History VideoGame / Civilization

''Civilization'' is a popular [[FourX "4X"]] [[VideoGameLongRunners Long Runner]] game series. The original game was developed in 1991 by Creator/SidMeier, and there have been five [[NumberedSequels direct sequels]] as of October 21, 2016, numerous expansion packs, and many spin-offs (''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'', ''VideoGame/{{Colonization}}'', ''VideoGame/CivilizationCallToPower'', ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth''), as well as the much simplified ''Civilization Revolution'' for home consoles, the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS and [=iPhone=], ''Civ World'' for Website/{{Facebook}}, and the MMO ''Civilization Online''. The game was originally inspired by a {{Board Game|s}}, and has since [[RecursiveAdaptation spawned two others]]. Many polls and lists of the best computer games ever developed have, at various times, listed several of the games in the series, often at #1.

* ''Civilization VI'' (2016): The latest game in the series as of 2024. New features include the creation of a full-fledged Civics Tree separate from and parallel to the science-based TechTree, which focuses on unlocking Social Policies and culturally related advances; unstacked cities, where World Wonders and city districts are placed on tiles separate from the city center, allowing for a greater degree of city planning; and replacing Workers with Builders, who have limited charges but instantaneously complete tile improvements.

* ''Civilization'' (1991): The one that started it all. Designed by Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley after the successes of ''VideoGame/SilentService'', ''VideoGame/SidMeiersPirates'' and ''VideoGame/RailwayTycoon'', ''Civilization'' (aka ''Civ I'') is noted for being one of the first examples of the 4X genre. It introduced basic mechanics such as selecting a civilization, building cities and units, and waging warfare. At this point, the only victory conditions available were conquering the whole world or winning the space race by sending a spacecraft to Alpha Centauri.

* ''Civilization IV'' (2005): The first game in the series to make the leap to full 3D. The game marked a return to the top-down, square grid of ''Civ I'' after the previous two games used an isometric view. Multiple game mechanics were introduced in ''Civ IV'' such as Civics, which served as a set of modular bonuses that the player could mix and match to suit their needs; civilizations having multiple leader options, where they shared unique units but had different traits, allowing for more variety in gameplay; and a religion mechanic where various religions would compete for influences in cities around the world.
* ''Civilization V'' (2010): The first game in the series to employ a hexagonal map rather than the square grid of previous games. New gameplay features include the full implementation of Science and Culture as resources in their own right, fully unique civilization bonuses rather than civilizations being assigned traits from a common pool, and the Social Policy Tree, which acts as a hybrid between a Tech Tree and the Civics mechanic of ''Civ IV''.

** ''Civilization V: Brave New World'' (2013): The second expansion to ''Civ V''.

Not to be confused with the [[Film/{{Civilization}} 1916 silent film]] with the same title or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilisation_(TV_series) the noted 1969 BBC documentary]] about art history.

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!!This game provides examples of:

* CopyProtection: In the first game, there would be two instances in the early parts of the game where you had to look up a civilization advance in the manual. You were shown a picture of a random one, then given a large set of multiple-choice answers of which two advances were its direct prerequisites. (The in-game justification was that "A usurper claims you are not the rightful king!") If you were wrong, you lost all the military units you had outside of your cities.

** In ''VI'', Cleopatra likes civilizations with strong militaries over weaker ones.

** In every version of Civilization, the invention of Gunpowder means the immediate advent of Musketeers/Musketmen, with Cannon being invented later. In the real world, the cannon was invented ''first'' since it was easier to make a big gunpowder weapon than a small one.

** In ''VI'', Elizabeth I's leader agenda is titled "trade agreement" and causes her to dislike leaders that don't trade with her, and her leader ability revolves around strengthening her own trade routes, referencing an [[WelcomeToCorneria infamously repetitive]] voiceline of hers from ''Civ V''.
** The August 2023 update added achievements for winning the game as leaders from the Leader Pass. The name of Yongle's achievement is, of course, [[https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fizxqaol5a8ma1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D811%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D4e0b0958509da9c74e954709217b2abd96bc903e Live Yongle Reaction]].

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Averted with Great Generals (and the Khan, the Mongol equivalent), who are {{One Hit Point Wonder}}s whose only offensive capability is to make other units stronger.

