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When I first heard about Civilization Revolution, I’ll be the first to admit I was reluctant.  I’d grown up with Civilization on my PC; in fact, one of my earliest gaming memories is playing Civilization on PC in 8 colours.  Not 8-bit colour, literally 8 colours because I couldn’t afford a proper video card and that was all it supported under that driver set.  Regardless, I heard about this game and I thought to myself, “I hope they don’t dumb it down too much for consoles”, as some developers like to do.

When I first played the game though…I was in awe, quite literally.  The artwork had taken on a more animated style, I’ll admit, but it suited the design well.  You shouldn’t go into this game thinking of it as a game in the same Civilization franchise of Sid Meier’s, because it is vastly different.  Gone are the times of the religion affecting the land and other masses, gone are the times of finding a resource, constructing a road to it and erecting whatever building was needed to utilise the resource.  All of this is out the window, and its not an unwanted change.

Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution starts off with whatever leader you chose (each having their own strengths and weaknesses) having a settler unit.  You set this down wherever you want your capital city is created.  From there, you set science to research, buildings to build and a focus of resources.  This is all a standard affair as you’d expect.  Gradually as you build up your armies, you join them together, making them stronger.  You fight off barbarians (random NPC races) to build up your armies; then you meet your neighbours.  Usually they’re all too happy to sign peace.  Unless you’re weak, or they have something you want (the AI can be so heartless…) then they’ll try and mooch money or people off you or declare war outright.

Each unit has a set attack and defense, an army (3 of these units grouped) has 3 times that.  Every 3 battles they win gives them an ability which is great fun to play around with.  It could be that they heal in enemy territory, or attack again after their previous attack.  It could be that they get extra attack points or move further, there’s a good amount here to play around with.  Balacing your armies between the ideal attack and defense requires some forethought, but its not so advanced that you’ll constantly be changing it.  There’s enough units as not to make things boring, and not too many to over-complicate things.  I really enjoy the balance of this game, as most people can pick it up and play.

As you research more and more technologies, you move through the “ages”, and your buildings (and available units) change to reflect this;  so do your roads, but its only a cosmetic change.  You also have the ability to construct Great Wonders, like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and Manhattan Project wonders, and unlock Great People, which all have various quick use (like upgrade all units to veteran) or long-term use (add 10% culture to a city).  There’s a lot of options in here.

Finally we come to victories:  There’s 4 types of victories you can achieve;  Domination (wipe all the enemies out), Cultural (have a total of 20 Wonders and Great People and build the UN wonder), Economic (Earn 20,000 gold then build the World Bank wonder), or Technological (Be the first to reach Alpha Centuri [space flight]).

The music in the game is good in a not-too-catchy but not in the way sort of way, which is ideal.  There’s also a “Hall of Heroes” which lists all the races you’ve beaten, which difficulty and by which type of victory, your Great People, and all wonders.  If you get bored of the standard fare there’s also pre-made scenarios and a new “scenario” is released every week.  This “Game of the Week” is also put on the leaderboard for you to compare yourself to others.

This is the kind of game where you can pick it up at any time and play away the afternoon quite easily (all too easily); it’s really a game suited to the market of casual turn-based strategy, but I honestly feel there’s something for most gamers here.  It’s a bit of an unknown gem, so if you didn’t know much about it before, hopefully this will change your mind.

The Verdict

Pros:

Masses of longevity

Very fun

Cons:

AI can be too aggressive

Would be nice to be able to record games

Final Score

9.5/10