How old were you when you discovered CIV?

[Hakkapeliitta]

I was 7 or 8 when played civ the first time. I got it from my friend along with other great games like warcraft 1 and rampart. Anyway, I think I never managed to beat the game.

[Flanker]

Originally posted by Thirgaral
I was about 7 years old....I remember that we didn´t know a word English... but somehow we even managed to win a game on emperor!!!

In civ1, these "answer correctly or your people will leave you" questions occasionally popped up... since we didn´t understand a word of it, we eventually learned to associate the pictures with the options to get it right...

civ1 was the first PCgame I ever played and I was spellbound from the beginning...

I learned phrases like: "Ceremonial burial" (try to pronounce that as a seven year old swede... you don´t want to hear what we came up with.. )

after having played it for some years I was actually speaking English quite well...(Civ should be used in all schools for studying English, History, Geography and Computer-sciences!! Imagine, I´d actually love going to school!!!

All said above fits in pretty well on my own starting experiences of Civ. I was about 9-10 and got it from a friend of mine. I didn´t understand much English, and in the beginning I thought it was pretty boring actually. Just didn´t get the point. But then after a while things came in place, however I did some pretty odd things during my first games. I remember I was very disappointed when I realised iron clads couldn´t transport troops. I thought the cannon was a splendid exploring weapon. I really wanted to invent nukes, because they had a 99 attack value, and I didn´t know any of the drawbacks with them.
I´ve also learned a lot of English, History and Geography with Civ. I found it really interesting to read the civilopedia, even though I didn´t really understand much of it in the beginning.
As quoted, I also remember those "answer correctly"-questions in Civ! It took a while before I even understood what they were there for. Then i guess a learned and guessed most of the time.

[dworkin]

There was a time before Civ?

Blasphemer!

[Konquest02]

I think I was 9-10 when i first played Civ I. It was a pirated copy with a cheat on it. When you bought something, your gold went up to 30000. This way, I managed to beat monarch even though I did not had a clue of what I was doing! I remember a game where I had the english and the other civ remaining was Egypt. They were still in the medieval age and their only city was surrounded my modern armour. I was waiting to build my spaceship. Looks like I did not play for a fast finish!

When I grew up, I wanted to play normally, but I never got to remove the cheat. I then grew tired of Civ.

Then, 4 years ago, we changed our trusty old 386 to a state-of-the-art PII 350 MHz. I later bought Civ III which I like very much.

--Kon--

[PrinceBimz]

Was sometime in my early 20s. It was on the Super Nintendo, the first time I ever played CIV. Almost instantly I was really hooked! A while after that I got a PC and the VERY first game I bought was CIV2, the rest is history. Now CIV3, better then ever and we continue...

[nabucodonosor]

i was 10 or 11 when i first played civilization I on my windows 3.1 pc, it was the greatest game back then, way better than any nintendo stuff. and to be honest, the game gave me a lot of world knowledge, it got me into civilizations and advances and stuff...

[Theseus]

Actually, I started before there was Civ.

The precursors to Civ1 were Empire and Empire Deluxe, in about 1988.

I started Civ1 in my late 20s, the year it came out.

[WarningU2]

I was in my mid 20s when I discovered CIV and have upgraded to each version as I grow old. I think the CIV3PTW is likely the best despite its buggy nature. I only wish that AI's would take over when players drop out.

[badams52]

Originally posted by Theseus
Actually, I started before there was Civ.

The precursors to Civ1 were Empire and Empire Deluxe, in about 1988.

I started Civ1 in my late 20s, the year it came out.

But if I remember correctly, empire was strictly a unit building game where you couldn't even build cities, but could only capture them. Not much like civ in my opinion.

BTW, where did Sid Meyer get his idea anyway? Did Empire inspire him?

[Theseus]

Yep, units only.

I've always thought that Sid built upon Empire conceptually.

[Chemical Ollie]

Wow, before there was CIV, there was Theseus!

I played Strategic Conquest on my Mac from 1991 and on, and it had a lot in common with Civilization. Started with one city, had to explore the map and capture cities, fog of war, tanks, fighters, bombers, subs, battleships and destroyers etc. I got my copy of CIV 1 in 1994, but I guess it had been out for a while by then?

[Aeris]

Summer of 96, I believe, I was at a friend's house for a few days, and being the huge computer geeks we were, and his dad having Civ II... I guess that would make me 9. I grew up on strategy games though, The Ancient Art of War, Railroad Tycoon and the like; I don't even remember what kind of computer we had back then.

[Dr. A. Cula]

It was in spring 1994. I had just turned 20 and bought my first PC. A few days later, someone gave me a pirate copy of Civ. Since that day, every time I had a computer at home, it also some Civ on it.


Later, I considered the original game was worth the money.

