Seems like its been longer than 20 years but I suppose that's about right however my real introduction to 4X TBS games was Reach for the Stars by Roger Keating and Ian Trout on an Apple IIe in 1985

Imperium Galactum was my gateway drug. I played it so much I literally wore out the floppy disk. I miss my C64. Civ certainly has gotten plenty of play time too.

I went from Apple II trek to the Gold Box games on a PC and the original Wasteland.   I loved MOM and I think Enchantress is a worthy continuation of those classics.  I only wish they would add Kali and some necromancy to give death magic some real teeth.

I always thought that was Lord Xia I was looking at

Here's to Civ.  I'll never forget my first Civ 1 game.  I was on an Earth map, playing as Greece, and wouldn't ya know Germany would start a massive, free-for-all-war in the Ancient era.  I was hooked instantly; I was deep into WW2 at the time.

Alpha Centauri remains definitive.  Sure the graphics are aged, but it provides a unique, unmatched gaming experience.

Picked up Gods and Kings today.  Religion is a nice change, LOVE the addition of the Byzantine Empire.

Great thread.  Civ 1 was the reason I bought my first IBM based PC.

Loved all the Civs with Civ 3 and Civ 4 being my favorite.

Civ 5?  No thank you.  It's terrible and a waste of money, glad I never bought it.  Only way I'll pick it up is when all the DLCs are out and the whole package is at least 80% off on Steam for like $10.  Even then I probably won't get it because they killed the series with 5 (IMO).

Its too bad you let bitter and entitled forum posters sway your decision. Civ V wasn't great at launch but it sure is now. People will complain about anything on the internet.

There was this crazy old indie game that I played back in about 1990?

It was a 4x with no AI, so you had to multi-play it.

It had all sorts of crazy sci-fi races combined, like the Borg, and you and all your friends took turns issuing orders and then ending your turn.

Combat was kind of interesting, it basically played like Gratuitous Space Battles, where the 2 fleets just met up on the opposite side of the board and started pummeling each other as the drove towards each other...

I wish I could remember what it was....

Then once CIV came out we were all hooked on that... though I thought nukes sucked. I expected an entire city to be annihilated.

Weirdly we didn't get into Warlords until after CIV.

CIV also introduced me to the way American politics worked.... hrrmmm... here comes the good ole' USA's diplomat, at least they are a democracy... what, they just changed to a republic and declared war! How come I cant pull that crap!

Lord-Orion is VGA Planets the game you are trying to remember?

for me Civ went downhill after Civ 2. That was the version I had most fun with. I hate HATE the cartoon style of the later civs. Why couldn't we have more serious looking avatars for the leaders? Such a turn off.

Yes it was. Thanks

I could have swore we played this before CIV though, and ver3 seems to have better graphics then what I remember.

I never played the original Civ but I am very thankful that Sid Meier licensed the engine to the Simtex to make Master of Magic. /troll

 In 1993 I saw the first Civ advertised in a computer magazine; a picture of an Egytian sarcophagus under a modern cityscape and started saving up for a pc right away. Got the game with its two or three 5 1/4 inch floppies and read the manual for at least a month before even installing it(for some reason, I thought losing would be a really bad experience and wanted to be an expert out of the gate). Great times from I through IV (and SMAC).

The manual for Civ and Civ 2 were proper manuals! Civ 2 especially was huge!

With everybody loving Civ here it makes me feel like I'm not part of the TBS group

But I see it like I evolved in strategygaming and now favor the Real Time part of strategy

My first Civ experience was like 15 years ago (plus minus two years) with Civ II The Test of Time. I played the first game together with a friend and it didn't go well....a Russian came after only a few turns and said something about keeping out of his area.

Then we wanted to start irrigation but couldn't find out how to do it so we called a friend. I can't recall if we understood what he said but I wasn't awed by Civ II so we quit it. I did try some of the other versions on the disk which were a fantasy and also a sci-fi version. I didn't like Civ though so after like five 30min tries I never ever played a Civ game again and haven't done so until this day.

 I remember needing the manual when your game was interrupted by a screen asking you to identify an image on page n to continue playing.