{"id":62849,"date":"2018-11-16T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2018\/11\/feature_the_history_of_the_civilization_series"},"modified":"2018-11-16T18:30:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T18:30:00","slug":"feature-the-history-of-the-civilization-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/11\/16\/feature-the-history-of-the-civilization-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Feature: The History Of The Civilization Series"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/37fa690ceec1f\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/37fa690ceec1f\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<aside class=\"picture strip\">\n<div class=\"img\"><a title=\"Civilization VI - Nintendo Switch\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/37fa690ceec1f\/civilization-vi-nintendo-switch.original.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/37fa690ceec1f\/civilization-vi-nintendo-switch.900x.jpg\" alt=\"Civilization VI - Nintendo Switch\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>It\u2019s four minutes \u2018til bedtime and you\u2019ve got work\/class in the morning \u2013 time for <em>one<\/em> more race, <em>one<\/em> more round, <em>one<\/em> more turn. We\u2019ve all been there. Before you know it, forty-five minutes have slipped by and your self-imposed time limit has come and gone. And the next, and the next. What\u2019s that strange light bleaching the monitor? Oh, it\u2019s <em>the sun<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>If there\u2019s one series which encapsulates this perilous cycle above all others, it\u2019s got to be <strong>Civilization<\/strong>; the strategy franchise which made \u2018one more turn\u2019 a marketing hashtag. With <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/sid_meiers_civilization_vi\">Sid Meier&#8217;s Civilization VI<\/a><\/strong> arriving on Switch \u2013 the first <em>mainline<\/em> entry to come to a handheld console or Nintendo home platform for <em>twenty-three years<\/em> \u2013 what better time to look back at gaming\u2019s ultimate time-sink?<\/p>\n<h3>The Dawn of <strong>Civilization<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Tired of designing flight sims, MicroProse co-founder Sid Meier decided to branch out when he began programming the original game on IBM PC. Teamed with Bruce Shelley, veteran board game designer, he incorporated ideas from classic turn-based wargame <strong>Empire<\/strong>, mixing elements from <strong>Risk<\/strong> and the burgeoning genre of simulation and god games exemplified by <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/snes\/simcity\">SimCity<\/a><\/strong> and <strong>Populous<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>His previous title, <strong>Railroad Tycoon<\/strong>, showed that players enjoyed building and managing multiple systems at once, and history textbooks provided a natural template for technological growth through the ages. Starting on a randomised land mass in 4000BC, time would move on every turn and your society would develop according to progress unlocked on a tech tree \u2013 advancing from the humble wheel to the rocket. With enough time and careful strategy, endgame victory comes by beating other civilisations, either through conquest or winning the space-race and launching humanity gloriously into the final frontier.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture strip\">\n<div class=\"img\"><a title=\"The dawn of Civilization\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/5c9e35c84c2ee\/the-dawn-of-civilization.original.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/5c9e35c84c2ee\/the-dawn-of-civilization.900x.jpg\" alt=\"The dawn of Civilization\" \/><\/a><span class=\"image-credit\" title=\"Image Credit\">\u00a9 MicroProse<\/span><\/div>\n<p>The dawn of Civilization<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Released in 1991, <strong>Sid Meier\u2019s Civilization<\/strong> (or plain old <em>Civ<\/em>) became the defining game of the 4X genre (e<strong>X<\/strong>plore, e<strong>X<\/strong>pand, e<strong>X<\/strong>ploit and e<strong>X<\/strong>terminate), and players quickly discovered it can be your best friend and worst enemy all at once. Randomised elements make every game unique and it\u2019s easy to lose yourself founding settlements, farming resources, negotiating with historical figures \u2013 using the pen or sword as necessary \u2013 and micro-managing your territories. Real-world days fly by and you feel you\u2019ve barely scratched the surface.<\/p>\n<p>Meier acknowledges the obsessive behaviour his most famous work inspires. \u201cWe knew this was more fun than other games, and it wasn\u2019t really <em>fun<\/em>; there was a compulsion about it that transcended <em>fun<\/em>,\u201d he commented <a class=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.designer-notes.com\/?p=1226\">in a conversation with Soren Johnson<\/a>, lead designer on <strong>Civilization IV<\/strong>. \u201cYour brain is full, I think, when you play Civ [\u2026] There\u2019s no room for real life!