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[danhanegan]

4X games: Conquer the World !

In a famous scene from the movie Conan the Barbarian, the Mongol general asks Conan: "What is best in life?" Conan replies: "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of the women!" *

If this quote offends your sense of political correctness, I won't argue with you, but I will suggest this thread is probably a waste of your time. If, on the other hand, it resonates with something deep in your soul as a gamer, read on.

This thread is about 4X games. 4X is a buzzword that I think (I am not entirely certain) was originated by SSG as part of its marketing campaign promoting the 2000 rerelease of Reach for the Stars. It stands for eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate. These games are all about exploring the world, building and expanding your empire, finding and exploiting resources, and most importantly, crushing your enemies' empires, so that eventually you become the sole ruler of all that lies before you.

I intend to follow this initial post with additional posts reviewing the large number of games I have played in this genre. Other forum users are encouraged to reply and contribute to this thread. Please, however, restrict your comments to a discussion of 4X games and related material. Reviews of 4X games I have not reviewed are particularly solicited.

* This line (properly given in Arnold Schwarzenegger's outrageous Austrian accent) is actually a paraphrase of a real statement made by Temujin, aka Ghengis Khan, arguably the most feared conqueror in history. The English translation is usually given thus: "The greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters."

[danhanegan]

Civilization: the King of 4X

In 1991, Microprose released Civilization, the best known title in this genre. It was so popular it has inspired literally dozens of imitators and sequels. The primary designer, Sid Meier, was already known among grognards as a master of game design when Civilization was released; this is the title that catapulted his status from guru to legend.

I could go on for pages reviewing Civilization, but I am going to be fairly brief here. I feel the vast majority of players who have any interest in 4X games have already played it, and thus a lengthy review is probably a waste of space. If you want more information, just use GoogleGoogle to search for the many, many articles that have been written about this game.

In Civilization you start with a single city (or a settler unit that can be used to build a city). This city must be carefully nurtured and expanded, eventually being able to produce military units that can be used to explore the surrounding territory in a search for resources and other civilizations. Inevitably, conflict with some of these civilizations takes place, and you must build more military units to defend your cities from attack, or better yet, conquer the other civilizations' cities and use their production for your civilization's benefit. An important point is that special settler units can be built that can be used to found new cities. Finding good places to start new cities is a significant part of the game. Settlers can also be used to modify the map's terrain in various ways that benefit nearby cities.

This is a turn based game, each turn represents a variable number of years. The timescale encompasses the grand sweep of history from 4,000 BC to the modern era. A key part of the game is the ability to research technology (called civilization advances). The technology tree is quite complex, with over 70 advances available. Advances allow your civilization to build better military units, add enhancing buildings to its cities, or acquire various special abilities. Military units encompass a broad spectrum from primitive spearman to modern tanks as well as naval, air units, and nuclear weopons. The game is only vaguely historical, few games have any great resemblance to the real world, with player civilizations often acquiring gunpowder units before the Christian era.

Civilization comes with a pregenerated map simulating the real Earth, but the real replay value comes from having the computer generate random maps. There are several alternate victory conditions. Conquering the entire map is the most straightforward, but is quite difficult at the higher difficulty levels. Some players prefer to pursue peaceful development over conquest in any case. The other common victory method is to develop technology to build a starship; the first civilization to reach Alpha Centauri wins. If neither of these occurs time eventually runs out at the end of the modern era, at which point the most developed civilization wins.

Civilization was originally developed for DOS platforms, but was eventually ported to a variety of other systems, Including Macs, Amigas, and various game consoles.

It seems almost superfluous to say it, but this is a great game, and is highly reccomended not only by me but by nearly everyone else who has ever played it. The only caveat is that more sophisticated sequels have since been released with more features. Still, it is available as a free download from Abandonia, its hard to beat that price.

In 1994 an updated version called Windows Civilization was released. It included multiplayer support, somewhat updated graphics, and as the name suggests, support for the Microsoft Windows operating system (which is required to run it).

