I was seven, I was able to consistently crush the AI on Emperor level.

 

I suppose I started playing in 92 or so. My mom got me hooked. That was on an old 286. I can remember nights when my friends would be over, and we would take turns sleeping and playing... Ah, sweet nostalgia.

I lost my copy of Civ1 in a house fire, and was too busy to really look for any more versions. Then, one day, I happened upon a boxed set, for about $15, that included Civ1 & Colonization for both Dos and Windows. It even came in CD format! Needless to say, I bought it right away.

Shortly after, I found Civilization: Call to Power, but quickly lost interest. The lack of Sid Meyer influence couldn't hold my attention to that game. I also managed to find a cheap copy of CivII Gold and started playing that until one fateful day... I heard of the upcoming release of CivIII!!

The day it came out, I got the special edition of CivIII, of course. Now, I've got CivWin installed on a USB thumb drive so I can play it at every opportunity without ever leaving a trace. It's good for work... Not... that... I'm... reccommending such a thing... Ummm... Anyway, I play CivIII on my computer at home, but I almost have more fun playing CivI just for the sheer simplicity of it. Unlike others, though, I have not mastered the Emperor level of CivI yet. I'm still struggling to get better than 60% or so.

I've noticed, also, that nobody has mentioned Alpha Centauri. Now that is truly a wothy sequel/spinoff. Civ still reigns champion, but Alpha Centauri is definately worthy.

 

My friend was in the Naval reserve and was going away for 3 months. So, I begged him to borrow his SNES while he was gone. I got playing one of his games: Civilization from Koei (Who ported it to the SNES I guess). I was hooked!!! I played that game 16+ hours a day for almost the entire 3 months. I never left the house in that time (Was a welfare bum back then) except to buy some more food and drink. I'd go days without bathing. I would wake up and play the game until I couldn't stay awake another minute. I never slept more than 5 or 6 hours a night. I also went from the guy everyone called "toothpick" in highschool to gaining 80 pounds in that time. It wasn't good... although it was!!!

I got sick of the game though. All the computer "stupidities" really peeved me off back then. But now I am able to just kind of... let it go, when the computer pisses me off. Yeah, they are able to walk all over my developed land because they came off a naval transport. Yeah, their Bomber keeps taking my workers off that terrain and I have to keep replacing them.

I've said it before: The perfect Civ1 game would be Civ2 on the old and flat 2D map of Civ1. In Civ2 you can tell those pests to get off your land, plus so many of those AI stupidities would be gone forever.

 

I played Civ for the first time in 1993. It came with some software with my new 386 (or was it 286??). Anyway, I loved this game from the beginning and switched later to Civ2 and then to Civ3. Now I play C3C. A few days ago, I found my CivDOS disks again and I installed it. Tears started to roll down my face as i played for the first time in many years. This game is still impressive, now I understand what a breakthrough it was at the time. I'm looking forward to play Civ 4 next year!!