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{{work|wppage=Civilization (series)}}
[[File:civ1.png|link=Screw the Rules, I Have a Nuke|frame|<small>Y'know, [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|if Gandhi were really pissed off]]</small>.]]
{{quote|''"I have discovered. I have led. I have conquered. I have inspired. I have [[Once an Episode|built a civilization to stand the test of time]]. [[Dare to Be Badass|What will your civilization stand for?]]"''
|'''''Civilization V'' trailer'''}}
[[Civilization]] is a popular [[4X
The general concept is that the player controls a civilization from the stone age through the present day into the space age. The first installments gave you two ways to win: conquering everyone, or [[Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri|sending a colony to Alpha Centauri]]. Later, three more conditions were added: get elected leader of the world by the [[United Nations]], controlling a dominant chunk of the planet (which kind of obsoletes the "conquer everyone" goal, which is probably why it was removed again later), or create a culture so influential that it engulfs everyone else's.
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"Baba Yetu", the menu music from ''Civilization IV'' <ref>Technically, the re-arrangement of the piece for the album "Calling All Dawns."</ref> became the first song from a video game to ever win a Grammy Award, which hopefully will spur the Grammy Awards into including an award for "interactive fiction" music scores and songs.
The series has in recent years spawned a spinoff, ''Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth,'' a [[Spiritual Successor]] to ''[[Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri]]'' but with a more optimistic premise. The [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvBf6WBatk0 latest entry in the franchise], ''Civilization VI'' was released on October 2016.
{{tropenamer}}
{{tropelist}}
== A-E ==
* [[4X]]: One of the titans of the genre.▼
* [[Alternate Calendar]]: Averted. The game gives the year in AD and BC, even if Christianity is never developed.
* [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]: Many, as a game which truly approximated all the headaches of running an Empire would only be interesting to professors and megalomaniacs.
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*** Also, since it is a National Wonder, every nation can have one. At the same time. This means that there could be as many as 18 Oxford Universities in a single world.
** The tech tree, at least in ''Civ IV'', is however set up to make a ''few'' things happen "on time" in a normal game. Christianity is typically created around 30 AD and a Civilization will get the tech to find the new world (on a map type that supports it) around 1500 AD and to colonize it a few turns later. Nothing flat out ''stops'' you from progressing to these points earlier if you are devoted or get lucky with a great person though.
* [[And Your Reward Is Interior Decorating]]
* [[Arc Words]]: "Test of time."
* [[Army of Lawyers]]: In ''Call to Power'' and its sequel, once you develop to the Modern Era, you can ''literally'' train Lawyers and Corporate Branches to wage economic warfare on your enemies.
** ''Civilization IV'' builds on that concept by making it possible to establish corporations with their own bonuses. As well as recruit corporate executives who can wage economic warfare and spread corporate influence in foreign cities.
* [[Army of the Ages]]: the theme for ''Civilization IV: Warlord's'' box art.
** And of course you and your enemies' armies could become this as well if you don't bother upgrading your units.
* [[Art Deco]]: A major inspiration for the gameplay interface for ''Civilization V''.
* [[Art Shift]]: Compared to the direction shown in previous games, ''Civilization VI'' looks decidedly more colorful and stylized compared to them.
* [[Artificial Stupidity]]: So much over the various installments that all the examples were moved to the trope page.
* [[Ascended Extra]]: By the time the ''Brave New World'' DLC for ''Civilization V'' was released, previously ignored countries like Austria, Poland and Brazil finally got their time to shine as playable civilizations.
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* [[Authority Equals Asskicking]]: Averted with Great Generals (and the mongol equivalent the Khan), who are [[One-Hit-Point Wonder|One Hit Point Wonders]] whose only offensive capability is to make other units stronger. But to be fair, the Great General is just one guy while the regular units presumably represent regiments (give or take depending on the era).
* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: The Internet wonder from ''Civilization IV'' grants you any tech known by two other civilizations. This would be awesome but for the fact that it's at the very end of the tech tree for most players, meaning that either it'll be built after it's needed or the AI will get it first. However, there is a specific strategy that ignores all other endgame tech to get the Internet built early, making it actually useful.
