Civilisation Revolutions

I've had a lot of difficulty writing this review for a simple reason; I don't know how to pitch it. Let me explain:
When I first started writing this blog I made the decision that yes it would be a bit random, and certainly not cutting edge, but the audience had to be wide; particularly for computer games it had to appeal to people like myself (Who have been playing computer games all be it intermittently almost all their lives - since the BBC back in 1982 when I was 4), to my partner (who frequently expresses how much she hates computer games and is on a mission to discourage me from playing them), right through to my flatmate (who works for a games company).
So a review of civilisation is tricky as if my memory serves me correctly I had a copy of back in the days of the Atari ST, if not then we certainly had it on at least one of our Amigas. This is a game therefore that spans nearly 2/3rds of my life and yet the question still needs answering why am I still so addicted to it? Why do i still find myself going on there with the intention of playing it for half an hour or so and still be there at 3am unable to leave the computer?
From that you can guess that the new version is just as addictive as the earlier versions and in my eyes the remake has lived up to the old ones in terms of playability. More importantly for me it is very playable on the XBOX and also (my flatmate informs me) on the DS.

So if you are familiar with Civ, then you can stop reading here, yes it is as addictive as the earlier versions, yes the interface does work on a console, yes that sim speak the avatars use is bloody annoying, but you can turn the volume off for that at least, and no it doesn't really add much to the previous versions of Civ except possibly a balancing of all the modes of combat and some pretty animations if that's your thing. If you enjoyed civ in the past and want a solution for your surrent games platform of choice then civilisation revolutions should leave you at the very least sleepless, even if you disagree with some of the fine tuning changes they've made.

For newcomers then, what is Civ?
Well a turn based strategy game where the aim is to become the dominant civilisation on your map. This can be achieved in a number of ways:
Military
Simply wipe out enough of your competitors that everyone else is crushed beneath your mighty war machine. IME this is one of the easiest ways to win the game, and often the most fun, still where's the challenge in easy.
Culture:
An interesting concept introduced in the new game (to me) is culture. Each city produces culture and you can do things like build temples and cathedrals and wonders (such as the hollywood wonder) to enhance your culture. If you are cultured enough neighbouring cities will want to join your culture. This is an interesting feature of the game as on my first time playing as a military domination I lost 3 of my major cities to my neighbour because i was pouring all my resources into building fighting units and the citizens of my industrial cities thought "bugger this, we'll join an interesting civilisation" and left me. Sure I swiftly concoured them back again, but that was enough of an experience to mean that the next game I played to win a culture victory which added a very interesting spin to the game with a significantly different set of objectives. i.e. every other method of winning requires a large number of cities, with culture you can win with a powerbase of just 3 cities (provided you supe them up enough)
Economic
Easy, get the most money, build the world bank, control the world. (You think that's your sword you're waving at me? You still owe me money for that :-)
Scientific
As part of civilisation you research new technologies, get to the stage of building a spaceship the soonest, and get it to Alpha Centuri before your capital is taken, then you win the game.

So lots of strategy, a multitude of tactics. Certainly not hot paced blowing aliens up stuff, but IMO far more entertaining. (BTW don't get me wrong, i still love those types of games, just see my gears of war review, it's just a case of different things for different moods).

So what else? If you're not convinced by now you never will be, so I thought I'd share some of my tactics I use while playing the game, I'm not saying these are perfect, but it may save you some time in figuring these out for yourself:

At the start of the game, siting your first city asap is vital, unless you start at a totally rubbish place, I would accept the square you land on just so that you can get producing things as soon as possible.
Attack those barbarians - they're always an easy kill.
Send your first military unit out exploring, use your second or 3rd to guard the city.
Once you have a couple of militia exploring and a guard on your first city, found a second and third city asap.
From this point on always make sure you have at least one guard unit in each city. Later in the game you'll need more then one. Three units of the same kind can be combined into an army. An army can normally defend itself against an attack by any unit of the same technology level. If you need to withstand a determined attack, (multiple units) or attack from a more advanced foe, invest in city walls. These sort of things though you don't need to worry about until later in the game.
Look very carefully at the terrain before you found a city: You need some food and some production (unless you wnat to buy everything), some science/money. You can site a city to be very rich in one of these, but you need at least a little of all of them. Also don't site cities too close to each other, once you have a courthouse you will be able to utilise squares 2 away, so don't site cities any closer thn 4 squares.
Decide early on the end game you want, ideally before you start the game - this will help choose the civilisation you want to play as.
For a military victory this is my rough plan. Early on get as many cities as possible, spread them out sparsely. As soon as you run out of land to expand into (you come across a neighbour in every direction), stop and build more cities in the bits you have missed until you they are as close as economical (4 squares). Identify which cities are your production cities and which are your money cities and skew their resources appropriately. Wherever you have the chance put the effort into food so that your city will grow, then swap effort to production/money as needed. Pour your research effort into military technology, if you don't have the most advanced military units available then you are very unlikely to win the game this way. If you are the first to get catapult/canon for example then that is the cue to go on a concurring spree. Build roads from your production cities to your cities nearest your neighbour you are preparing to attack. First make sure your base of attack city is well defended (remember which units at which technology level are best at defence and attack) then send them out with a defence force too. Once you have the initiative, press it. I often find that the computer will anticipate my above moves and prepare the nearest city for such an attack, so I will where the map allows have an initial attack on the city it expects me to attack, then in a few turns change my attack to another nearby city where there are probably less defence forces and therefore quickly capture that one. This blitz style method worked for Hitler and it can work for you too. Once you have the hang of this technique the military victory all comes down to perfecting the flow of resources and troops. Pay attention when you capture a city what it is good at and what it needs and build it up appropriatly. Always try and stay at least equal with technology and if you can get ahead and go on a spree. Once you get sufficiently large you can have two attack forces which can (if you do a thrust with one force, then with another) be very effective at catching the computer off guard.
So I would start with a military victory as that gives you the basics of resource management that you need for all the victories.
Technology Victory. Similar to the military one, but your emphasis is very much on the tech. You will at times find yourself well ahead of your neighbours in technology and therefore during these times I press my advantage and take their cities as is convenient. Also this is a stratogy to go seafaring and have bases on multiple continents. Go exploring with settlers early and have a base on each major continent and you'll be surprised how easy you can overrun your neighbours. If doing this though beware of being overrun by other's culture - you'll need to build temples/cathedrals and city walls in your seed city unless you go concurring. Watch carefully which cities are producing lots of science and equip them with libraries and universities.
Culture Victory.
A good victory to go for if you find yourself with a few very strong cities close together. Especially if this is on a large continent shared with many other civilisations. You'll eventually absorb your neighbouring cities. One tirck I found is if you're feeling a bit militant and you notice your nearest neighbour's city is on the verge of converting then go and concur the city beyond the one that is about to convert and you'll get two cities for one.

Governments:
Democracy - great if you're on a build phase where you're trying to strengthen your existing cities and don't care about going concurring. Equally good if you're falling behind others materially, but are more advanced technologically and need them to declare war on you(because you can't declare war on them as a democracy). An absolute must for culture or economic victory. I tend to use this if I'm not feeling very aggressive, often then I'll end up being ahead in one area which will mean someone declares war on me. At that point you can usually use your advantage to get at least two cities of theirs before they offer peace. Then throw your resources into getting those new cities up to spec and repeat the process.
Communism - Good for growing the number of cities as settlers are very cheap. Not bad for military either
Republic - a good one for a concurring phase as you can declare war and are reasonably productive

If I can think of any more things to do I'll add them later...