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- Losing Hours to Civilization
I lost two hours of time yesterday to Civilization. That in itself is probably no big surprise. Expected? Maybe not. Did I have other things to do or wanted to do that those two hours would have been perfect for? Maybe.
But still I played over two hours of one of the finest strategy games ever made. Some keen people who are aware of my retro leanings when it comes to games might have noticed that I didn’t say which number Civilization I had played. That’s because it’s the first one - No number in that title, just “Sid Meier’s Civilization”.
The Civilization of today still has what the 1991 strategy game invented. That “One More Turn” gameplay that I’m going to say right now is addictive. It isn’t as costly as spamming the “Spin” button on the fruit machine but you keep going and going and going, until you can’t go no more because you’ve spent hours going through turns building a wonder at the expense of any defense - game over.
It’s crazy to think that the earliest prototypes of this game wasn’t that turn-based flow at all, but real-time strategy. Sid Meier worked on Civ 1 between projects like Covert Action, the also well received Railroad Tycoon and becoming a father. What we think of the game now and what it became was very different to how it started.
But like most project ideas, once they have time to breathe and can flesh out a bit we end up with a burgeoning and ever evolving canvas that is your new frontier to enjoy as the player. To call it simple compared to modern versions of the game and the genre it helped define would be… well, too simple. Think of Civilization as a base sauce. The things around it become more complex, add nuances of flavour and give new ways to excite the palate but the base is throughout it all and it’s here in its purest form.
I start this particular journey as the Babylonians. Immediately purging all notion of Boney M from my head, I forge on as Hammurabi, on an island that I hope is my own… it is not.
After founding Babylon and with a settler out to found the second city of Sumer, I am presented with an emissary of Frederick the Great and the empire of Germany. A peace is forged with a knowledge exchange but I know it won’t be for long. They will keep coming and I want this island to myself. Therefore I founded Sumer right next to the newly discovered Leipzig.
The Germans almost didn’t make it into Civilization. They were replaced until the very last minute by the Turks, even past some of the manual printing deadlines. Their inclusion was a point Sid Meier mentions in his memoir, highlighting that to leave the Germans out would have felt like “a blend of cowardice and censorship,“ (Meier, 122) and that Frederick was a great leader, lost in the history books behind more notorious 20th Century leaders of what was once a great European power.
Back in the game, I want this continent for myself. The Germans keep empty threats coming when I refuse to share more knowledge. The Babylonians are not naturally combative. I am, however, and I attack the Germans. Leipzig crumbles instantly. Berlin doesn’t just fall, it is destroyed. Phalanx’s take all.
Leipzig doesn’t feel very Babylonian. So I renamed the town… Cleavertown. I couldn’t be bothered to research it. Besides, I have now realised I’ve been playing a game I intended to just try out for a few minutes for nearly 90.
The Germans survive thanks to Hamburg being hidden from my view for another half hour. No sooner are they gone do the barbarians start landing. Followed by the Aztecs. The Hanging Gardens are being built among civil unrest. And the delicate balancing act of musketmen being fortified to keep order or to repel invaders to my Babylonian landmass, now 7 cities strong, is beginning to stretch my treasury. But my people love me and my pixel art palace is growing to be opulent and glorious. Just like their King (formerly Emperor).
Stories like this aren’t uncommon. In fact you will probably hear or have heard many of the same. That’s some of the magic of the Civilization formula - you own the narrative and it becomes such an integral part of the experience. It’s a part of that base sauce. So much so that 32 years later they are not only still being told across 5 other iterations of the game, but are still being created.
By the time I got my first PC, Civ was already an “old” game. I’d already enjoyed my time with it in passing although too young really to dedicate my mind to it. I had better things to do like running around a playground pretending to be an F1 car. By 1996 I was enjoying Civilization II at home.
But at that point I was in secondary school (high school) and a friend and myself discovered our humanities teacher’s secret in his office. A 386 PC for the express purpose of playing Civilization 1. Which we loved and he was more than happy to indulge us between lessons. After all, it was “educational”.
And here we are. A few hours into 2023 and I’m back to losing those new important hours of the new year and the new me, and all that stuff that everyone promises themselves, into a 32 year old game.
And it feels like returning to an old friend. So does Civilization VI. So does Alpha Centauri. Sometimes something is just so right the first time, you don’t need to change it and anything you add to it just makes the experience have added value. And that’s why a 32 year old game feels and plays the same as a 2016 game with all the trimmings.
Maybe that’s a new year lesson in itself, to bring this to a conclusion. Sometimes new isn’t necessarily better. But realising what already exists and has existed throughout is the best thing. Rediscovery over reinvention, with all the benefit of knowledge and all the added value experiences to build upon.
Do what makes you happy or tremble before Montezuma. Even if it is losing nearly 3 hours of a new year to an old strategy game from 1991. Happy new year!
1) P122 Meier, Sid. Sid Meier's Memoir! A Life in Computer Games. WW Norton, 2020. (