** The Space Elevator in ''Civilization IV'' gives you a big boost to spaceship construction. Problem with it is that it's so frequently so expensive and requires a tech not needed for the spaceship that you're usually better off building another spaceship part in its place.
** The Great Colossus wonder in ''Civilization V'' used to be this. It had a nice benefit, but was lost once a certain, rather early, technology was discovered by any player. It was later patched to have a slightly different effect and not become obsolete.
** The [[Ascended Meme|Giant Death Robot]] in V comes so late that anyone aiming for a domination victory will probably get it before having an opportunity to build the GDR. It also requires uranium which could be used on the earlier and quicker-to-build nuclear options.
* [[BFS]]:
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** On the unit side of the scale, broadswordsmen fall on this category.
* [[Big Brother Is Watching]]: Two wonders from ''Call to Power'', [[Government Agency of Fiction|The Agency]] and the [[Master Computer|AI Entity]]. The AI Entity in particular is [[Nightmare Fuel|terrifying]]--[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPuU8Pq9D3Q&NR=1 see for yourself], but the Agency [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-GymYlnV2I&NR=1 doesn't lack for disturbing], either.
* [[Bilingual Bonus]]:
** ''Civilization IV'' has your units respond in their native languages.
** From ''Civilization V'' onwards, leaders all talk in their respective tongues (or in the case of ancient civilization figures, the closest approximate to their languages in general).
* [[Blood Knight]]: There are certain rulers who seem to really, ''really'' enjoy war. If you find yourself on a map with Queen Isabella of Spain, Shaka Zulu, or Montezuma of the Aztecs, expect them to attack you at some point, even if they have [[Artificial Stupidity|absolutely no chance of victory]], and ''especially'' if they don't share your religion.
** Somewhat justified with Montezuma in ''Civilization V'', as his trait is to generate culture by killing enemy units.
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** The implementation of resources in ''Civ 3'' didn't help with this. What you may expect is a Cap on how much the resource can be used before it disappears, and that, annoyingly, there's no counter for how much longer it will last. Actually, there is no Cap at all; each resource just has a small % chance of disappearing ''every'' turn, even if you just started using them last turn.
* [[Cartoon Bomb]]: Used by Grenadiers in ''Civilization IV''. Seeing as [[Cartoon Bomb|Cartoon Bombs]] are modeled after early cast-iron, black-powder grenades, this is [[Justified Trope|not surprising]].
* [[Chaos Architecture]]: In ''I'' through ''IV'', cities radically change their layouts over time as new buildings/wonders are added, often shifting around the existing wonders to make room. ''V'' makes it a little more realistic by only showing the city itself expanding without being close enough to see the actual buildings, and wonders remain in one place for the entire game. ''VI'' meanwhile goes further and introduces specialized districts that can be built separate from the main city.
* [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]]: [[Catherine the Great|Catherine]] in ''Civilization IV'' has a unique aspect
** Fairly common in "Civilization V", and recently the dialogue was updated to show when the AI does it. Once you´ve been at war with a player, you can expect it to happen again just after the peace treaty expires, even if they´ve been acting friendly and forgiving. And if you liberate a capital for a defeated AI, they will often denounce you just a few turns later... although they are still forced to vote for you in an UN Vote.
** Some AIs will take you to war several times, negotiate peace, and go [[Blatant Lies|right back to being friendly again]].
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* [[A Commander Is You]]: Starting with ''Civilization III'', each faction can be loosely mapped to one or more of the Gimmick options, although some also fit the Spammer or Brute Force options - but see also [[Separate but Identical]].
* [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]]: This game has an entire folder on the trope page.
* [[The Computer Is Your Friend]]: The [[Master Computer|AI Entity]] in ''Call To Power'' allows you to run your civilization with absolute efficiency... until it [[
* [[The Computer Shall Taunt You]]: If another civilization considers itself superior to you, they'll let you know it, and they can be quite smug and condescending.
* [[Cosmetic Award]]: Improving your palace in the original Civilization, your throne room in Civilization II. and your castle in Civilization III was awesome, but had no impact on gameplay.
