Your First Civ Memory (Stories to Warm Our Hearts)

[yin26]

A memory lane thread...

You know, just the other day I was thinking about that blinking wagon surrounded by darkness and the joys of finding that "perfect" starting point for my first city. Rivers abounded, resources littered the landscape like virtual paradise. This brought up other memories:

** I played Civ1 on a very heavy and very over-heated laptop. I still remember stringing the power cord to my bed, "going to sleep" and hiding the glow of the screen under the covers with me as I played until dawn. The heat from that machine was near-deadly, but it didn't matter. A little sweat was good for a person. Still have the disks.

** My first Civ2 experience was no less memorable. I was hired by some wealthy Beverly Hills family to teach their son SAT while he was doing an internship in New Jersey. This meant, of course, that I was free all day long in the hotel room while he worked. Guess what I bought at the computer store down the road? Civ2. And guess what machine I had to play it on? Yep, another laptop (his, of course, top-of-the line..still too heavy and hot, though). But that didn't matter. It was my tradition I guess, and can you imagine how utterly amazing it was to be virtually locked in a hotel room to play Civ2 for hours on end? I was there for 7 days. Must have logged in over 70+ hours of Civ2 in that time. The music still plays in the background of my brain sometimes when I'm tired. That's probably a sign of a pending medical condition.

Anyway, I could go on, but I just wanted to hear your joys (and sorrows?) of the Civ series. My one sorrow was when I thought I had this mean mo-jo civ only to see bombers fly over my chariot. They didn't bomb me, though. Too busy laughing I suppose.

[Grier]

My first memories take me back to a time when games were good and never disapointed. My brother came home from his mates house with three games, Ultima Underworld, Wolfenstein, and Civ. We installed them on our 486dx-33 and from that second I was hooked, it took me a while to learn how to play civ (with no manual and just a few pages of all the tech advances).

I can still remember some of the best games I played. The best has to be when I was playing on Earth, I took control of the Romans and used my second settler to take Paris just as it turned into a two size city. Next target was the Greeks, I had to wait until I discovered catapults before I could take them, whilst they were harrying me with chariots, a few turns latter and they were mine.
I then spread through the Middle East, North Africa and Baltica. I made peace with the Monguls for a time and soon they were at war with an unknown civ, I got dragged into the conflict but never battled the enemy.
I had worse things to worry about, the Zulus had established a strong civ in South Africa and was causing me serious hassle. It took a long time to beat them, I discovered gunpowder and they stole it the next turn. Eventualy I emerged the victor.
To my supprise the Mongul empire had fallen to the Chinese and once again I was plunged into war. The chinese were resourcefull and a long distance away, it was hard to get past their outlying cities and strike at the heart of their empire. Eventually though, as the others had, they fell to my might. The world was mine, and I was the victor.
Now it was time to explore, brush aside the minor civs, such as the pitifull Germans living in Australia. Then one day a yellow boat arrived on my coast, yet this wasnt a Long-Ship, it was a battleship! I was still two techs away from discovering them, I had to search out the interloper and destroy her, costing the lives of many of my brave sailors.
Then one of my scouting ships reports of the existence of a new land and living upon this land was the mighty Azrec empire. I was distraught, they were far more powerfull than I. My only chance was to enlarge my empire throught the wooded lands of Asia. I invested heavily in each of my cities and eventually discoverd Armor, I built as many units as I could, put them on transports and set sail for the Aztec capital. One quick strike and I split their empire in two, one half becoming the Babylonians.
Yet even then victory was not assured, I had overstreched myself and held a city that I couldnt defend, the Aztecs rushed in and stole my designs for Armor. The battles from then on were brutal and deadly, it took a dozen nukes to finally put them down. I then took my place as ruler of the planet, a title truly deserved.
[This message has been edited by Grier (edited June 27, 2000).]

[OrangeSfwr]

Sounds like an OT thread but I'll include my memories as well...

