Civilization AGA (Amiga) - An Introductory Guide and Review - by LemonAmiga.com
65Civilization (or Civ) was released on the DOS PC in 1991, and the Amiga got a faithful NTSC port in 1992. This review is looking at the almost identical AGA version, which arrived in 1994, with 256 colour graphics and perhaps a few bug fixes? This is not a master class, unfortunately.
Colour Civ Tree:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sHvZZ6E6DwbPaJdVjChlbsz_LNX9XZ4U/view?usp=sharing
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Production Notes:
Captured: 8 Jan 2023 (practice), 4th Feb (compo footage), 6th May (my help guide on Lemon)
Narrated: 21 and 25 Sept 2023
Completed: 25 Sept 2023 (V2)
Civ is one of those games which I first saw on a 386 PC, back when I was on Maggie Thatchers Youth Training Scheme in 1993. A bunch of students were secretly playing on it instead of typing up their NVQ's, along with Wing Commander and Zarch/Virus. By this time I had owned an Amiga for a year or two, so I was aware of many games, but this strategy classic almost past me by. I noticed one guy had his cities set up almost like a figure of 8, with each one having a trade route bonus with the others. I remember I tried it and it worked, so I brushed the game off as being too easy.
During our Summer Chill Non-league Superleague round in June 2022, Mitch J. Frenzal posted that he might join the compo if we played Civ. Stevengton responded on Sun Jan 08, 2023 by voting for Civ AGA as his No.1 choice during the voting for round 2. (Round 1 was a Shoot Em Up round, so Civ wasn't suitable). A few days later, he wrote: "Voting for Civilization is kind of sad, though. No turn based strategy game will every win the vote (unless someone rigs the voting)." Sure enough, Civ won the vote fairly and squarely, because it is a well known classic! At this point I had a practice go, which is the main part of this video. Then a few weeks into the round, I recorded a few chunks of one of my high scoring runs. Not all of the run was recorded, and I started and paused the recorder often, and didn't bother to record the ending. I don't remember if this was my best and final try in the compo, but it probably was, and I got a score of 1,738 for beating all of the enemies. I also wrote an introductory guide as a document on the Lemon Amiga database page for this game, and added to it during the round.
Editing this was no big deal, and it was one of the easiest games to edit this series. I think I wrapped it all up within maybe 4 days. Two images were pulled from the archives from my Batman The Movie 25th Anniversary review, when I mention Matthew Cannon.
Although this is a great game I think this is one of the weaker reviews this series, basically because I found out so much after playing it in the compo, and I don't demonstrate any of the important lessons I subsequently learned. Even the extra footage doesn't really cover it. So this is basically an introductory guide rather than an in-depth training guide like Deuteros or Lollypop etc. Many of the important stuff is in the narration, so that's why I didn't just record it all again.
Danscore:
Civilization (American Spelling) is a classic for all of the right reasons. It has action and strategy, inventions and high-tech technology. You can play as a farmer, a city builder or an empire builder, and still complete the game with a good feeling of achievement. The randomness of the procedurally draw random maps can feel daunting to casual players, and the depth of gameplay (clicking on the fields to juggle food, trade and inventions) is often lost in a sea of statistics and encyclopedic knowledge of structures and historic landmarks. The significance of mines and camels and diplomats has to be learned the hard way, and sometimes the player can be left stranded on a small island, surrounded with a fog of war and barbarians, and precious little resources until they can invent boats and sail off to some place new. Thankfully the fixed world map means players can learn how to play the game before trying the random missions. Perhaps it is only after studying the manual, the built-in help screens, and the Civlopedia, can players understand enough about the game to make an informed choice about politics, religion, culture and war. Until then, the player will make discoveries about the game as they play it. Sometimes this can be annoying when the citizens revolt, and you don't understand why. Luckily the default 50% Tax and 0% Luxuries will often prevent revolts. Civ laid down the template for so many games, and so, as a historical landmark, I give it 10/10.