* [[The Cover Changes the Meaning]]: In ''Civilization V'', every leader has a theme based on a well known folk tune from his or her respective culture ("America The Beautiful" for Washington, "I Vow To Thee My Country" for [[Elizabeth I (miniseries)|Elizabeth I]], etc.) There are two arrangements for each tune - one for when you are at peace with the civ and one for wartime. The wartime tunes often change a decidedly pleasant and uplifting tune into something sinister.
* [[Creator Cameo]]: Sid himself appears in every game as an advisor.
* [[Critical Existence Failure]]: Mostly played straight, but some versions of the game avert this by reducing the movement points and combat power of heavily damaged units. In ''Civilization V'', which averts it for most civs, it's actually the Japanese's unique perk -- their units don't get reduced stats for being damaged.
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* [[Cutscene]]: The Wonders get them. In ''Civilization II'' these [[Full Motion Video|were made of]] [[Stock Footage]], later games have renders.
* [[Damage Over Time]]: In ''Civilization II'', helicopters received minor damage for every turn they spent in midair -- this was intended to simulate their limited fuel reserves without requiring them to return to base every time. Later ''Civ'' games removed this.
* [[Darker and Edgier]]:
*
* [[Defeat Means Friendship]]: in Civ 5, Germany will sometimes recruit encamped barbarians and the Ottomans will recruit naval [[Fan Nickname|barbs]] after defeating them. In the fan-made [[Ni GHTS]] mod, every civ gets these abilities.▼
** Combat in ''Civilization VI'' is shown as being more visceral and destructive.
▲* [[Defeat Means Friendship]]: in ''Civ
* [[Death of a Thousand Cuts]]: In ''Civilization IV'', due to how reduced [[Hit Points]] also reduce combat strength, it is relatively common for two or three low tech units to gang up on and defeat high tech units. This, however, is arguably superior to previous versions in which [[One-Hit-Point Wonder|a single die roll]] determined the outcome of each battle. In ''Civilization II'', the hit point system allowed units to be overwhelmed by enough less powerful ones, though the resource costs would usually make doing this an impractical option. City sieges would also sometimes turn into this, due to the high defense bonuses of city wall type improvements.
** In ''V'', every unit has 10 hit points. A stronger unit will lose less HP and inflict more, but every encounter between two melee units will take at least 1 HP from both units involved. Ranged attacks also do at least 1 HP of damage, and they don't injure the attacker. Long story short, five ancient-era archers with the "logistics" promotion (which allows them to attack twice) are guaranteed to take down even the Giant Death Robot if they attack first.
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* [[Diagonal Speed Boost]]: In every game up to ''Civilization V'', which is played on hex tiles.
* [[Easy Mode Mockery]]: The game compares you to a famous (or infamous) world leader after it ends. On easy mode, you can beat the AI by a mile and still get compared to "[[Warren G Harding]]," or worse, "[[Dan Quayle]]." See [[Take That]].
* [[Early-Bird Cameo]]: In ''Civ V'', Harald Bluetooth and the Denmark faction are available as a DLC faction, but interestingly glimpses of a Viking-type faction can be seen in the opening cinematics.
* [[Easy Communication]]: All of your soldiers and cities can be instantly ordered to do anything, even in the ages before radio. ''Possibly'' justified by having turns take much longer in earlier eras.
* [[Easy Logistics]]: Troops can "heal" (replenish their numbers) regardless of how far away they are from your civilization, and Civ 5 takes this a step further with the "instant heal" promotion. Incidentally, the same game has a Logistics promotion, which allows ranged siege units to attack twice in one turn.
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* [[Everything's Worse with Bears]]: Bears are the greatest menace to early explorers in ''Civilization IV''... at least until the roving barbarians get their hands on [[It Got Worse|bronze weaponry]].
* [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]: The aforementioned Giant Death Robot. Yes, that's the official name.
== F-J ==
* [[Failure Is the Only Option]]: A lot of the diplomacy actions in ''Civilization IV'' lean in this direction, as you'll be presented with a request that will inevitably make either the requester or a third party angry. Next turn, that other party will make a similar demand in reverse. The price of neutrality (if you don't ''want'' to choose sides) is to be hated by nearly everyone.
