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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Squared" data-source="post: 9382383" data-attributes="member: 7042756">Be warned, wall of text below...1. CIV 1 - Why, because my second game ever was epic.  My first game ever was spending several hundred years trying to figure out how to move my unit out of the city.  My second game involved me having budget issues which led me to find that I could solve them by increasing taxes, not sure what those bulbs are...  Anyways, not paying attention to the date and I am isolated on this small continent, not sure if I even know that there are other civilizations at this point.  My tech slowly advances, some how, and I finally get cannon tech.  Right about then I see another civilization moving from off map, huh, nukes exist in this game I guess.  Welp, there goes my northern most city and tanks and mech land to take the city.Fortunately I had a lot of cash on hand from centuries of high taxes so all of my cities start producing massive amounts of cannons and diplomats.  The diplomats start stealing tech and bribing units, Shaka has a lot of tech to steal, and my cannons start sacrificing themselves against their tanks and mech.  This is surprisingly effective and I am able to slowly push him back.Eventually I build up a massive fleet and counter invade, only to find that Shaka is the only other civ on the planet.  Once I take his capitol his civ breaks in two, then I take his next capitol and it splits apart again, he has a lot of cities.  At one point I put down this game and go and play a different one coming back to this one to continue it with much more experience, finally noticing that it is about 5000AD or something silly.  I eventually finish by getting to Alpha Centauri.  I  was probably 11 at the time and that was epic.2. Call to Power - I don't know why this one gets all of the hate, it was awesome, it had everything and was so much more complete than any other in the franchise.  Sure it had flaws, so did the other CIV games.  Call to Power was all about a layer cake of systems.  The first was the military layer, not too much new here, at least until you reach higher tech and get access to mech walkers, star cruisers, and undersea units.  The next layer was the slavery system, I know that nobody wants to talk about it but it was massively important part of history.  Most importantly it had consequences and while it could give you an early boost in population later on the instability caused problems and benefited the civilizations with abolitionists, or diplomats sowing disorder.  Diplomats were always important to help defend against slavers and other early units, eventually the lawyer supersedes them, allowing defense against corporate branch units.  Then there was the whole trade system and piracy.  High tech allowed for infectors and eco terrorists.  All of this allowed for warfare, or lawfare, below the level of full scale armies marching across continents, that there are other things that states can do to compete rather than just chucking tanks at each other. Then we get to the crazy stuff like AI mind controlling computers that can control all of your citizens and possibly rebel, space cities, televangelists, plasma destroyers, empathic diplomats, underwater cities, cyberpunk dystopic governments, etc.  What I'm trying to say is that this game had IDEAS, not necessarily the best implemented but overall I feel that no other CIV game managed to move away from pure military conquest like it did.  Sure CIV 5's much later releases eventually managed to implement some ideas like this, but not as broadly or as cohesively.When ever I play a game like Civilization I like playing trading empires, most versions of Civilization ignore this aspect only focusing on tech and armies marching across continents.  I guess that is what other people wanted to play...3. CIV 2 - Why because as I was playing CIV 1 I kept thinking, "you know what this game needs _____" Then CIV 2 game out, it had ________ and then some.  I had so much fun with the scenario creator.  But that Shaka just kept coming back for more, I eventually decided that I should just always play the Brits...4. CIV 5 - Sure this one started out really weak but eventually they managed to implement some of the ideas present in Call to Power, even expanding on some of the ideas with cultural victories and such.  If only it had started out with those ideas in a more cohesive whole this would probably be near the top of the list.  Still really cool, I especially liked playing Venice...5.  CIV 4 - It had multiplayer, most of my game play, at least until my friend showed me why it was a mistake to build up cities, it was always better to just have lots of small cities pumping out military units.  I'm more of a builder so, eh....6.  CIV 3 - Now we are dropping significantly in the rankings, this one was just forgettable.  Pretty sure I just went back to Call to Power, bleh.7. CIV 6 - I tried to like this one, it seemed to have ideas, but I just lost interest so quickly.  The city building was fine, fun even, but there was nothing else to latch on to.  At least it was better than Beyond Earth, that was just so forgettable I almost forgot that I had played it.I'm not looking forward to CIV 7 at all, I don't expect anything from it.  I'll have to hear rave reviews.  I've moved on to Paradox games, currently playing Vicky 3, at least that game doesn't forget how important trade is... When I want to play a game more focused on war I play Total Warhammer. I just wish someone would take the ideas in Call to Power, implement them in a CIV 5 way just more fleshed out, plus the added culture part of CIV 5.  Oh and a Venice style one city challenge...  I just wish I could have my cake, all of the layers, and eat it too.^2</blockquote>

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