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A port found its way to Super Nintendo in 1995, published by Koei. Looking back now, its slow pace and barrage of menus make it a tough recommendation over, well, <em>any<\/em> other version (although masochists feel free to track down the N-Gage port), but the core remains. It\u2019s rudimentary and cumbersome, but it\u2019s Civ on a SNES.<\/p>\n<h3>Stay on the Right Side Of Gandhi<\/h3>\n<p>The original\u2019s success led to <strong>CivNet<\/strong> in 1995, a multiplayer version allowing competitive play over the then-new-fangled world-wide-web, with a sequel proper arriving the following year. <strong>Civ 2<\/strong> offered refinement, developing areas of trade and diplomacy and shifting from a top-down perspective to a fancy isometric view. Meier briefly flirted with tactical combat for battles but abandoned the idea. Players could consult High Council advisors \u2013 actors who\u2019d reappear in each era with costume changes, addressing the camera and bickering with one another.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fLrdQKwznsk\">These amusing videos<\/a> clips didn\u2019t survive into subsequent entries, but comedy has always played a part in the franchise\u2019s appeal. Civ embraces incongruity, recognising the fun in anachronistic spats between Ramesses and Abe Lincoln, throwing inexplicably immortal leaders together with schoolboy abandon. An infamous bug in the first game (which involved a minus 2 \u2018aggression\u2019 value causing an integer roll back from 1 to the maximum possible 255) turned Gandhi, Indian leader and notorious pacifist, into a nuke-toting warmonger, a quirk the series nods to in subsequent entries. The exaggerated caricatures in the latest game reflect that absurdity and playfulness. It\u2019s <em>fun<\/em> to speak with icons like Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon; to learn their traits, anticipate their responses and get involved in good old-fashioned feuds when diplomacy fails. Beyond mere strategy, Civ fires up your emotions.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture strip\">\n<p>Civilization &#8211; The Board Game<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The game\u2019s overwhelming popularity led to some intriguing legal entanglements behind the scenes; a lawsuit from Activision, which acquired rights to a 1980 board game of the same name, threatened to bury the series in red tape. Beyond the title and a tech tree, the two games approach empire-building somewhat differently, but MicroProse was conscious enough to licence the name for the original release, and its influence on Meier\u2019s Civ is still a topic of debate and speculation.<\/p>\n<p>Internal shuffling and disagreements led to the Civ team forming a new company, Firaxis. Technically a <em>contractor<\/em> at MicroProse, Meier maintained decent relations with his former firm, but with a backdrop of lawsuits, countersuits and shenanigans, the Civilization brand was stuck in limbo, so Firaxis\u2019 next version was christened <strong>Sid Meier\u2019s<\/strong> <strong>Alpha Centauri<\/strong> \u2013 a reference to the destination following a space-race victory. Set in the 22<sup>nd<\/sup> Century, the Meier brand name helped make this spiritual sequel\u2019s roots explicit and the game was very well received.<\/p>\n<h3>Third Time&#8217;s A Charm<\/h3>\n<p>Following a web of litigation, acquisitions and settlements, Firaxis released <strong>Civilization III<\/strong> in 2001. It brought borders and Culture to the table, enabling new victory conditions. Changes to Corruption, Waste and Maintenance dissuaded players from simply founding new cities to solve production problems. 2005\u2019s <strong>Civilization IV<\/strong> further refined the formula, trimming or removing laborious gameplay elements entirely. The unpopular Pollution system was jettisoned and Religion debuted, along with a greater variety of roles for workers.<\/p>\n<p>As the mainline games grew more complex, spin-off title <strong>Civilization Revolution<\/strong> attempted to streamline the core formula for a console\/mobile audience. This non-mainline entry gave designers some freedom to experiment and in 2008 Civilization finally returned to Nintendo platforms, or rather <em>one<\/em> Nintendo platform \u2013 a planned Wii version failed to materialise. Programmer Scott Lewis <a class=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mtv.com\/news\/2456338\/why-2k-games-pulled-the-plug-on-the-wiis-civilization-revolution\/\">explained<\/a>: &#8220;All of our assets were originally created with the 360\/PS3 in mind. In order to bring them to the Wii, a great deal of work would have to go into making those assets look appropriate on Nintendo&#8217;s system.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture strip\">\n<div class=\"img\"><a title=\"Civilization Revolution marked the debut of the series on Nintendo hardware\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/8a3693ae5b746\/civilization-revolution-marked-the-debut-of-the-series-on-nintendo-hardware.original.