Believe it or not, I’d never played a Civilization game before Mister Adequate made me encouraged me to get the complete Civ IV pack during a Steam sale. I know, I know. How dare I call myself a strategy game fan, etc. The truth is, I’d always been more of an RTS kid, and I’d never had much chance to mess around on the turn-based side of things.

So it was that I installed Civ IV, booted it up, and promptly began flailing around because I had no idea what I was doing. It was all a very different experience to my typical playstyle in, say, an RTS game, which goes something akin to this:

1. Get resources.
2. Build an army while building tech buildings/researching on the side.
3. Scout around, figure out where the other guy is, possibly send in a small team to distract him for a bit
4. Build a bigger army
5. Expand if needed
6. Attack the other guy
7. ???
8. Profit!
9. Game won in about 45 minutes or an hour.

Now superficially, Civilization follows the same exact pattern (excepting the whole “Game won in about 45 minutes” thing, but we’ll get to that in a moment).  The details, though, and the pacing especially, are very different.  And this really threw me for a loop.  You mean, I don’t tech through the buildings, but through an entirely different system?  You mean your buildings are all in one tile?  You mean your UNITS are all in one tile (or “stack”)?  You mean you can have a game where there is no war if you want?  You mean a three-hour-long game is considered short? And what’s this “Press ENTER to end turn” business?

There was something about it, though.  Something that made me blink a couple of times and then promptly start up a new game when Linux decided to pitch a fit and crash about a third of the way through the game.

And that same something made me start yet another game when it crashed yet again.

By the third or fourth crash it was getting on toward bedtime and I had to tear myself away from the computer because I knew I was just going to keep making new games and stay up all night if I didn’t stop.

Anyways, to make a long story slightly shorter, I spent most of the next day tweaking winecfg and getting it all working on Linux, and once I had done so, oh goodness, I was hooked. I can’t even explain why, there was just something so intriguing and compelling about it all. And not in some sort of carrot-on-a-stick way either. It was just FUN. It was the same compulsion that had me playing Starcraft for hours on end back in the day, or running my clan around the map in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance just so I could have random clan encounters. Gosh it was refreshing to feel that again.

Another thing about Civ: You can play it as a newbie and do relatively well even if you have no idea what you’re doing, and then later when you DO learn what you’re doing you’ll wonder how on earth you survived earlier. Of course, this game is so deep that you’ll “learn what you’re doing” several dozen times before you really figure it out (if you ever do “really figure it out”). At this point I’ve stopped being surprised when I learn something new about the game rules or how it operates, and I just embrace it instead.

TL;DR I’m a newfound Civ Addict and I couldn’t be happier about it.

P.S. there is nothing funnier than teaming up with a friend and lobbing nukes around and then taking off to Alpha Centauri, leaving behind a scorched and barren world in your wake. *cackles*

P.P.S. We have the best music.

P.P.P.S. Accurate. Especially at 1:21.