Players start off in the Stone age era and must develop their cities and armies.

It is consistently ranked and considered to be one of the best games of all time in the real-time strategy genre. Meier's creation did so well commercially that it paved the way for numerous sequels, as Civilization II was released in 1996, followed by Civilization III in 2001, then Civilization IV (2005), Civilization V (2010) and Civilization VI (2016). Forge of Empires is originally a web-browser game, but now it’s one of the best free city building games on both Android and iOS. Rise of Nations is developed by Big Huge Games and features 18 civilizations and 8 ages of world history. The game was also awarded the Origins Award - Best Military or Strategy Computer Game of 1991, and was included in New York Times' Game Canon list in 2007. After a preview, it was called as an Olympian in the genre of god games in the Computer Gaming World, which ranked Civilization as the best game of all time in 1996. The game was available in many platforms and received great reviews for its simple and entertaining gameplay. In interviews, Meier claimed he based the game on similar god games like the first version of the Sims and Populous. Its creator, Sid Meier, has been lauded many times and was labeled as an auteur for his design of the game.

Many of history's 4X-type games (which require players to explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) were influenced by Civilization. Civilization was once ranked as the 11th-most important video games of all time by the website GamePro, and the highest among 4X-type games in the list.

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