August 3, 2005

Civilization IV ramblings

So I write this Civ IV preview for a game column that can supposedly be "about anything," and only then do I find out it was supposed to be a review and so my rambling is pointless (I wrote a review of Psychonauts, which you should all buy right now). I'm posting it here in case anyone has cause to care. View the rest of the entry to read the article.

I can't wait for Civ IV, by the way. It looks fantastic.

"In the beginning, the Earth was without form, and void." That quote from Genesis, displayed on my Magnavox 386 accompanied by surging MIDI music and a majestic, 256-color depiction of the dawn of time, glued my eyes to the screen, because it meant another game of Civilization was about to begin. The game was unlike any computerized challenge my ten-year-old mind had yet encountered: an opportunity to create my own nation, choose its government and build its military, cities, buildings, roads and ships. At that age, of course, I was too cool to read user's manuals, so it took me about six months to figure out that one could actually move one's units out of the square in which one started, but even then it was entertaining to build the greatest city-state I could. And my eventual violent destruction was not so bad either, because the end of the game meant I could watch all of "history" over again.

Of course, strategy games have come a long way since Sid Meier completed Civilization. Westwood's Command & Conquer in 1995 ushered in a new era of adrenaline-pumping real-time gameplay. I was a terrible real-time strategy player, always too distracted by constructing cool buildings to realize that hordes of enemies were about to come stampeding across the horizon. So it was good that I had Civilization sequels to keep my gaming self-esteem intact. Each of them boasted improvements; Civilization II improved the graphics, while Civilization III tackled the terrain, resource and trade systems and introduced my favorite new concept, culture.

Recently the folks over at Mr. Meier's development company, Firaxis, have noticed me getting a bit too much sleep and have decided it's time to make Civilization IV. And again, big changes are a-coming. The most noticeable one will be an animated, zoomable map. There will also be a new religion option, which will allow civilizations to found holy cities and send out missionaries. Particularly exciting for former political science majors, the government system is up for a complete revamp. Instead of choosing a set option like democracy or communism, the player will be able to adjust five categories: Government, Legal, Labor, Economy, and Religion.

Yet it's the least complicated of the changes that has my inner ten-year-old most excited. The movies that accompanied the completion of Wonders of the World are set to return. The Wonders are taken from real human history, and include everything from the Pyramids and the Colossus of Rhodes (or Kyoto or Tenochititlan as the case may be) to the United Nations and the Manhattan Project. Somehow, it justified waiting sixty turns to see waves crashing up on the cliffs below the Great Lighthouse in Civilization II.

Civilization is unique in that it relies not on well-rendered flying organs or repetitive button-pushing but on detailed, complex planning for its gameplay. And it looks like this sequel will be just as enthralling and popular as its predecessors. It seems, in his pixellated 1991 innovation, Sid Meier truly has built a Civilization to stand the test of time.

Posted by b-applegate at 7:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack