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In 1991, Microprose's co-founder Sid Meier brought out a new kind of turn-based strategy game, the first in the Civilization series. Just to look at the game, you would guess that it would not succeed. The game was composed of turn-based strategy, took hours to play, contender for the micromanagement, most mouse clicks award and complex detail-oriented design. In a game design world where plot was becoming extinct and action adventure or shooters were becoming a reality, no one would have thought the game would go anywhere.

Civilization is one of those games that can grab your attention, and days later, you see the sun come up over your monitor. You realize after hours and hours of play that you have a level of tiredness in your bones that you face with the disbelief that you did not pass out. The new Civilization IV and its Warlords expansion disk are just like the original game in this addictive play and wasted weekend in the middle of the week type of game. Don't pick this one up unless you can get away with calling in sick one more time.

The nagging question is did I enjoy the game? The nagging answer is, boy, did I — now where is my bed. Being self-employed has its advantages — at least I am not fired. I now have to work extra hard to redeem the lost revenue.

The game is very much the same as earlier Civilizations. CivIV has the same colonization by settlers, the same research tree, the same improvements to cities, the same wonders with appropriate animations and other similar features. Thank the deities of the various religions for the sameness that makes the game what it is: addictive and enjoyable to those — like me — who like to build things.

The gameplay is the same. You build cities by adding buildings and features to improve them. You train units from your population to improve your land surrounding the cities, military units to defend and attack, and religious leaders to convert both enemy and friend. You research technology to provide improvements to the cities and the units. Hopefully, you defend yourself and assimilate your neighbors to emerge victorious. The multiplayer game enhances the intelligence of your enemies with the most devious opponents — a human being.

The warlords and your civilization type, like Rome, give you certain special advantages or signature characteristics that hopefully help you succeed. Military commanders add skill and morale to units in the field. Engineers, artisans and tradesmen give you interesting missions to complete.

Warlords has three new leader traits, six new civilizations, four new leaders, eight scenarios, three new wonders, three new buildings including one unique building for each civilization, and three new units, including the great general or great person character. The now 24 possible civilizations have added Carthage, Celtia, Korea, Ottomans, Vikings and Zululand. Each new civilization has new leaders, and there are four new leaders for four existing civilizations: Ramses II, Churchill, Augustus and Stalin. Fourteen existing leaders incorporate new traits or have changed traits with other leaders.

The new scenarios limit you to a place in time. The technology tree is fixed to that time period, which I found limiting. Alexander the Great only has the technologies available to him and must complete his conquest of the known world in 200 turns. I found the historical scenarios otherwise interesting. Playing historical battles and civilization development was educational when comparing your progress to that of the historical events.

I liked the new feature that prevented cities from falling into disorder as time went on. It was somewhat depressing in previous games for the cities to advance in technology but to be plagued with increasing dissatisfaction of the populace defying your ability to improve their condition. The new way of doing things is much better.

There are some new commands that allow you to give commands to multiple units at one time, saving keystrokes. Overall, there is still too much micromanagement for those who want to automate. There should be more commands that allow you to command multiple units. At one point, you may want to set all your cities on research, money or culture increases with one command rather than going through these commands one city at a time when there can be as many as 50 cities. A restart scenario or game would have been nice if you get in over your head.

The music is further enhanced over Civilization IV. There are unique music themes for cultures, leaders and time periods, with dozens of special musical pieces. I enjoyed listening to the "La Marseillaise" and the "Marine Hymn" when playing certain leaders.

Leonard Nimoy provides the narration with a pleasant relaxed voice that reminds you of some of his narrations of television series. A relevant quotation from a famous person is read by Nimoy with each technology advance, and the introduction also is graced with his dulcet tones.

Ambient sounds abound, for example, every time you have a religious conversion an oriental chant accompanies the event.

If you zoom in to a town, you get new environmental sounds, like the sound of surf on the shore. There is also an appropriate sound effect for each building completed.

The world builder allows you to create a world from point zero. Military units, cities and other assets can be added to the map. This world builder is smooth and works with the game engine, which is the 3D Gambryo engine used for Sid Meier's Pirates! — another game that I liked.

I really liked this game. I have always liked Sid Meier's games. I guess if you have a favorite type of game you could always like that type of game, or if you have a favorite game designer you may always like their games. What I like about this game is the building of a civilization-building by building and research development by research development. I am good at defense because I try to get along with everyone in Civilization. So I tend to dig in and put good defensive units in with a roving attack group since the best defense is a good offense.

What I don't like is the micromanagement in the later part of the game. I believe that any feature that can be automated or automatic is better than one that you have to hit a key to activate. Automating things makes me hit fewer keys. Hitting fewer keys reduces hand pain. I guess none of us are getting any younger.

Sid Meier once told me that a good game is a game with lots and lots of good choices. Many of Sid's protйgйes, since Microprose was one of those software game development houses that trained young game programmers, designers, and testers, designed games with the same goals in mind. Civilization is loaded with good choices. I heartily recommend this to all burgeoning mayors, city planners, or just plain gamers.