Strategy Sid Meier's Civilization 1

In Civilization, you take on the role as leader of a starting civilization. You pick which difficulty level you want to play, and the nation you will lead. Each nation/civilization will have its' own strengths and weaknesses, and their leaders typically have specific traits. Gandhi from India, for instance, will primarily be peaceful and focusing on technological advancement, where Alexander from the Greeks tends to focus more on aggressive expansion.

Starting in 6,000 BC, you can take your empire all the way into the 21st century, building and managing cities as you proceed. However, your cities will have to be actively managed. It's always a challenge to strike the right balance between levying taxes to add funds to the treasury, ensuring sufficient food is available, and improving the cities with buildings and/or great wonders. And if that's not enough, if your citizens aren't kept happy, they might start questioning your leadership.

You will also have to ensure you keep an eye out on your opponents, and grow your military, as barbarians or other leaders might think you would be a good target for their armies. Lastly, you also want to ensure you invest in science, as unlocking additional scientific discoveries will allow you to build and develop improved buildings and units.

Should you ever find yourself with questions on units, buildings, types of land, or basically any other parts of the game, the extensive manual explains things in great detail. If you prefer not leaving the game, there is also a civilopedia available directly within the game.

There are two ways to win the game, the easiest of which is to simply destroy all other civilizations through combat. Alternatively, you can win by being the first nation to build a spaceship that reaches Alpha Centauri in order to move mankind to different planets.

Sid Meier's civilization 1 changed history and became a benchmark for how strategy games would be developed. It spawned a number of sequels, as well as clones, including Colonization.