* AwakeningTheSleepingGiant: Easily invoked. An aggressive leader is likely to declare war on you if you have a smaller standing army than they do, and will often preface it by making fun of how weak you are. But if you've been focusing on your economy and technology, you can move to a war footing and start cranking out advanced units to crush your invader and start taking ''their'' cities. This is especially true in ''Civ V,'' since occupying captured cities gives a huge happiness penalty until a courthouse is built, which in turn penalizes manufacturing, economy, and combat unit morale, so wars of conquest are impractical and the advantage usually lies with the defender.

** Nearly all the wonders in Civ Rev get this treatment barring the East India Company, which is always good and very powerful. In a game that runs at such a fast pace (193 turns max, and most games can be decided in 60 or less by a decent player) nearly all of them are just too expensive to build in the relatively short amount of time you have to devote to frivolous endeavors, even the decent ones are only situational useful instead of strong enough to justify always trying for, and most eventually go obsolete to boot. Special mention goes to the Apollo Program: it instantly hands you all technologies that remain un-researched in the game....which would be great if it wasn't unlocked by the ''penultimate'' technology requiring most of the others in the first place, and that ALSO unlocks the Technological victory option by itself (an oversight perhaps, you DO NOT have to build Apollo to go to space, you only need the Space Flight tech which unlocks all the space ship parts at once), making the wonder largely pointless.

** In Civ Rev, it's largely better to bully the AI and hamper them as much as possible, since diplomacy is so simplified in the first place as to not allow many options and ALL of the AIs WILL declare war on you eventually; it's not a matter of "if" but "when," even for the ridiculously stoic Alexander of Greece. Playing nice generally just gives them more map control, money, freedom to expand, etc. while the most you get out of it is... selling techs to them for a pittance of gold in the window of time they choose to remain non-hostile.
* {{BFS}}: Broadswordsmen fall on this category.

** In Civ IV, a leader may propose a trade, then if you attempt to edit the deal, but decide to stick with the initial trade, sometimes the AI says things like, "It's highway robbery, but we'll take it."
** In Civ Rev, AIs will eventually stop selling techs to you under the guise of not knowing anything you don't already have (quote "Our People are proud but ignorant, you'll have to seek knowledge elsewhere...") despite the fact you can see their total (real-time) tech total in the diplomacy window. When Mao Zedong has 13 techs and you have 8, it's kind of hard to believe he isn't holding out on you...

** Even in the newer games, you're in for a rough early-game if you end up bordering the aforementioned Aztecs and Zulu, as well as the Huns, Mongols, and (pre-''Brave New World'') Japanese. Oddly enough, the often-demonized Babylon is one of the nicest civs in any game ever.

* BunnyEarsLawyer: The culture advisor in Civ II is an Elvis impersonator who gives all of his advice in a ridiculous Elvis voice...and generally makes pretty solid points.

* ChooseAHandicap: In ''V'', Fall of Rome scenario turns Culture and Social Policies against you if you're playing as Rome. To simulate the many factors that led to the decline of the Roman empire, the Roman policy tree contains only unhelpful policies such as Barbarian Conscription (-10% combat strength), Neglected Infrastructure (less Gold from city connections), and Popular Ennui (Luxury Resources provide less happiness). Though you can still choose which social policies to adopt as usual, policy skipping is disabled, meaning you must choose one every time you generate enough Culture for one. Oh, and did we mention you can't sell your Culture-producing buildings in this mode?

** The AI combines this with ArtificialStupidity with alliances to declare war, particularly in ''III''; If given enough money, it's not uncommon to see an AI sign an agreement to declare war on a civilization it's very friendly with, or a civilization it just signed peace with, or sign peace with a civilization it just signed an alliance against, or sign an alliance with one civ to declare war on a second civ, then immediately sign peace with that second civ and sign an alliance against the first civ, to the point that sufficiently large ''Civilization III'' games often devolve into chaotic world wars with the AI's all switching sides every couple of turns. It's less true in later games, but you'll still see this sort of behavior to a much lesser extent from time to time.

** There is a single wonder in every game in the series that grants one or two instantly researched technologies when build. Getting it allows to either cement your tech lead ''or'' to catch up when lagging behind.

** Ironically, all the advances were also documented in the ''in-game'' Civilopedia (but you couldn't check it ''as'' you were being asked), and even if you didn't read that, the answers could often be worked out logically anyway. It would ask you things like "Which advance requires knowledge of Steam Engine and Bridge Building?" (Uh... could it be railroad? Ya think?) And even the less obvious ones were easy to memorize after you'd played the game a few times.
* CosmeticAward: Improving your palace in the original ''Civilization'', your throne room in ''II''. and your castle in ''III'' was awesome, but never had any actual impact on gameplay. The gimmick was dropped from ''IV'' onwards.

