Jun

Civilization Revolution

Civilization has always been one of the greatest RTS series on the PC. Over the years it’s become a trend to port PC titles to console titles to try to replicate their success. This usually fails horribly, cough cough sputter sputter…Supreme Commander.

This is due usually to design issues; pc titles are often hand crafted for the pc. So Sid Meier the creator of Civilization, being the genius he is decided to rebuild his baby for the console loving generation. Thus Civilization Revolution was born. Civilization Revolution plays the normal Civilization card; you pick a civilization headed by a historical figure. The Egyptians have Cleopatra; the French have Napoleon, the good old Americans have Honest Abe, and so on and so forth. All the civilizations have their own perks. They’re all extremely stereotypical; the Chinese come booming with technology as the Egyptians come stuffed full of culture. The object of the game is to complete one of the 4 conditions of victory. These conditions include an economic victory in which you amass more wealth than everyone; a technological victory is when your civilization goes into outer space first, a cultural victory is when your civilization produces enough culture to convert a number of cities or luring the maximum number of Great Persons, and lastly and least likely is total domination, in which you can probably guess what happens here, the capture of every capitol city. The down side to this variety of victories is that you’re subject to all of them every round. There’s no way to select a specific match type, which would have been an obvious choice if this was play tested enough but apparently it wasn’t, so good luck. All areas of study, whether it be cultural or technological have their own advantages and disadvantages. A very cultural society can convert uncivilized societies to join their nation but typically your armies would be rather weak.

Your play style will usually decide right from the start what kind of nation you will be. Another great portion of the game is the super powers of a Great Person. A great person is attracted by culture. They come with two options a settlement, in which they will add some sort of perk to the city such as plus 50% percent gold production. The second option is a here and now activation such as completing the study of a technology or adding $400 to your treasury. The option is left to you. The heavy duty portion of the game which is combat, is decided depending on the unit, defense, attack, and home field advantage. A lot of the match ups are obvious, in a rifleman vs archer battle the archer would not stand a chance. They also have specialized units for taking over cities. Since cities defenses are held by how many and what types of units are stationed. You can’t just ride in there with a couple of archers or knights and have your way. In medieval times a catapult is a better attack on the city where as in modern times, a tank would suffice. They also have ways to create mischief without war. A spy unit can sneak in a city and capture a Great Person, steal gold, or even disrupt defenses without causing war. Proxy wars can be caused often because the resource squares surrounding the cities can’t be walked on by another nation.

This can make a smaller nation who is blocked in or a larger nation just looking to explore a little heated. When starting the game one of the first things you notice are the cartoon like characters. This is typically seen the most with your advisers. Advisers let you know about happenings and world events. Their interruptions are a breathe of fresh air as most of the time you may be concentrating diligently on not being massacred. A very entertaining aspect of the game is when the advisers and nations leaders interact with each other. If they come on screen at the same time a leader may pull a knife in caution or be startled and walk off screen. The only bad part of this deal is sometimes the advisers or leaders block the words and you can’t quite make out what’s in the text. Luckily if you let them sit there they will move, but this is still a nuisance. The A.I. seems to be completely prejudiced towards the player. There is a constant beating you to take no matter how nice or mean you are as a ruler. The computer always seems as if they’re gunning for you and you only. At any given time you’re not at war with just one civilization but all 4 or 5 at the same time. If your defense is solid enough they will back off after they’re attempts result in enough stalemates but for the most part you will always be at war. This is both a gift and a curse. You want the match to be action packed but you also don’t want to spend 2 thousand years at war for your people to hardly progress and for another civilization to have so much technology they go to outer space and win the match. This happens a lot. You have to have a very good strategy even when playing on the easiest level of difficulty in order to compete and maintain life in your cities.

Civilization Revolution is a great game, the uniqueness of all the nations makes for an interesting battle each time you play and allows for a ton of replay ability. There are certain aspects of the game that you may scratch your head over, such as not being able to choose a win condition or why the computer picks on you and you only. But these small problems don’t hinder the great experience that is Civilization Revolution.

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Civilization Revolution

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