In 1996, the second major installment of the Civilization franchise was released, Civilization II. Civ II made some significant additions to the unit list and technology tree, and added some other game features. Still, it is very recognizably Civilization, an upgrade rather than a new game. The major point that distinguished Civ II is that much of the game information was deliberately included in text files that could easily be modified by players to make variant games. This is the first game I am aware of that deliberately catered to the modding community.

Players responded vary favorably and mods rapidly proliferated, some of which bear no real resemblance to the Civilization franchise's historical theme, such as fantasy and science fiction scenarios. Microprose eventually acquired a couple of dozen of the better mods and released them in expansion packages. Numerous minor add ons were released, with increased internet support and Microprose developed mods.

Abandonia has Civilization II available as a free download. It is also highly reccomended. I don't think they have the various expansion packages available, though.

In 1999 Atari released a licensed sequel called Civilization: Call to Power (hereafter CtP). This is a worthy addition to the series, with more actual gameplay additions than Civ II had. More units and technologies, of course. CtP extends the game's timeframe much further into the future than the Microprose titles, with the ability to develop underwater cities and orbital habitats, as well as futuristic military units such as hovertanks and mecha. Another feature is the addition of a variety of agent type units such as ecoterrorists, televangelists, and the infamous slavers. Best of all, Atari developed an improved combat system. Units in CtP make a distinction between melee and ranged attack, and attack as stacks of up to nine units rather than individually. This gives the game more of a tactical dimension than the earlier titles.

18 months later Atari released Call to Power 2 (the use of the word Civilization was avoided in the title for copyright reasons). I have not played this, reviews I have read seem to indicate the additions are pretty minor. I decided I have better uses for my gaming dollar.

In 2001 Firaxis, which had acquired the rights to the franchise by this time, released Civilization III. I bought this but regretted it. The upgrades from Civ II to Civ III are pretty minor, CtP is definitely a better game.

In 2005, Firaxis released Civilization IV. Feeling let down by Civ III, I have not purchased this game.

Microprose and Firaxis have released several games that imitate the Civilization 4X gameplay but have different historical or fictional settings. I am primarily referring here to Colonization, Alpha Centauri, and Master of Magic. These are all good games, I intend to review them in detail in later posts.

The name Civilization has such recognition power it has become inextricably entwined with this genre, which are often called "civ-like" games. The 4X buzzword was probably coined by Firaxis' competitors (SSG?) who wanted a term to describe their games without referring to Civilization directly since it was a competitors product.

[danhanegan]

Avalon Hill Civilization: Civ before Microprose

The Microprose Civilization computer game borrowed many concepts from a board game released in 1980, also called Civilization. Though originally released by the obscure British company Hartland Trefoil, the original Civilization boardgame was primarily distributed by Avalon Hill. These games are thematically similar but very different in detail. In order to distinguish them, I will hereafter refer to the Avalon Hill boardgame as Civ-A, and the Microprose titles as Civilization.

Civ-A was (and still is) very popular among strategically minded boardgamers. I am a heavy board game player myself; I literally own over a hundred boardgames. Though many advances have been made in the state of the art since its release, Civ-A still remains, 25 years later, my all time favorite boardgame. Though I have several favorite computer games, no one computer game quite dominates the list in the way Civ-A dominates my list of favorite boardgames.

Why do I like Civ-A so much? Nostalgia plays a part, of course, I have been playing this game for decades. There is a nice social aspect to games played face to face, and Civ-A is a much better game played in person than any 4X computer game, even if multiple computers and a LAN are available. The trouble with LAN parties is that everyone is looking at their computer screens, not each other; its not the same as actually facing your opponent(s) over a gaming table. In many ways, Civ-A reduces the concept to its essentials, with a cleaner, more elegant design than Civilization. Clever mechanics encourage trade and cooperation over conquest, increaing the social aspect. Perhaps the best part is how easy it is to teach. Players start with a single unit on the board, and initially only need to know that the unit can move one space per turn. As the game progresses, the rules one needs to understand accumulate gradually. You don't need to know how to build cities until your population has expanded into double digits. You don't need to know how to build ships until you need to cross a sea boundary. You don't need to know how to pay taxes or acquire trade cards until after you have built your first city. You don't need to know how to trade until you have acquired several trade cards. Civ-A is actually a fairly complex game, as boardgames go, but the learning curve is exquisitely painless. It must be said, though, that Civ-A is not, properly speaking, a 4X game: it does not have an exploration element and exterminating your opponents isn't practical.

