Starting out with just a single unit and knowledge of a small local area, your challenge is to guide your civilization into becoming the dominant force, either by conquering every other civilization or by sending a spaceship to Alpha Centauri.

As you'd imagine, a lot of challenges come into such a task. You must locate cities so as to make use of food, construction and trade resources, which can be later improved by constructing irrigation, roads, mines, railroads, and farmland. Each city can construct one item at a time - civilian and military units, buildings or Wonders of the World (there are 28 of these across the different eras of the game, and each can be possessed by only one city). The buildings and wonders have different effects - most buildings and some wonders improve defenses, scientific research, trade or food output, but most wonders offer unique advantages that can be used to great strategic effect.

There are over 100 scientific advancements in the game, and most require prerequisites before they can be researched. How quickly this happens depends on your scientific output, which must be traded off against financial and military concerns.

Combat can occur in cities or in the open terrain - things like forests and mountains give the defense an advantage. Unlike in the original Civilization, fights aren't always won outright - most times the winning unit will be damaged, reducing its movement speed and attacking prowess until it's repaired, but the losing unit always disappears from game. If multiple units are in a square that comes under attack, the strongest unit fights - unless it is a city or Fortress, all units will be lost if the fight is lost. Once a city has no defensive units left, it can be captured. Certain units have the ability to cover all squares as fast as if they were roads, only a few can see submarines, and air units require re-fueling in a friendly city.

There are up to 6 other Civilizations in the game, and keeping good diplomatic relations with these is crucial. At times you may want to trade knowledge or pool military resources with a neighbor - at others they may want to destroy you. If you make deals and go back on them your reputation is affected.

1001 Video Games

The PC version ofSid Meier's Civilization II appears in the book1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Development

Brian Reynolds and his co-workers were initially reluctant to make many changes to the original game's design, as they didn't want to be known as "the guys who screwed upCivilization."

Elvis

An Elvis Presley impersonator acts as the player's attitude advisor through all ages (sunglasses and all). Additionally, the entertainer specialist type in the city screen is also represented by a mugshot of Elvis.

German version

The translation for the German version ofCivilization II is almost legendary -- it's a total disaster. It was done by an US-American employee of Microprose, whose sole qualification had been that he "spent a couple of years in Germany". The outcome were ridiculous messages as "Russen einfangen Große Mauer" ("Russians catching Great Wall").

Sales

In 1998, the Windows 3.x version ofCivilization II won the Gold-Award from the German VUD (Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland - Entertainment Software Association Germany) for selling more then 100,000 (but less then 200,000) units in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
  • May 1997 (Issue #154) – Strategy Game of the Year
• GameSpy
  • 2001 – #22 Top Game of All Time
• PC Gamer
  • April 2000 - #5 in the "All-Time Top 50 Games" poll
  • October 2001 - #2 in the "Top 50 Best Games of All Time" list
  • April2005 - #3 in the" 50 Best Games of All Time" list
• PC Player (Germany)
  • Issue 01/1997 - Best Game in 1996
• Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland
  • 1998 - Gold Award (more information in "Sales" section)

Information also contributed byEntorphane,PCGamer77 andXoleras

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