My very first Civ experience was at the shore one year. My cousin brought down his laptop and was showing me civ. After he was done I started playing, and built my first city "Babylon" on a river on the left side of a continent. I had no real concept of the game yet, and I was only 12. But I ended up building about 7 cities and I was in constant diplomacy with the Russians who controlled the other half of the continent. Looking back the game probably was very bad and I never actually finished it. But the game amazed me and the rest of the week I spent more time on that computer than on the beach. Infact, the next year I did the same. He offered me the disks to install on my cpu and I jumped at the offer, but unfortunately he couldn't find 2 out of the 4 install disks. So I never got Civ 1 on my cpu. I did buy Civ 2 last summer, and have been addicted to it ever since. I believe my first Civ 2 game was me as the Spanish and my rival empire controlling the other part of the continent I was on was the Sioux. I still play Civ 2 at least once a week to this day.

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~~~I am who I am, who I am - but who am I?~~~
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[Par4]

haha OT me and Orange pretty much moved there anyway here goes

For memorable games I played as the Americans, the best country in Civ2 Anyway heres one of my favorite games

I started out in the american east coast spot. I built up about 5 cities then went on a killing raid with about 15 warriors, wiped out the sioux. Keep ICSin all the over north america and down until I met the Aztecs who had all of south america. The following musketeer dragoon battles were horrible we both lost probably about 100 units each but I had come out on top because I had more cities to produce. So I took all of noth america and started moving in for the kill. built some caravans landed an invasion force by patagonia, blah blah blah killed them off. After that i just disbanded a pile of units leaving 2 in each city but I had a huge huge huge huge huge huge huge huge huge huge huge huge huge huge navy of about 200 aegis cruisers and battleships and subs. And I played perfectionist got all the wonders, got the spaceship with 20k people to alpha blah blah blah blah blah blah done

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[rremus]

As student, I was working nights for a publishing house. The office was in a apartaments building and people we're sleeping at 3 a.m. My coleaque installed civ1 on his PC, but neither of us had any ideea what the game is all about. We were yieling of excitement as each feature of the game was discovered!
What is this guy doing there? Is a farmer? Lets put him to work! Why did the city size shrinked? Nevermind, lets play!
Look, you can build phalanx! Ok, use the phalanx against that chariot! Defeat? Nevermind, we have a world to conquer!
We were dicovering a whole new game concept. It was so exciting that eventually we wake up our neighbours...
I think I played the Romans.I did not had a computer at home and for the next weeks, I spent most of my nights playing at work!
Today, is the only kind of game I still enjoy. Each time is different!

[Sparky]

Oh my, the memories. Civ 1 was the first computer game I ever had. Got it for Christmas 1992, when I was 11. Ran it on a then-top-of-the-line 486DX33 without sound.

I had no idea what I was doing.

I started as the French on earth. I named my first city "Ducondo." Since I was a total novice I didn't know how to build anything but militia, the old farmers with pitchforks. I made a million of them since I couldn't stop, and proceeded to declair war on the Romans. I buldozed Rome and Babylon, all the while surrounding Ducondo with little men since I didn't know how to fortify them.

Now it's 8 years later: look where I am today!

[St Leo]

Civilization II was my second real computer game after SimCity 2000. In my first playthrough I built three cities on a peninsula and then thought that the map generator was messed up - I assumed water was impassable and somehow came to the conclusion that that was also true of the mountain range I was behind (I probably pressed the wrong arrow key and my unit did not move).

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St. Leo
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[Jeje2]

Good old golden memories
(Thx Yin26, it's been too long since I last remembered it)

Let's see now. It began in early 94 when I was doing my military service (In Finland it is compulsory for men) and had just received corporal status a month or two earlier.

When we were staying on campus we often had a few hours of own time after duty&dinner, in the evening. (4-5h)
On one such evening I went to the free time office to read comics etc, but this time I noticed that there was someone sitting in the far back dark corner locking at a small screen.

Well I just had to see and there I found a soldierboy using a 286 and playing Civ. First I wasn't so interested, but for some strange reason I watched him play for a few evenings. Until one evening he finished his current game and left (quite early IIRC) Well there it was, an empty computer.