[Agathon]

Man I remember being happy when the computer version of Civ came out. I'd played the boardgame for some years in the late 80s. I was in my mid-late teens then.

There is nothing in the computer version that is quite as fun as the trading phase of the boardgame.

[Mad Bomber]

There is nothing in the computer version that is quite as fun as the trading phase of the boardgame..

I had forgotten about the board game. And trading was great in that game. I first played the board game in the early eighties (1982-3?) I must have been around 10 at the time.

[Murtin]

I guess I was 16. It was in 1992 and I played it with a couple of friends on their Amiga 500.

We were as enthusiastic about the game as we were clueless. I remember it as one of the Great Revelations in my life, when we discovered that we could use the numeric keypad to move units. Up till then we had used the arrow keys and we were very annoyed by the fact that the AI sometimes would build diagonal roads which we couldn't use.

Also, we played several games from beginning to end without knowing anything about the mechanics of city growth, tax rate (better just leave those numbers alone) or change of governments (Revolution? No, that sounds way too dangerous).

When I played the game on my own I had to adopt a very roundabout way of expanding my empire, since my Amiga 500 suffered from a weird affliction whereby it had a guru meditation any time one of my settlers had ended its turn on a square adjacent to one of my cities. Still, that didn't stop me from playing and enjoying the game.

The arrival of Civ2 was probably what caused me to decide I needed a PC. That was an expensive game...

[Conqueror]

Originally posted by Olaf Hårfagre
On my copy of CIV3, there is a label saying "3+"! I can hardly imagine someone under 10 being able to play and understand a game of Civilization.

I think my little brother was 6 or 7 when he was playing his first Civ 1 games with my computer back then many years ago. He played actually quite skillfully after some games

And we both still play Civ series, now its very much fun to beat him in Civ3 PBEM's

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber



I had forgotten about the board game. And trading was great in that game. I first played the board game in the early eighties (1982-3?) I must have been around 10 at the time.

I remember trading going like this.

"How about some salt? Anyone want some salt?"

"You know what you can do with your salt!"

"I'll stick my salt up your *** if you don't shut up!"

"You B@stard! Why the hell did you trade me an epidemic! I'll kill you!"

and there was always some poor git going, "anyone want hides?"

[Louis XXIV]

I first played in 1996 (I think)

I was in third grade and the school computer had Civ2.

My friend had it also, so I played at their house until about 3 or 4 years ago when I got a computer that could handle Civ2 (I dare somebody to ask what kind of computer I had )

Anyway, I got Civ2 MGE and SMAC simultaniously. Last Christmas I got Civ3.

Now you know I'm technologically backward

[ceroomaster]

10 (-ish). It had just come out on the Atari, demo on ST Format coverdisk. Never looked back since...

I think the ELPSA (or whatever they're called) ratings say 'it is suitablefor people aged 3+' to play, not that they actually can. My mum is 39, she wouldn't have a clue how to play Civ3 if I sat her in front of the screen...

[sgrig]

I started playing Civ when I was about 11 (that was in 1995) - my dad got the game for me from one of his colleagues.

I still remember my first crushing defeat - my "invincible" wall of warriors crumbled very quickly when it was attacked by Cavalry.

Then in 1997 I bought Civ2 and played that together with all the expansion packs right up to Civ3 was released.

[Thirgaral]

Originally posted by Flanker
Just didn´t get the point. But then after a while things came in place, however I did some pretty odd things during my first games. I remember I was very disappointed when I realised iron clads couldn´t transport troops. I thought the cannon was a splendid exploring weapon. I really wanted to invent nukes, because they had a 99 attack value, and I didn´t know any of the drawbacks with them.

It took a while before I realized that the settler wasn't some weird monster with horn-shaped outgrowths on it´s head...that´s honestly what I thought it was at first
I guess I´d read too much sci-fi...

[Chemical Ollie]

Wow, I started a thread that exceeded 50 posts and still no spamming (except this post)...

[Spiffor]

Don't worry, you are only 80 posts away of your custom avatar !

Nice thread too Did you consider making one about the age of current players, like at CFC ?

[Kuciwalker]

I got Civ2 MPGE when I was 9.

[player1]

I started playing Civ1 with 12 years in early 90's.

At first I was so baad played.

Later I learned something by following build advisior advice for building queues and looking which tiles AI settelers modify.

At the end, I become good player year and two years later, and very good player after discovering ICS strategy some times after that.

[Naiveplayer]

I was thirteen when my sister bought me Civ 3 as a middle school promotion present. That was in June 2002.

[Demerzel]

Discovered Civ1 at college, so that made me a wee 16 or 17 year old.

[Nym]

Well... I think I was 19 or 20 when I discovered CIV I!

[Galvatron]

Hmm around 9 or 10 I would say. Was very interesting to send militas around the world and get squashed by tanks and planes but I got better and better. Now I'm able to produce Legions