* CrapsackWorld: [[https://www.pcgamer.com/ten-year-game-of-civ-2-results-in-hellish-nightmare-planet-permanent-nuclear-war/ One player]] kept a game going for ''ten years'' as an experiment. He discovered, rather disturbingly, that the game seems to just naturally descend into a dystopia nightmare if it goes on long enough.

** In the DLC for ''VI'', the city-states of Amsterdam, Babylon, Antioch, Seoul, Jakarta, Stockholm, Carthage, Lisbon, Toronto, and Palenque get replaced with new city-states with the introduction of Netherlands, Babylon, Amsterdam, Korea, Indonesia, Phoenicia, Portugal, Canada, and Maya as playable civilizations.

* AscendedExtra: After several games, Austria (among others) finally made its appearance as a playable civilization in the ''Gods & Kings'' expansion for ''V''. Many City-States eventually became full Civilizations and were replaced as city-states to avoid confusion when the related DownloadableContent or expansion was released (Denmark conquering Copenhagen and having two cities with the name, for example).

*** Wilfrid Laurier, though nominally Catholic, was fiercely anticlerical and (given his liberal ideology and tenure in the early 20th century) was a state secularist (and modern Canada has never had a state religion).

** In ''II'', an early wonder, Pyramids, provided free granary in every city for the rest of the game. In ''III'', it still provides a free granary in every city - but only on the same continent, while being twice as expensive to build.
** ''III'' introduced a limit on how fast research can be done, after ''II'' infamously allowed to set up your economy and caravans in such a way to get few technologies in a single turn. No matter how well you are doing, each tech take at the minimum 4 turns to finish the research. On top of that, hard-coded eras with obligatory techs needed to advance to the next TechTree were added[[note]]Oftentimes, those technologies did nothing by themselves and offered no benefits from researching them[[/note]], to further slow down human player and give AI a sporting chance. Both of those elements have been scrapped in ''IV'', under overwhelming complains from player over FakeDifficulty, ''especially'' since [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules AI was just getting technologies out of thin air]], with pace of research dictated by the difficulty setting.
** ''III'' has a Small Wonder, Wall Street, which generated 5% interest from current treasury. Yeah. This was hastly {{nerf}}ed - the interest got capped at mere 50 gold, while requirements for Wall Street itself got increased from 5 banks to 5 stock exchanges (which require banks first). It's ''still'' well worth the effort, but no longer a game breaker it was upon introduction.

* ThunderboltIron: Meteors became a thing in the Apocalypse Mode of ''Civ VI'' and while they will destroy anything they hit, they leave behind a meteor full of valuable metals that, if you collect, instantly creates a free Heavy Cavalry unity for your use. (In later stages, this can mean a tank!)

** Aiming for the Domination or Conquest victory fits into this bill in many of the games. Invading other people's cities and annexing them (or RapePillageAndBurn or, in ''V'', making puppet states out of them) fits the bill. It's fun to conquer every single city, but it requires a lot of micromanagement and strategy with your units. You're also going to have to deal with a lot of unhappiness due to overpopulation, angry citizens from occupied cities and city-states, and having diplomatic relations completely cut off and every civilization declare war on you for your war-mongering attitude. This is why "military based civilizations" (i.e. Mongols, Aztecs, Huns, and the Japanese) are considered to be high-risk/high-reward type of civilization.
** The entire point of Wonders is they are expensive to produce, other people may beat you to building one (meaning you wasted all your effort) and time spent building one could have been better spent making lots of conventional forces. But if you finish it, you get something pretty awesome that changes how you play the game.

** In ''I'' and ''II'', Democracy was a linear upgrade of Republic and, in many ways, the best government in the game, as it removed corruption out of the picture and offered gigantic economic bonuses. ''III'' reworked how governments operate significantly, making Democracy virtually useless time and money sink to even research it, outside of a tiny handful of situations. But since previous two games made Democracy so damn good, many people straight-out beelined for it.

* ArtificialBrilliance: Sometimes the AI will act like a strategic genius. In II, for example, rival civilizations will only share world maps with you if their attitute toward you is "Worshipful." Since a successful military campaign relies on knowing where your enemies are just as much as it relies on superior troops, the benefits of this strategy are obvious. Also in II, if you ever use spies or diplomats to purchase rival cities, they'll never agree to an alliance with you. And you'll deserve every declaration of what they make.