"the goal was to see whether you could launch a spaceship before you reached A.D."

[boggle]

I was quite happy to pull this off in the 1800s once, and I was not playing on a high difficulty.

He names names at Galley Slaves

I'm surprised Meiers don't list the boardgame "Civilization" as an inspiration for the computer game. I recall a few hours spent on this game with friends in college in the early 1980s.

Civ caused more sleep deprivation than anything I can remember. Too many, "i'll call it a night once I build X, research Y or conquer the Romans."

Easily the best pc game I've played and I have intentionally made sure I don't have it installed due its ability to steal time.

I thank god everyday that I don't have enough video memory on my computer to play Civilization 4. I've played the new one a few times - god, that's a fun game.

As an undergraduate, I'd be reading Waltz or Mearsheimer or some other theorist of IR, and I'd try to model various problems using Civ. It didn't work so well. I spent a lot of time yelling "don't make peace with me! I clearly have malign intentions!" at my computer. There was also a fair amount of "I wanted to coexist peacefully, but then you built that city on my only source of [strategic resource]."

I do believe that it is possible to accumulate enough data to make an interesting and plausible AI for Civ, at least for IR nerds. I also believe that if such an endeavor were successful, it might very well spell the end for IR as an academic discipline. [Either that, or they'd have to let us cite games as persuasive sources.]

Another quibble I had with Civ II is that, if I remember correctly, it was possible to get absurdly far up the tech tree without ever researching "the Wheel."

Maybe I am dating myself, but I played the original Civ a lot. I loved the simple graphics and the music. My favorite was the battle ship, it could do about everything you needed and looked cool as well.
BCN

Adrian,

It's true that in some of the Civs, you could get pretty far without the Wheel tech. I have always thought that was intentional. The Incas controlled all of the Andes without having developed the wheel as anything more than a curiosity for children's toys. I think the Civ designers may have been aware of that.

There is an older game called Balance of Power. Originally a Mac game as far I remember but there is a PC version too. Basically you try to increase your prestige (play either the US or USSR) and avoid escalating the crises to nuclear war! Its 1990 version is more advanced. Search google and you'll find a copy of it and kill your valuable research time while mourning the good old days of Cold War :))

PS: There was also a game called Butters and Guns but don't remember the specifics honestly.

I loved the original Civilization so much, but it doesn't compare to the board game Diplomacy. The computer does not compare to playing against real people.

Adrian: try Europa Universalis II. I don't know about EU III, but EU II's AI models some basic balance-of-threat, reputation, and foreign aid principles. It also suggests that in an offensive realist world you'll quickly get regional empires/hegemonies, but in a defensive realist world you get balances of power.

Here's the Wikipedia page on the original Civilization boardgame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_board_game