Civilization Revolution

Oscar Nobi

Xbox 360

When Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution was first announced last year, developer Firaxis declared that this edition of the veritable strategy series would be lovingly created with only console gamers in mind. Gamers who, chances are, had had little exposure to Civilization's brand of intricate tribal management and war-mongering shenanigans.

It's fitting then that, despite being a self-professed (casual) fan of strategy games, I've never played any of the previous titles in the series. The only excuse I can think of is that I might have subconsciously been averted by stories of how addictive these games can be, to the point of players wearing tea-cosies on their head during weekend-long sessions while speaking pigeon-French.

But this latest version, released for Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, promised to be slicker, slimmer, smoother and shorter. For many die-hard Civ fans that meant stupider. I, on the other hand, was intrigued.

From what I do know of the Civilization series, the basics remain. You take charge of one of 16 civilizations, guiding them from an era of clubs and excessive body hair in 4000BC through to one of nuclear bombs and Brazilian waxes in the present day and on to 2100AD. Along for the ride are four other civilizations, with each of you vying with the others to claim victory through one of four means: Domination (capturing all capital cities), Economic (hoarding 20,000 gold pieces and building the World Bank), Cultural (amassing 20 Great People, Wonders and / or cities persuaded to adopt your culture, and then building the United Nations) and Technological (building a spaceship and colonizing another world).

In order to reach these heady heights of worldwide hegemony you have to explore the world around you, build your armies, expand your empire and cultivate your cities. This is all done via a turn-based mechanic which is both sensible and fun: sensible in that it allows you the time you need to assess the situation (very important in the latter stages when you'll likely have cities dotted all over the game world) and fun in that the AI completes its turns in a matter of seconds.

With each of the cities founded by your settlers, you'll need to decide what you will call them, what you will build in them and how they will contribute to your wealth and scientific advancement. Managing your civilization with these considerations in mind comfortably teeters on the fine line between console fun and strategic intricacy. A handy pop-up menu shows you how far the other civilizations are progressing and if you see Japan edging closer to the technological victory it can be a challenge to figure out how to squeeze every bit of gold out of your cities in order to nab the economic victory before then. Meanwhile you'll want to make sure you're not defending your cities with bows and arrows when Germany decides to send in the Panzer tanks.

Inevitably, you'll have to engage in skirmishes in order to survive, be you a pacifist valiantly defending your cities from onslaughts, or conqueror, plundering and pillaging as you go. Combat is essentially a numbers game, each unit being assigned stats for attack and for defence. This alone would bring a bland top-trumps simplicity to combat, but other factors like experience, special abilities, terrain advantages, naval support and so on help spice things up.

Underlying all of this is the game's take on diplomacy and politics. Each of the other civilization's leaders will contact you from time to time, or you can get hold of them yourself, to have an intercontinental chinwag. These can range from peaceful offers to trade knowledge, threats and outright declarations of war.

While civilization management and combat are well-executed, it's with diplomacy that the game veers too far towards the simple. The general problem is one of predictability. Play a couple of games and you'll recognise a similar pattern. All leaders offer you peace when you first meet them. Your civilization grows and they offer a couple of tech trades. Your civilization grows some more and suddenly everyone around you perceives you as a threat and attacks. You can placate them with offerings of gold or knowledge, but you'll generally want to prevent gifting them as such. So you keep your defences up while heading towards your desired mode of victory. And that's pretty much the model for each game.

An improvement would have been to see leaders' personalities reflected in their strategy. For example, Ghandi could have been more peaceful, while Genghis Khan more violent. As it happens, they'll react similarly to your presence and there's nothing to suggest one would be more likely than the other to accept a peace offering. If such a mechanism was then supplemented with the ability to forge alliances and face common enemies, it would not only make the game world feel more alive, but make each game that much more unique. Another improvement would have been a greater reliance on other civilizations for trade and resources, thereby introducing a further downside to war. I don't believe this would have rendered the game too complex in light of what Firaxis and Meier were aiming for with this title. As it stands the only factor to really consider is who has got the better army.

This is a particular shame when you consider how good diplomacy looks. Each leader appears on the side of the screen when you speak to them and the amount of work that has been put into their appearance is plainly obvious. Civilization Revolution has adopted a slightly cartoonish look, together with Sims-like gibberish instead of dialogue, but this doesn't preclude you from feeling you're dealing with real people in light of their quirky mannerisms and often hilarious reactions when you, for example, refuse their offer of peace. If only their personalities matched the detail and individualism of their avatars.

That's not to say each game is exactly the same as the other. The world is randomly generated so you don't know where the other civilizations are until you explore. Each civilization has bonuses to exploit as well as a few unique units so you'll want to try them all. The Egyptians, for example, start the game with a free Wonder, which means you're already one step closer to a cultural victory. The German warriors start with veteran status, giving you an early edge in combat, while the Spanish and English have stronger navies. Combine this with the four paths to victory, plus the ability to play through a range of scenarios, and there's certainly scope for coming back for more.

Considering the problems mentioned above, it's likely that multiplayer will be the key to getting mileage out of this game. It's a fun and frenetic few hours with the sort of alliances and tantrums you'd expect from a game of Monopoly. Except now, when those two annoying players decide to make very 'strategic' trading decisions all throughout the game, you can deter them by waving a nuclear bomb in their face.

Graphically, this game looks very good, so long as you accept the game's cartoonish art style. The units look fairly simple, so don't expect the graphical candy of Command & Conquer 3, but the animation surrounding the units' interactions with each other is solid. As alluded to earlier, it's the leaders who are visually most impressive, together with your various advisers who also pop up to keep you informed of what's going on. It's also worth noting that firing off a nuke looks particularly impressive.

Having said that, Civilization Revolution certainly doesn't look as though it should be pushing the console, so it's a little annoying that the game can slow down from time to time. Luckily these occurrences are quite rare and generally last for no more than a couple of seconds.

So what's the verdict, considering the developer's mission statement? For the most part it's slick and smooth, but there is a pang of stupidity around diplomacy which means the game (single player anyway) is a little too slim and short. Not quite tea-cosies on heads here, but you can't deny the fun factor either.

8/10