Hope you'll understand, I just had to try it once myself. (Nothing to do in the evenings, so a boy like me was just bored. And when you are bored you are an easy prey for temptation. Hope you'll forgive me.) Well IIRC my first game was a very short-lived (few turns and less than an hour). So I left, but the next day I returned and the next and the next and ...

But there was a problem; we were two players on one computer -> competition of who got there first after duty&dinner. And this was a serious problem, you'll know that in 4 hours you don't play much Civ (4-5h was normal time after duty&diiner and before we had to be in bed.) So finally I made a deal with my collegs. Every morning I woke our soldiers and took them to breakfast. In exchange I was free from dinner (Dinner normally ends the official day when on campus), so when they went for dinner, I was already sitting in a dark corner locking at a small screen (14"), practicing my military skills for the last 3-4 months of my servicetime when on campus.

IIRC I newer played Civ since. I got CivII a year or two later and have played it like hell.


Yup, those were good days.
Snif... I want my CivIII
[This message has been edited by Jeje2 (edited June 29, 2000).]

[Ari Rahikkala]

Hmm... I can't remember very much from my first Civ experiences, probably because I was such a small child by then. But I remember that I thought that the chariot looked like a bobble hat and I was very afraid of that it would come and kill all my units.

IIRC, in the same game, which was at citizen level, I played with Chinese and had two cities when the zulus had conquered the world . Probably the worst Civ game ever played...

[Az]

first of all I'd like to thank yin26 for this great thread . well there it goes :
I was just a kid then . I visited a friend of mine in his house . he had this 386 PC. It was a russian version of the game . I played it for the Romans IIRC . I just build that militia a lot . and the funniest thing was I tried to move the city in disorder , I couldnt understand that it wasn't a militia unit ,but a disordered city. the funniest thing I couldnt understand FOR A YEAR that the settlers unit pic was actually a settler chariot . I actually misunderstood the wheels of that chariot for EYES .

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Prepare to Land !

[Dracon]

I first got Civ 1 in 1995 when my parents were purchasing Windows 95. My computer at the time was crap, so my mum decided to buy me a multimedia pack (CD drive, sound card, speakers, etc). So she got a soundblaster CD Rom kit, and guess what game was packaged with it? Yes, that's right, Civilization!

[Ralf]

One of my firsts memorable experience was then i played Rome on the earth-map. I didn’t have the notion of continuing expanding and improving – i took a rather laidback approach. Suddenly, after i founded about 7 cities covering most of Europe, THEY came. They came in hordes (musketeers that is) from Africa, marching through the Holy land, then turning left though minor Asia. None of my cities was city walled, so i had a choice - either speed build city walls, or producing Chariots. I did the latter.
I did manage to delay the onslaught somewhat, but one by one my cities was conquered. I did my very best sending those chariots at them, but it was to no avail. I felt like Hitler in his bunker – the situation became more and more desperate…
Finally the AI managed to unceremonially stamp my very existence out of the game – and i was confronted with that dreaded defeat-screen. I can still today remember the frustration in desperately trying to convert the situation to my advantage – but without success.

My computer was an Amiga 600, equipped with a 68000-processor - clocking at a whooping 7,14 Mhz!! Question: How much did that kind of awesome number-crunching processing power translated into Civ map-generating waiting-time, do you think? Take a guess – 20, 30 seconds perhaps?
Answer: It took around 6 looong and rather inpatient minutes, each and every time you started a new fresh game (no, not seconds – minutes!!).

[Lord Magnus]

I bought Civ2 in 1997. As soon as I got to my computer I popped the CD in the drive and played as the Germans. I caught on how to play the game but I didn't know some of the concepts and as a result my civ was very small and weak. Fortunately I some how allied with the Spanish who were the largest civ. After playing the game for several days I got a bit bored and discovered the cheat menu and pretty much screwed up that game after going to war with the Spaniards and the other civs. After that game I started to read the manual and since then I've fared better in future civ games. I still play Civ2 even though I got CTP, maybe Civ3 will retire Civ2.