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/8a3693ae5b746\/civilization-revolution-marked-the-debut-of-the-series-on-nintendo-hardware.900x.jpg\" alt=\"Civilization Revolution marked the debut of the series on Nintendo hardware\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Civilization Revolution marked the debut of the series on Nintendo hardware<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>It was a common story. The lucrative mobile market now forces devs to consider scalability from the very beginning \u2013 something Switch certainly benefits from \u2013 but Wii\u2019s success caught everyone off-guard back in the pre-smartphone days of 2006. Despite assurances from Meier himself, \u2018on hold\u2019 soon became \u2018canned\u2019. The Nintendo DS version of Civ Rev, however, <em>did<\/em> see the light of day and was warmly received by critics: &#8220;In terms of distilling the core Civilization experience from PC to handheld, this is almost as victorious as the PC-to-console iterations,&#8221; <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.metacritic.com\/game\/ds\/sid-meiers-civilization-revolution\/critic-reviews\">noted<\/a> Edge Magazine. High praise, indeed, but there\u2019s a lingering sense you\u2019re playing the diluted, <em>diet<\/em> version and missing out on the artery-clogging complexity of the genuine article.<\/p>\n<p>2010\u2019s <strong>Civilization V<\/strong> heralded a significant shakeup. Slick, streamlined and attractive, the most obvious change was a shift from square to hexagonal tiles \u2013 something Meier had considered in the very first game \u2013 which immediately gave continents and terrain a more organic feel. Beyond the huge graphical overhaul with individually animated units, notable additions included independent city-states and discoverable Natural Wonders. The dreaded \u2018Stacks of Doom\u2019 were eliminated, with multiple units now prevented from piling up on a single space. These changes proved controversial initially, but the fifth instalment proved hugely successful in attracting new players as well as the franchise faithful.<\/p>\n<h3>Beyond Earth, And A New Dawn<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Civilization: Beyond Earth<\/strong> attempted to recapture the sci-fi grandeur of Alpha Centauri in the Civ V engine, with mixed results. Perhaps that combination of iconic civilizations \u2013 imprinted on our collective consciousness from so many school projects \u2013 is a vital component of Civ\u2019s success. The power to observe and stir together disparate stereotypes is potent. <em>Hold up! George Washington\u2019s fighting Montezuma over Venice!<\/em> Long before the MCU was a twinkle in <strong>Iron Man\u2019s<\/strong> arc reactor, Civ was staging the most ambitious crossovers in history. Every entry has its devout fans, but Firaxis has managed to deliver a fresh take every time, without sacrificing or breaking the core systems that make the series so compelling.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture strip\">\n<div class=\"img\"><a title=\"Civilization VI goes portable on the Nintendo Switch\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/30b55d947e8d5\/civilization-vi-goes-portable-on-the-nintendo-switch.original.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/30b55d947e8d5\/civilization-vi-goes-portable-on-the-nintendo-switch.900x.jpg\" alt=\"Civilization VI goes portable on the Nintendo Switch\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Civilization VI goes portable on the Nintendo Switch<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>And in 2016, the imaginatively-titled <strong>Civilization VI<\/strong> continued that tricky tightrope walk. Earlier this year a port courtesy of Aspyr Media became the first mainline game to appear on touchscreen platforms, and by all accounts, it\u2019s largely uncompromised. Nintendo\u2019s handheld potentially offers the best of <em>all<\/em> worlds and Switch owners have cause for celebration that they\u2019re not getting some watered-down spin-off, but a \u2018proper\u2019 full-fat Civ.<\/p>\n<p>Or that\u2019s the hope. Some fun <a class=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2018\/11\/video_learn_how_to_be_victorious_in_the_switch_version_of_civilization_vi\">how-to videos<\/a> have been getting us in the mood and the touchscreen port promises positive things, so look out for our verdict soon. At the very least, our chiropractor should be pleased that it doesn\u2019t require hunching over a PC monitor into the wee small hours. Handheld mode ought to save us twenty seconds stumbling bleary-eyed to the bedroom, too. Time enough to squeeze in <em>one<\/em> more turn, surely?<\/p>\n<p><em>Sid Meier&#8217;s Civilization VI lands on the Nintendo Switch today.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s four minutes \u2018til bedtime and you\u2019ve got work\/class in the morning \u2013 time for one more race, one more round, one more turn. We\u2019ve all been there. Before you know it, forty-five minutes have slipped by and your self-imposed time limit has come and gone. And the next, and the next. What\u2019s that strange [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}