What was your 1st TBS you ever played?

[tonic]

If we include Chess, then Sargon on the AppleII (must be the 1980s). Then Civ 1 around 1996.

[Provost Harrison]

Speaking of doing things like that Eli, I didn't possess a manual for the game, but luckily I had been shown how to play the thing by a friend so I had the rudimentary. However I didn't realise that you could change governments until my third game I thought that REVOLUTION option looked rather dangerous, so I thought I would try it out one day. And needless to say, my civving ability improved in leaps and bounds since that day

[DaveV]

Well, it wasn't on a PC, but my first computer TBS was Empire, on a VAX, around 1984 or so. My boss probably thought I was a real go-getter, with all my late nights at work...

[Cybergod]

SMAC

But what do you classify games like Ceasar 3? Because I played those kinds before going off to TBS... And then started oscillating between RTS (come on - Starcraft rules! ) and TBS...

[tniem]

First turn based game, probably checkers. That or Candy Land.

First TBS computer game? Civilization I. The best game ever.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Assuming you mean PC games, Warlords II.
Back in cardboard and paper media, it was Bliztkrieg.

[jasev]

An old classic fron 8-bits times: Red Coats by Mc Lothlorien (1984)
(at my old Amstrad CPC)

My first TBS game at a PC: Chess and, three years later, Civilization I

[Straybow]

Invasion Orion on the Apple II, loaded from a cassette tape.

[phoenixcager]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
chess

I was going to say Civ 1, but then I saw that and remembered the Apple II days of the 80s too. I believe it was 'Sargon'.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Straybow
Invasion Orion on the Apple II, loaded from a cassette tape.

Ah yes, one of us, eh?

[Mr. President]

Galactic Empire, which was a crappy game for the Macintosh. I accidentally erased my copy and I can't find another.

[The Mad Monk]

My first TBS was MoO2.

I still play it from time to time.

[Straybow]

Die, Klatu scum!

Yes, UR, nothing like a phasor spread with a photon torpedo chaser.

[Darkness' Edge]

Mine was Civ1.

[- Groucho -]

Hmm, I guessing you mean wargames (not stuff like Lemonade Stand on the old Apple).

The first computer TBS I played extensively would probably be Chris Crawford's Eastern Front on my Atari 800 which came out in 1981. It was so cool - it even had a Civ-style 2D scrolling map.

edit: did anyone else play this classic? It had some cool features - for instance, the AI worked on a successive approximations model - it started with a random move, assessed it, and then changed it, compared the two, kept the better one and repeated. The longer you took giving your own orders, the more clock cycles you gave the AI to come up with a decent move. The whole map was about 9 screens large (a 3x3 grid) and you used your joystick to move a rectangular cursor around. Just like in Civ, when it touched the screen side, the map would scroll until you hit the edge of the playing area. You played as the Germans and the whole time you were rushing to take Moscow before the killer T-34 divisions started arriving from the East and before your own replacements ran out. It even simulated the weather, so travel in the winter was far easier for your tanks when the swamps froze up. A great game for its time.