The author of this game is Sid Meier, who is to video games what Steven Spielberg & Orson Wells rolled together are to film. I cannot imagine what sort of mental overload I would have had if I had not played the first Civilization before this sequel. Civilization 2 would have simply been too good to be believed. This is the perfect kind of sequel, one that takes everything that was good from the first game, and makes it even better! Civilization 2 is the rare example of the best game ever made, remade into an even greater game.

The game starts in the prehistoric times and could end with exploring the stars. You start with an individual settler that can only wander the map or found a city. Once you have founded a city you are able to research technology, create new units, and more. From here you want to keep exploring the map, founding more cities and building up your research. Somewhat early on you will encounter other civilizations. Here you have a choice. You can go into full war mode and attack your neighbors using up many of your precious resources, but gaining his resources from the spoils or war. Another option is to try a more diplomatic route and live peacefully with your neighbor, possibly even trading technologies and helping him to defend himself from his enemies. Of course, the first civilization you come across could give you no choice but to defend yourself.

There are some details along the way. Aside from building dozens of structures in your city like city walls (to increase defense), granaries (to increase food efficiency), you can also build one of 28 Wonders of the World. These take a very long time to build, and will hold back that city, but will give your race huge advantages if you can complete it.

There is just something pleasing to me in trying to keep track in my mind of so many different things at once. As you play the game, the list in your head just seems to keep growing and growing.

There are several ways to play the game, and very few ways to do it wrong. I prefer the peaceful route that ends with colonizing space, but I think I am in the minority from what I've read. I almost always play the fully random game. The continents could look different every time, even possibly consisting of nothing but small islands. There will be random hordes of barbarians attacking you, and random discoveries scattered across the map. This makes it possible to play what could initially look like the same game many different ways. You can control the type of planet you are on, how many enemies there are, the types of enemies, and all sorts of other rules. The random maps really do make for endless gameplay.

The game is a little old, but newer graphics and sound wouldn't really make the game any better. It's almost how I feel about the chessmaster series. All the 3d chess boards are really cool looking, but it just distracts too much from the game to play that way, so you end up switching back to the 2d after a game or two. One benefit of the old graphics is that you don't need a powerful system or any fancy 3d hardware to play it. This makes the game perfect for laptops.

Maybe Alpha Centauri came up with some new concepts that this game could use. Alpha Centauri has configurable units, ratings affected by government, zones of control, etc.. But it still just didn't have the feel of Civilization 2.

The only thing I would like to see added to this game is that you could get a one turn warning before a city revolted due to population overcrowding. Without this, I have to scroll through all my cities looking to make sure no one is going to revolt next turn. When I have 40+ cities going, this makes each turn start to become exponentially longer.

Big tip from Keith:
While in a Democracy or a Republic, crank up the happiness for a few turns causing multiple "King for the Day" holidays. This will give you a huge population boost in no time. This has let me get ahead of the computer on numerous occasions.

The multiplayer pack adds multiplayer capabilities which include hot seat, and internet control. I don't think I've heard of a game played all the way to the end. This game takes me up to 15 minutes a turn towards the end of the game, so I don't know how something like this could ever be finished.

The add-ons with the Gold edition include various scenarios, but in truth, I always played the game with random start settings, so I don't know if this makes it worth paying a little extra for. I never really enjoyed the scenarios. Some of them are supposed to be quite fun, but they all revolve around the conquest methods, so I never really played them. A lot of the scenarios sound neat by saying stuff like they are on alien worlds, or with dinosaurs, but are merely the same units with a different look.

And there is a scenario editor which also adds to the potential endless replay value.

Note: Don't be fooled by this opinion into buying Activision's newer Civ: Call to Power games. They look graphically superior, but are far inferior in gameplay and game balance!


Recommended: Yes