Avalon Hill released several expansions for Civ-A, including expanded trade cards, the Western map extension, and most importantly, Advanced Civilization, which rereleased the expanded trade cards, greatly expanded the number of civilization advances available, and included several interesting variant scenarios. Unfortunately, these expansions are all out of print collectors items. The basic version of Civ-A has been rereleased and is available new in several languages.

After the success of Microprose Civilization, Avalon Hill tried to jump on the bandwagon with the 1995 release of a computer version of Civ-A, also called Advanced Civilization. Computer Advanced Civilization recreates Civ-A with all the expansions from the boardgame expansion of the same name, except the variant scenarios are left out. The computer version of Advanced Civilization is currently available as a download from Abandonia.

Unfortunately, computer Advanced Civilization is a bit disappointing. The AI is fairly easy to beat because after a few plays you get a feel for exactly how the computer will respond to trade offers, which allows the human player to abuse them. Outside of the trade phase, the computer is almost too good, displaying pretty much perfect play which few humans can match. When it was originally released, I remember the computer taking quite a while to run the turns, I am not sure if this is still a problem when run on the faster computers available now. Still, it is a nice low cost (free if downloaded from Abandonia) alternative to trying to locate a copy of the boardgame expansion, which I have seen sell for 200 dollars on Ebay. If you can assemble enough human players to fill a game, avoiding the AI, it plays well, better than hot seat versions of most 4X computer games.

The release of computer Advanced Civilization eventually lead to a legal battle between Microprose and Avalon Hill, with the former arguing that the Advanced Civilization computer game infringed on Microprose's intellectual property rights. Microprose eventually won this battle, but the point became moot when Avalon Hill filed for bankruptcy. I feel Avalon Hill got a very raw deal here, as Advanced Civilization was clearly based on Civ-A, not Microprose Civilization, and Civ-A was released more than 10 years before Microprose Civilization. This is a classic example of the American legal system at work; he who has the most money to spend on lawyers wins, regardless of the merits of the case.

Ironically, Microprose and Avalon Hill both eventually suffered the same ignominious fate of being bought up by Hasbro. While the Avalon Hill brand has been revived under Hasbro's management, Microprose has effectively ceased to exist.

In a further twist, Eagle Games acquired a license from Firaxis and released a boardgame version of Microprose Civilization in 2002. Called Sid Meier's Civilization in an apparent attempt to distinguish it from Civ-A, this game has the interesting distinction of being a boardgame based on a computer game inspired by a different boardgame. I have a copy of this game but can't reccomend it. I hate to dis it this way, the design actually has some clever mechanics. Ultimately, though, it is much simplified version of the computer game; if you want to play Civilization you might as well play the computer game. Like many Eagle games, it has lots of pretty plastic figures, but that doesn't save it. It is too long to play in one sitting, and basically much less playable than Civ-A. It is also a bit pricey and the box is a rather large, heavy object to store and transport.

[Talin]

"In 2005, Firaxis released Civilization IV. Feeling let down by Civ III, I have not purchased this game."

buy it, you wont be let down this time.

[Subach]

there are also the space empires series and the recently sword of the stars to mention it has an expansion too i cant remember the name tough

[Tachyon]

You're all forgetting Master of Orion , one of the best ever. And I highly recommend Stars! as well.

[Windy]

i find master of orion really slow and tedious, thats maybe cause the comp i play it on is slow, but i still reckon that it is stupid, but i love civilization, i downloaded it for the SNES and it rocks!