I have no idea where we’d be without Sid Meier’s Civilization. Its influence has been an overwhelming constant for decades, defining generations of strategy games and developers. If Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley hadn’t decided to let Napoleon, Montezuma and Alexander the Great duke it out, swallowing up the world and dropping nukes on each other, a huge chunk of gaming history would never have happened.
Turn-based strategy existed long before Civ, but it’s Civ’s brand of turn-based strategy that became the model that most of the genre ended up following. It’s not just 4X games that owe almost everything to Civ. You can’t help but stumble across its DNA everywhere, whether you’re playing Crusader Kings, Total War, or Age of Empires, which dreamed of being a real-time Civ.
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FALLING IN LOVE
LEMMINGS still haunts my nightmares almost three decades later.
QUAKE
The blueprint for 3D shooters has lots to teach in 2021.
LORD OF CHAOS
How XCOM’s JULIAN GOLLOP improved on the board games he loved
Unreal World
Two years on, EPIC GAMES STORE is still a golden ticket for developers and irresistible bait for gamers.
LEADING A PEASANT REVOLT IN BATTLE BROTHERS PART II
We return to the Darklands for a grim conclusion.
THE GREATEST INFLUENCER
PC gaming would look very different without CIVILIZATION.
RICE FARMING IN SAKUNA: OF RICE AND RUIN
I planted 100 individual seedlings and loved every second.
RAISING THE BAR
The subtle, hands-off storytelling of HALF-LIFE 2 is still hard to beat.
COOL RUNNINGS
What if advances in PC cooling change the PC beyond recognition?
BUILD ME UP
The joys of creation and destruction in SIMCITY 2000
HENPECKED GEORGE IS NOW MR. DAD!
But he’s loving every minute
Terra Nova and Scott of the Antarctic
The barque Terra Nova was specially reinforced for working in polar sea ice
Nacimientos
Every year near the holiday season, Adobe Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, holds its Native American Nacimientos exhibition.
The Man from Monaco
Man of style Alexander Kraft launches a timeless and luxurious clothing line
Small-scale art
RJD Gallery in Bridgehampton, New York, hosts its annual BIG ART, small canvas exhibition beginning October 31, featuring an array of artwork by some of its most sought-after gallery artists.
DEADLINE DECISIONS
Alexander trade a harbinger of tough choices looming for 49ers
A Lounge in the Sky in the West Village
How architect Alexander Gorlin turned a badly renovated studio apartment into a sunny and starlit day-to-night home—with enough space for 30 Dutch soldiers.
Russian Chronicles
Leap year problems
In the Winter Palace
In this prologue to Alpsten’s new historical fiction novel, Tsarina, we meet Catherine I at the critical turning point in her life: the death of her husband Peter I (the Great).
ALL THE RIGHT KEYS
CHICK COREA, WITH HIS LATEST ALBUM, PLAYS, CONVINCES AUTHOR MIKE GREENBLATT THAT HE’S AMERICA’S GREATEST LIVING PIANO PLAYER.