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Learn the mistakes of yesterday to prevent the ones of tomorrow...

[comrade_simon]

I bought ST Format, the demo disk 'Civilization' wow! rushed home to play. arghhhhhhhhhhh! needs 1MB, my 0.5MB machine couldn't handle it. Took it up my cousins, played on her 1MEG STE wow! I was hooked. It only lasted until 1AD, but I played for 3 hours every Sunday. The map was the same everytime and so were the civ locations, i had no manual but in the end that made learning the game a more fruitful experience. When i got my PC i bought Civ for a £10 in a compilation box. Greatest achievment is when I conquored the world on Emporer with Babylonians. Made sure it was me vs French and Romans and built a line of Fortresses boxing them into Europe while I expanded over Asia, Africa and America. That Christmas, my mate got Civ 2, two weeks later, I went a bought my own copy for £30, and it was money well spent. My first few games I was well rucked up by the AI, but then I discovered the cheat option! NO! Why did they put this in? It's too tempting. But then I discovered the ptential for amazing scenarios and created my WW3 scenario. Never got to beat Emporer or Deity on Civ 2. Next, my attention truned to Multiplayer Civ 2, it was on sale or £15 in Electronics Boutique, but now I had a girlfriend so my money was spent on her and I couldn't spend my money on games. A friend of mine lent me Call To Power. Immediate dissappointment, where were the wondors I loved so much? Since when had the Jamaicans been a prestigous civilizaion? The bargain! Just a week after it came out Test of Time had been reduced in price! Sod he girlfriend I'm buying this- Hot Seat option! And for the past 6months-ish I've mamanged to win every game at Cheiftain-Emporer levels, and now I prepare to face the ultimate challange- Diety...

[Sirotnikov]

Oh, well, it was probably around summer 97, I only had my 120Mhz 16MB RAM for less than a year. This was my first computer. I had a small quantity of bad games. My brother's girlfriend (now his wife) had an old 386 with DOS or something like that for a few years and she had some games. She copied civilization to my computer.

I started it. I had a settler (I also had no Idea that was a vagon for a few months) and that's it. I had absolutely no idea what to do. She wasn't very good at civ, so I listened to her basic explanation. It sounded nice, but I didn't understand how can a stupid DOS game do all that.

I played a bit with the greek, I believe they were pink. I lost my troops several times because I wasn't aware of the meanings of differrent techs and I couldn't answer the quiz thingy (remember that?)

I had no idea what revolution does, and quite frankly was very afraid of it. I first changed my govt. only after many games.
Also I had no idea what taxes\tech\luxury do.

The whole Civ 1 period is very obscured in my memory. I remember only bits and pieces.

I built ships. I conquered all sorts of lands. I was quite strong and then I met a russian diplomat. The russians were living on some small island I haven't discovered yet and were quite weak. I made peace. In the next turn, the russians attacked. I couldn't unbderstand why. I just wanted to keep exploring the newly discovered continent.

I have another bitter memory with the russians when I was playing zuulus on the earth map, I had little cities and sent most of my units exploring. Somewhere in egypt I met a russian soldier. I talked to stalin who had an evil grin. I made peace. And then stalin fortified his units so I caouldn't andvance and go to the middle east and beyond. I tried to use diplomats but his units were too expensive.

I got civ 2 around the beginning of 98. sucked at first. was perfectionist. I remember babylonians conquering my cities and then making peace. But I never forgot and I never forgave. Also, one time, I was allied wiht the greeks. They are really *****y. After a long while they wanted some money to continue the alliance. Ok. I agreed. (I was lame back then. I'm not anymore. Really. I'm not. Why are you laughing?) Then they asked for some tech. I grumbled but Agreed. then they wanted two more techs. And it was all in the same conversation. I got really mad. And, what can I say. After a while they were no more.
And then I moved up to warlord level. Just kidding I wasn't that lame.

That's my 0.000000000000002 c.