Civilization World (CivWorld) Game Review

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Team up with other players to forge powerful empires in Sid Meier’s Civ World, the massively-multiplayer online strategy game. Manage your own nation and work with your allies to defeat your opponents in a game that spans the entire course of human civilization. Research technologies, build World Wonders, develop your economy and dominate the world with your military. Can you build a civilization that will stand the test of time?

Civ World is the latest incarnation of the hugely popular Civilization game franchise originally designed by Sid Meier. The original Civilization PC game series is now in its 5th version with Civilization 5, and it has even spawned related board games and console games. And with Civ World, this classic franchise is now also a massively-multiplayer online game on Facebook.

You may think that Civ World is like the other Facebook games filled with mundane clicking/harvesting and visiting neighboring farms to water their plants. However, the developers have managed to retain most of the intricacies and strategic layers that made the Civilization games so interesting, and added the social interaction that comes with Facebook. Now you can work together with other players to form great civilizations and battle your enemies in games that can sometimes have 200 players in them!

The goal of the game is to build and guide your nation from the dawn of mankind till the age of galactic exploration, and try to become the most famous and successful nation in the world. Unlike other empire-building games on Facebook such as CityVille or Empires and Allies, this game has a set ending. Once the Galactic Age is won, the game ends and you can move to a different world to start again in the Ancient Era. And unlike those other Facebook games, there is no preset story. In Civ World, you are the story. It is entirely up to the players whether the Japanese Shogunate will build the wondrous Pyramids of Giza, or whether the American Territories will backstab and invade their Spanish allies.

Each player controls their own city, which consists of a palace surrounded by unexplored land. They also have a few workers that can be assigned various tasks. They can farm for food which lets your city grow and create more workers. They can work on production which is used to construct buildings and military. They can also work as scientists to research technology, work as artists to create Great People, and work as merchants to generate income.

One part of the game is to decide what resource your workers should be producing, and how to maximize their efficiency. You will need to construct buildings that boost your resource production. Farmers will need orchards and granaries; workers will need lumber mills and forges; scientists will need libraries and universities, and so on. Placement of the workers and their related buildings is also important, as their efficiency depends on happiness generated by neighboring water and trees, and on the length of the route they need to travel.

However, all that is just a small part of the game. As the name implies, the crux of the game is to build civilizations. Players can create or join iconic civilizations such as the Spanish Confederation or the Arabian Empire. Working together, you can do many things to build a great civilization. The Great People created by artists from different cities can come together to create powerful Wonders such as the Hanging Gardens and the Great Wall, each of which has unique abilities that will benefit the civilization. The scientists can work together to research technologies, from Horseback Riding and Pottery all the way through to Robotics and Space Flight.

Then comes the intense part: competing against opposing civilizations to win the game. The game is divided into 21 different eras that mirror mankind’s rise to power. Iconic eras such as the Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, Colonial and Industrial eras are all represented here. A civilization will win an era and force the game to advance to the next era by fulfilling one of 4 victory conditions. A Domination victory requires you to defeat another civilization in battle. A science victory requires you to be the first civilization to research a specific technology. A cultural victory requires you to control enough Wonders, and an economic victory requires your civilization to amass a certain amount of wealth. Competing civilizations will be racing madly to achieve these victories while hindering the efforts of their opponents.

Whenever a civilization scores a victory, its members all gain fame (victory points). Fame is also earned by reaching various milestones in your civilization, such as being the first city to have 10 workers, or being the majority contributor to a technology’s research. You can also gain fame for helping to build Wonders or contributing the most armies to a battle. The player with the most fame at the end of all 21 eras wins the game.

There are also plenty of other things in the game to keep you occupied. There are a handful of different minigames related to the various resources. There is even a trading market where the price fluctuates in real time; perfect for the player who likes to control the economy. The game is so complicated that its tutorial even links to videos and a comprehensive Wiki guide. Admittedly, the tutorial doesn’t quite manage to cover all the many details in the game. But if you take the time to learn the game and read the Wiki, you will discover a game that is very rich in strategy and teamwork.

Civ World may not be as complex or full-featured as a true Civilization game. But for a free-to-play Facebook game (yes, it is FREE) that you can play with hundreds of other people, it is more satisfying than most of the other similar offerings. You will love it if you like the Civilization game franchise or any empire-building or cooperative game.

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