Civ III was the height of the Civilization franchise.

I helped develop Unciv.

Have fun.

cough heroes of might and magic III cough

I guess Widelands could be to your taste? Also, original SimCity, Micropolis.

You've got a good point there that I am also often making when talking about gaming and maybe also trying to present gaming to non gamers.

There is so much implicit stuff grown over decades that for some series the barrier of entry is almost impossible for newbies. Be it the control scheme of some fifa or the complexity of a strategy game that just has to surpass its predecessor, not many developers consider this. Sometimes it's even part of a reason for downfall.

Never too late to dicover a classic.

By sheer chace I came across Alpha Centauri (wikipedia) a sequel to the original Civilization on gog.com. Best purchase ever. Exceptional gameplay. The best 5$ I remember spending.

I’ve been playing since 1991. My friend had a copy and I was so into it I’d go over to his house to play it when he wasn’t home. Then I got my own copy and I haven’t stopped playing since.

Well, except that one time where I had to have my wife hide the Civ V disc from me because I couldn’t stop myself.

I guess what I’m saying is take breaks and go outside, but I know your life will be “just one more turn…” from here on out.

I remember hitting "next turn" and going to eat, because it d take 30min to compute all AIs lol. I d save literally every turn

I'll add my vote for Sid Meyer's Alpha Cebtauri, it is a masterpiece. If you want to branch out Master of Magic is also quite fun and adds some interesting twists. Though it's not a Sid Meyer game. There's even a remake of it.

Just one more turn, bro.

Then you'll totally go to bed.

Had to uninstall Unciv from my phone.
Having a Civ-like app 24/7 available in my pocket isn't something I can handle...

I was babysitting the neighbours kids one night and their dad was like "kids are in bed feel free to play civ (III) until we are back"

I had no idea what he was talking about and he delayed his date night to give me a tutorial. Gave me the CD rom after because it wasn't needed to play. Great times.

Peaked at Civ 4, been downhill from there.

If the idea of having Civs that change with the era, but Leaders who stay the same appeals to you...

Humankind did it better than Civ 7.

If you enjoy the original Civilization, be sure to try out Freeciv. Basically the original game but with expanded gameplay and updated for compatibility. It's OpenTTD to Transport Tycoon, if you're familiar with those games. It also has multiplayer features, and there are sites that run turn-per-day MMO events.

I really love this approach and find myself employing it more the older I get. The second game has the best simplicity/fun ratio imo but 4 is also pretty good in that regard.

I spent so much time playing this version, loved it but not the 30min+ turns while waiting to do a move in end game. Depending which version you are playing, you can save before entering one of the random village huts and if you get something you don't like (attacked) you can reload and it will reroll the hut. Not all versions allowed this

Civ 2 is still and always will be the best civ Boat stacking armies for an invasion was the bomb

I played more Civ 1 than any of the later games. Civ 2 is also great as is 4 (3 is decent, but I wasn't nearly as enthralled with it). Every game in the series since has had aspects to it that I disliked enough to keep me from continuing to play and I heard enough bad comments about 7 to not both buying it.

it's the opposite for me. I can't get into the old ones. I should be able to though. I think I understand the game, have some hours playing five and six, but my ADHD gets the better of me with these user interfaces

I've played the first five Civ games and I have fond memories of buying units with diplomats! There's also FreeCiv which is an open source project that's very similar to Civ2 but probably supports modern hardware better. It's been built for android but from what I understand they're built by third parties so if you're tech savvy or feeling adventurous you could build it yourself. I played it many years ago in a really rough state where nothing was explained and my own knowledge of Civ 2 was the only thing that made it playable but from what I have heard it's much better now.

Fun fact, Civ1 was ported to the SNES and Civ2 was ported to the PlayStation.

Civ 2 is my favorite, plus it has a large collection of fan-made scenarios that cover almost every single sci-fi franchise with some fantasy mods as well, plus lots of historical scenarios that are fun to play.

There's even a mod that lets you play mafiosi in a SC2K-like NY:

It is also a time capsule in who we were twenty odds years ago.

• modpacks
• scenarios

I have an original Civ2 disk with my CD stacks. Only one remaining cd-rom...