My First 4X Game: Civilization III

Perhaps it says something more telling about me personally, but when I found myself heading towards the year 2050, my coffers filled to the very brim with gold, I felt fairly confident of hitting a WIN screen. So when the ending screen showed up in what was my first playthrough of Sid Meier’s Civilization III (indeed my first playthrough of any Civ game), I was rather upset to find all the other leaders laughing and pointing at my puny nation and our feeble efforts. Here was me, Queen Elizabeth I of England, conqueror of the Spanish Armada and ruler over our nation’s golden age, smugly watching the gold pour in and the universities and libraries spring up across our lands, fully expecting the rest of the world to fawn over me in awe when really I was nothing more than a laughing stock. Suffice to say, my delusions of grandeur were quickly shot down as I found myself and my country relegated to rock bottom in pretty much every league table of note. No, I was not part of the old-hat money or culturally venerated elite, I was just another Liam Gallagher moving into a prestigious west London suburb and chucking a TV out the top floor stained glass window. The title of my saved game, “England the Glorious” would seem almost amusingly self-deprecating had it not been meant in all earnestness at the time.

There are two things to take away from this cautionary tale. One is perhaps that it might prove useful to read the game manual before beginning a new game in a genre with which you have zero experience. The second is that, in Sid Meier’s Civilization series, just as in the real world, money may bring power, but it does not guarantee success. You see, this is the thing I did not realise. In Civ III, the goal is not to stockpile money, but to, as the title of the game suggests, civilise the globe.

What exactly defines the term “civilising” can vary depending on your approach, but I have now found that in subsequent playthroughs (and redos) my style is to build a cultural hub and to then colonise uninhabited, resource rich lands in fits and spurts with a heavy leaning towards the sceinces. As I now enter into the middle ages with my oracles close to sussing out the ways of Physics and Invention, I feel quietly confident that these humble shores of England will produce the world’s first astronaut before celebrate the dawn of the 1600s. And Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth I of England, choses to do this and the other things, not because they are easy, but because I have set the game to Chieftain and AI aggression to low and therefore face little in the way of opposition. Only time will tell whether I will hit the stars in time for the great bard Billy Shakes to be one of the first passengers on board, but I’ve got to think I’m in with a shot. (Did I learn nothing from my previous brush with unbridled arrogant self-belief?)

This engagement with Civlization III has been part of my recent on-going attempt to familiarise myself with games and genres that I had, in years gone-by, given short shrift to. In my defence, this dismissal of the 4X genre was mainly down to me simply not having a PC capable of running games (at least that’s what I thought), but if I’m honest it was at least in part also down to the perhaps misguided perception that these games were overly-complicated and for people with unlimited time to sink into them. While it is certainly true that this game is a HUGE time-sink (did I really just spend my entire evening playing that??), the idea that it is too complex to be easily understood is clearly wrong. Sure, I recognise that I am probably still getting a lot of the game’s fundamentals wrong and that there are clearly levels of depth that I haven’t even touched yet, but I think I am basically there when it comes to understanding the game’s appeal and flow. I doubt I would have got there without the help of a couple of my work-colleagues pointing out where I was going wrong, but once that initial hurdle was overcome it was all relatively plain-sailing. I even learned to love menu-browsing and learning about all the different technology paths open to you (hence my desire to achieve space travel).

This is a game that I am truly glad I chose to spend the time getting to know. Whether this will lead on to me trying many of the other highly-regarded series in the 4X genre, I cannot say for sure, but I am certainly not scared of at least trying them anymore. In fact, my only fear would be that I get drawn in too-deeply. I have a house to fix-up, blogs to write and a mortgage to pay, and so the idea of losing myself in a game such as Civ III is just a little too appealing. A rogue-lite-like (my other recent genre of choice) at least allows me to put down my device at the end of a run, but the problem with Civilization III is that I become too invested in what I have built. I simply cannot bear the idea of not seeing out the path that fate has dealt my brave and bold nation.

So will my new science-led focus bring me the fawning adulation that I so desperately desire from my global friends and foes? Probably not, but I bet you I will learn another valuable lesson in how to play this game. And that is perhaps what I love about it the most. It is not a game that holds your hand. It is a game that gives you the freedom to experiment and to learn from your mistakes. And if that’s not a lesson for adult-hood and life, then what is?

When the sun finally does set on my empire (because inevitably it always does), I will hopefully be just a little bit wiser than I am now and hopefully more prepared to deal with my next challenge in the getting-to-know PC games thing that I have suddenly decided to make into a series of blog posts… Cities: Skylines. If I can build a nation and an empire, then surely a city will be child’s play, right?