Civilization

MMOs and Starcraft are killing Koreans left and right, but I think there is one highly overlooked game series which dwarfs these in their time-killing power.

Sid Meier’s Civilization

Let’s put aside the fact that Sid Meier is the gaming equivalent of the greasy bastard that invented free-basing and focus on the game for now.

I got my first copy from a friend of mine who handed it off to me in the same kind of burned-CD that I used in those glory days when I was unemployed and still in school. The game had been around for a while, but I hadn’t heard of it. It was a conversation about world conquest I think that sparked the idea of introducing me to the game.

On the disc was a copy of Civilization II Gold Edition and though it couldn’t hold a candle to the graphics of Star Craft or the pace of Half Life. Still I was engrossed. So the stacks of other burned games sat for a long time collecting dust as hours fell from the clock. To this day I feel sorry for some of that neglect…my poor copy of Baldur’s Gate II…

When Civ III came out I was exuberant, but was quickly disappointed as the controls were awkward and the game felt all around too slow. I didn’t care though, I still had Civ II…and I would install/uninstall it over the course of the first decade of the new millennium. I was happy with it, and when the fourth rendition of the game came out I was pretty indifferent. My sister picked it up and had a blast, but even the promise of hearing Leonard Nimoy announcing “I AM the state” was not enough to dissuade me.

But, where reason fails sometimes wallets prevail, and a few months ago Steam offered another one of their ridiculously cheap sales, and for what I think was around ten or fifteen bucks I got the Civ IV bundle with all the expansions. I tinkered with it and was impressed, but at the time and full knowledge of what kind of time-sink the game is, I had to break myself from it till I had the time.

Now…I have that time, and last week I re-installed it. I am LOVING it. There is the thrill of marching hapless units to their deaths in a pointless attempt to take a city for the sole purpose of personal amusement. There is the Machiavellian joy of watching your enemies slowly fold and convert as your cultural influence consumes their cities. And the melancholy of having a city brought low by plague (How was I supposed to know I had to build a fucking Aqueduct!)

I regularly jump on for five minutes and spend two or three hours on the game.