Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution - Playstation 3

I've been alive through the entire gaming evolution, from Pong to now. As I've gotten older I've gotten tired of button mashing and games that require fast reflexes. I wanted a game that relied more on planning and strategy and boy did this game deliver. I understand that this game is not as deep as the PC versions of Civilization, but you can't sit on your couch when on your PC either, nor play it on your 52" Bravia like I do. Whatever shortcomings the whiners point out are insignificant to the average gamer looking for a great strategy game. It literally never ends with this game. There are varying degrees of difficulty, various civilizations to play as, and four different ways to win any one game. Literally all of the leaders, buildings, and wonders are historically real. The Civilopedia (the in-game instruction manual) gives you historical background on everything and clear instructions on how to play. It is very easy to read and learn, but it does take time. At first I found the game overwhelming, but kept coming back. It was worth it. Each game has a unique map with different assortments of civilizations to compete against, different layouts of terrain and resources. The replay value is literally endless if you like the game. You can also play online and there are various alternate forms of gameplay such as scenarios and a game of the week where you can download a scenario and see how well you play it relative to other players online. You build units, harvest food, aquire technology, engage in diplomacy with other civilizations (even so far as getting them to wage war on other civilizations for you). You can expand your empire to new cities with settlers or take over other people's cities. Spies can be used to infiltrate other cities and take gold, destroy buildings, among other things. You can pursue domination, culture, technology, or economic success. Land, sea, and air can be commanded. And the list goes on, and on, and on. When you look at the big picture of this game and consider its fun, engrossing depth and replay value, it literally is flawless. Bravo, Sid Meier.Edit 3/12/2012After having played this more and more, I have three additional comments that I think are necessary. The first is that for all of the great things this game provides, there is a graphical problem. If you run the game in 1080p you will have a black border around your screen where the image doesn't completely fill the entire viewing area (less than 10% of the remaining area). After playing for long periods of time, this could lead to a reverse burn-in. I force my PS3 into 720p when playing this game and it solves the problem, with the image filling the screen entirely. I guess the game resolution is not truely 1080p, but some upscale of a lower resolution. Not a big deal, really. On another note, and a very good one, you can download add-ons for this game from the Playstation Network. The really cool part...most of them are free! The final matter, on a very important note, is that as I have played the different difficulty levels more, I'm in awe of the artificial intelligence in the game. As I've moved up to higher levels of difficulty, the game really gets challenging, to the point of frustration. In my opinion, this is the hallmark of a really good game. You can play on the initial difficulty of Chieftain, which is basically a tutorial mode. The next level is Warlord, which seems to be Chieftain difficulty without the tutorial. Next is King which is where you will get beaten if you still are not familiar with every facet of the game and some of the more common strategies. Next level is Emperor, where you will be literally crushed often, even after you have gotten better at King. Finally, the Diety level is staggering in its difficulty. For shiggles try it some time and see how weak your play really is. The computer never has any special advantages or cheats, it's just better than you...until you evolve! Like I said before, it just never, ever ends with this game.

I love this game. It's as fun as Civilization 3 for the PC, but doesn't have the tedium of Civilization 3.You have to make decisions constantly. (Not just make decisions once in a while and carry them out for a while like in Civilization 3). Every game is full of changes and you have to constantly adapt to them.The game has only one bug that I have found so far after completing 5 games. Sometimes, you can't build the World Bank to win an economic victory. I had to win a technological victory instead. I looked it up on the internet and found that other players had found this bug. It may only happen if you are gaining wealth too quickly from what I've experienced and read, but I'm only guessing. I won an economic victory by building it in an earlier game. Otherwise, the game has been bug free.In a normal game, you start out with just a unit of settlers on a random map. There are 4 other civilizations on the map out of a total of 16 civilizations. You use the settlers to build a city wherever you like. A city starts out just working 2 tiles (squares of land) around the city because you only start with two workers in a city. For example, one might work a grassland tile and produce 2 food per turn, while another might work a forest producing two hammers per turn. Hammers are units of industial production. It takes 10 hammers to make a warrior unit to fight and/or explore. It takes a certain number of units of food to increase the city's population by one unit of workers. Once the city has a population of 3 workers, you can create a settler unit (at a cost of 20 hammers) which reduces the city's number of workers by 2. This unit of settlers can move to find a nice spot for another city and found that city. The first warrior should have explored enough to know where. Leaving cities or settlers undefended makes them easy for enemy civilizations to capture and use themselves.There are lots of kinds of military units. Some are especially good at defense. Fortify these in your cities. Some are good for attack. Some can move more spaces per turn than others. Ships can move on the sea and can carry land units across the seas. Aircraft can move across any type of square.A worker working a sea square creates 2 research and possibly some food as well. Do enough research and you learn the technology that you are currently researching. You can then choose the next technology to reasearch. What research you have done determines what types of units you can build and what types of buildings and wonders of the world you can build in any city. A city can change from producing research (vials) to wealth (gold coins) (and back) at any time. When you reach certain levels of wealth you get a bonus. Wealth can also be used to rush (produce instantly) whatever you are building in a city, but it can be costly. Wealth can also be used to build roads between your cities so your land units can quickly move along them.Besides food (apples), industrial production (hammers), research (vials), and wealth (gold coins), you can produce culture in cities. The main way to produce culture is to build temples and cathedrals. High culture can get other civilizations' nearby cities to go over to you and low culture can lead to some of your cities going over to other civilizations. Culture production also leads to more great people, it seems. These people can be used to do one of two things. For example, a great scientist, like Albert Einstein, can permanently double (I think) a city's research if he settles there. He can instead be used to finish researching whatever technology you are currently working on.There are four ways to win. You can conquer all the other civilizations' capitals for a domintation victory. You can reasearch (eventually, after required preceding technologies) space flight and then build a colony space ship and send it to Alpha Cenauri for a technological victory. You can win an economic victory by accumulating 20,000 gold and then building the World Bank. Finally, you can win a cultural victory by getting 20 of the following, great people (like Albert Einstien) and/or wonders of the world and/or culturally gained cities, and building the United Nations. You can lose by being conquered of having another civilization gain a technological, economic, or cultural victory first. In 5 victories, I have won 2 technological victories, an economic victory, a cultural victory, and a domination victory.It takes me about 10 hours (I think) to win. (Losing sometimes takes me much less time. I give up easy.)

Great game. I have always heard of these strategy games and was so interested but never had the chance to experience them. One of the main reasons is because I never really hear of them on the consoles and I am not a PC gamer. I've specifically heard of the Civilization series and how great it is and boy was I glad to purchase this for my PS3. It's just great. It's turn based, as in your empire and other empires take turns making actions to better your empire. You can create armies of all sorts: just foot-soldiers, or horsemen, or riflemen, or cannons, tanks, jet fighters. You name any kind of battle unit and this game probably has it. It takes a little bit getting used to if you've never played these types of games like me, but it is very easy to get into and you can choose to get a sort of coach while you're playing through it the first few times. It is very addicting, and very rewarding. It makes you feel like a great leader or general, a brilliant tactician. It is also very fun to use multiplayer and test your wits on friends or random people online. It may take hours but you will will find that it was well wort your time. Great game. A definitely buy for consoles being that this might be the only one or the best strategy game available for them.