The Civilization series spans nearly 20 years, several consoles, and innumerable hours of gameplay by its devoted fans who have fought wars, built the Wonders of the World, and watched entire empires rise and fall. As the fifth iteration of the award-winning, turn-based strategy game closes in on its release date, Ars takes a look back at the evolution of Civilization, and how it captured our hearts, brains, and unblinking stares time and again.

Civilization

In the beginning, there was, counterintuitively, Civilization. Montezuma began a long and storied reign as a massive jerk, the English wanted to know why they had to be pink on the map, and since the game was developed at the tail end of the Cold War, the Russians were led by Joseph Stalin.

Starting in 4000 BC, players worked to develop their civilization by building wonders and researching technologies, a concept lifted in large part from a board game of the same name released in 1980. Players tried to settle cities, build units to protect their empire, and conduct diplomacy, while watching some of the more belligerent leaders, like Alexander the Great, do his best to steamroll everyone else's cities before his phalanxes became obsolete.

But who are we kidding? In the slightly screwy combat system that would come to characterize Civ gameplay, phalanxes never became obsolete. A decently experienced phalanx unit fortified on a mountain could defeat a modern tank in a single turn. Banish any mental images you have of spears glancing off a tank's steel, because phalanxes are here to stay. And stay. And stay. And win. And stay.

Civilization II

When I started researching the whole Civ franchise, I had doubts about whether I had ever actually played Civilization II. These doubts vanished when I sought out a video of the Civ2 gameplay and heard the military advisor cry, "Give me more soldiers, noble leader, that we may sheathe our swords in the beating hearts of our enemies!" Ah, the High Council, always there to weigh in on your every move with their pithy statements and "I disagree, Your Excellency"s.

Even though you were the supreme ultimate ruler of your civilization, you couldn't even fire them. Why? Because Sid Meier paid those voice actors for full eight-hour days, dammit, and you're going to listen to every word they say. The best you could do was stir your country into anarchy and make the council too angry to talk to you.

Aside from the high council, Civ2 was a vast improvement from the original. It introduced hit points into the combat system, so wars were not won and lost in single turns. The second installment began a long trend of adding and mixing up new civilizations, adding the Sioux and Vikings among others, and giving the Russians a little more credit by making their leaders Lenin and Catherine the Great. This was also the version of Civilization that attempted to be the most equitable with regard to gender: each tribe had a male and female leader option.

Another series tradition that Civ2 started was that of awarding players titles once a game concluded. One who played valiantly and didn't let other civs push them around might get " the Conquerer," "the Great," or even "the Magnificent," while those that avoided conflict or development might be called "the Pathetic."

Civ2 also took one of the franchise's many baby steps towards acknowledging progress outside Western Civilization, adding the Japanese as a choice to the civ smorgasbord, and including Sun Tzu's War Academy as one of the seven Renaissance wonders of the world.

Graphics were vastly improved in Civ2, and the tech tree was expanded significantly. Like its predecessor, the game came with a real-life, full-sized map of the tech tree that you could proudly post over your computer desk for easy reference.

Though the game was an official part of the Civilization franchise, and was produced by the same company as CivI, its creator, Sid Meier, had nothing to do with the production of Civ2 (nor did his partner, Bruce Shelley). This was perhaps not an entirely bad thing, as Civ2 did away with some of the overly educational aspects of the game, like random quiz questions about old inventions, and was generally well-received by critics.

GameSpot gave the game a 9.2 out of 10 on its release, and noted that "there is nothing available that can compete with its depth of play, subtlety of challenge, and pure addictive potential." Even in retrospect, the game was an enormous accomplishment: IGN ranked Civ2 #3 on its 2007 list of the 100 greatest video games, including both console and PC games.