How was a strategy game "civilization" highly addictive enough to be referred to as an electronic drug "birth"?

"Sid Myers CivilizationThe series is a strategy game with motifs of real civilization,It was used as a school teaching material,Four theme songsHas won the Grammy Award for the first time as game music and boasts worldwide popularity. I wonder how Mr. Sid Meier designed the first "Sid Myers civilization", a blog that describes the history of computer entertainment "The Digital Antiquarian"Explains it.

The Game of Everything, Part 1: Making Civilization The Digital Antiquarian
https://www.filfre.net/2018/03/the-game-of-everything-part-1-making-civilization/

"Sid Myers Civilization" series is a turn-based strategy game. The addiction that keeps on playing while thinking "only one more turn" is said to be "electronic drug", and it is a group aiming for social reintegration of people who have gone to "civilization" overseas while jokes abroadCIVANON"Has been established.

As the name suggests, "Sid Myers Civilization" series was created by Mr. Sid Meyer. Mr. Meyer established a game company called "microprose" and was working on various works. However, Mr. Meyer of the mood did not seem to have consistently developed a single title, "Railroad TycoonIf you think that you are working hard to develop a game called "Because you lost interest,Sid Meier's Covert Avtion"The microprocess colleague, for example, moved to the development of a game called" games "that he was not able to grasp what he was doing now. Meanwhile, one of the projects that Mr. Meyer secretly worked on was "civilization".


Mr. Meyer at that time was an evening person, I was sending the days that I worked at noon and work until late at night. Meanwhile, Mr. Mr. Bruce Sherry, a direct report of Mr. Mayer, got out at 8 o'clock and was scheduled to go home at 17 o'clock. Mr. Meyer coordinated the game until late at night, put the latest version of the disk in Mr. Shelly's home and returned home, Mr. Sherry went to work in the morning and played the latest version of Mr. Civelization for about an hour, the impression It was said that it was developed in the style of telling Mr. Meyer who got out at noon.

Civilization, like Railroad Tycoon, was released in 1989 "Sim CityIt is strongly receiving the influence of. Mr. Meyer highly appreciated the game design of Will · Light who designed Sim City. However, on the other hand, SimCity's "Especially the purpose of clearing game has not been set" seems to have been dissatisfied, Railroad tycoon and civilization added "opponent operated by computer" and "time limit" It is designed to give the player a firm purpose of play

And while Sim City created his own city, "civilization" became the concept of making up his own civilization. In designing civilization, Mr. Meyer abstracts most of the city, not limited to concrete and detailed city like Sim City, so that it displays only limited information such as major buildings, population and economic situation I made it. Furthermore, by incorporating the construction of waterways, roads and mines, we succeeded in allowing players to consider agriculture, commerce, and industry, which is important in shaping the country. The system of civilization that Mr. Meyer made is one of the basic styles of the turn-based strategy game released afterwards.


Civilization, initiallyReal-time strategyAlthough development began as a development, Mr. Meyer's turn-based strategy game "EmpireIt is said that it was changed to a turn system at a considerably early stage also due to the influence of. It is pointed out that it is almost the same system as Empire in that it maps the squares and maps and moves the chess pieces and instructs them to move and fight to their units. However, rather than using the same system in its entirety, Empire's battle system has been considerably simplified and refined. The following image is about to issue orders to units with Empire.


We also created "Tech (Technology) Tree" to develop scientists, engineers, and technologies and advance civilization. The Tech Tree consists of primitive items such as "alphabet", "temple", "riding-horse unit" and so on to advanced items such as "submarine", "nuclear weapon factory", "SDI defense", and so on in order to trace the history of human civilization I will learn it. In order to design a tech tree, Mr. Meyer and Mr. Shelley read the history book, and if it is still enough, he visited the Smithsonian museum and the Congress library and studied the history of humanity thoroughly.


The game was completed and it became the title of "Sid Myers Civilization" which was named Mr. Meyer in "Civilization" which was the project name at the time of development. Although this name was thought that it was attached without thinking anything in particular, actually, in 1981, a company called "Civilization" was issued from a company called Avalon Hill, and a claim comes from Avalon Hill.

So, Mr. Bill Steely, president of MicroProcess, had a lunch with Mr. Eric Todd, President of Avalon Hill, negotiated while drinking wine, and from Avalon Hill the right named "Civilization" We have signed a contract to purchase. Thanks to that, "Sid Myers Civilization" can be released safely. In addition, although it seems that "Sid Myers Civilization" is considered to be a game of board game "Civilization" in many cases, Mr. Meyer argues that "Civilization of board game never played" about.

Thus "Sid Myers Civilization" was released in 1991. However, microprojects at the time were unprepared for management difficulties, and they were acquired shortly afterwards. After that, Mr. Mayor retires from Microprose without making a civilization, launches a new company called Firaxis Games, and releases the sequel "Sid Myers Civilization II".


Although it is a "Sid Myers Civilization" series which has become a popular series of more than 10 works including Gaiden as of April 2018, Mr. Meyer was directly involved in production though it is stated as "Sid Myers" It is only the "Civilization · Revolution" developed at the beginning of 1991 release and in 2008.