** Also happens in "V" to a certain extent. Your 'friends' will request spare luxury resources and gold on a regular basis, without giving a blasted thing back. Although agreeing will improve relations a bit, they can get pretty greedy. But if you decline even once, they stop asking forever and it´s a permanent diplomatic penalty. And if you make a request yourself, they will almost always decline and mark it as a penalty anyway, apparently because they are a bunch of jerkasses...
* [[Fan Remake]]: ''[http://www.freeciv.org/ FreeCiv]'', modeled on the original ''Civilization'' games.
* [[Fan Service]]: ''Civilization V'''s leaders of either gender. Among the males we have Ramkamhaeng, Montezuma, and [[Downloadable Content|Kamehameha]], all of whom are [[Walking Shirtless Scene|basically shirtless]], while among the women we have Catherine the Great, whose [[Pimped-Out Dress]] has an [[Impossibly Low Neckline]].
* [[Fandom Rivalry]]/[[Dueling Games]]: To a degree with those of [[Paradox Interactive]]'s games (''[[Europa Universalis]]'', etc.), which could arguably be described as ''Civilization'' in real time.
* [[Fashions Never Change]]: Averted in ''Civilization III'', as leaders' appearances change depending on the era they're in, such as an Ancient-era Lincoln in animal skins or Caesar in a modern business suit.
* [[Fictional Holiday]]: [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29661/Maryland_Declares_September_21_Civilization_V_Day.php Not so fictional.]
** There still is "We Love the King/President/Leader Day".
* [[Fog of War]]
▲* [[4X]]: One of the titans of the genre.
* [[The Fundamentalist]]: Isabella in ''Civilization IV''. If you aren't whatever religion she is (usually Buddhist), prepare for WAR! There is an actual government type called Fundamentalism in ''Civilization II'', and a Theocracy civic in ''Civilization IV''. ''Civ 5'' has several "Social Policies", of which one can have either Piety or Rationalism. You are forever barred from the other, likely for this reason.
* [[Game Mod]]: Tons, including [[Fall From Heaven]].
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** In ''Civilization V'', archers, catapults and other ranged units can now fire from further away than in front of the enemy's faces (usually leading in previous games to getting smacked down without an escort on the same tile). A necessary change as they're still as fragile as ever and units can't share spaces.
* [[Global Currency]]: Undifferentiated gold (which is still used before you research "currency" and gain the ability to trade it with other players). Strangely enough, in ''Civilization IV'' you can use the [[United Nations]] to enact a single global currency, boosting trade. This is probably because modeling currency exchange rates is well beyond the scope of the game's economic system.
* [[Hollywood Global Warming]]: Better watch that pollution, or your cities will sink! More recent games have backed off on this and will instead occasionally alter a terrain square to an inferior type, such as grasslands to deserts.
** ''Call To Power'', which continued much further into the future than a normal ''Civilization'' title, took this concept to its logical conclusion. The problem got much, much worse before ultimately getting better through the use of advanced technology (and, possibly, ecoterrorism). Of course, by that point, the majority of your population will have likely already relocated to undersea cities and/or space, rendering the point somewhat moot.
* [[A God Am I]]: Ramesses II from ''Civilization V''. Appropriate since [[Truth in Television|all Egyptian Pharaohs were considered gods.]] Occasionally Alexander the Great gives this to you when you beat him, he goes into a [[Heroic BSOD]] and exclaims "How could this be? I am Heir to the Gods!"
** Subverted in ''Civ V'', by Nebuchadnezzer II of Babylon, who when you greet him will say "The fools outside think I am a god. That seems unlikely."
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* [[Human Popsicle]]: The ones that go into the spaceship that flies to ''[[Alpha Centauri]]''.
** ''Call To Power'' features cryogenic freezing chambers. In addition to their normal benefits, they also provide citizens of a Theocratic government a happiness boost. [[Figure It Out Yourself|Derive from that what you will]].
* [[Humans Are Their Own Precursors]]: An unknown people or peoples left Ancient Ruins behind. Any technology recovered from one will always be more advanced than what the player has, implying this.
* [[Humans Are White]]: With the exception of special units, all units in ''Civilization III'' and ''IV'' are white. However, the ''Beyond the Sword'' expansion for ''Civilization IV'' added different skin sets for different civilizations (Mali has black swordsmen, etc).
* [[Humongous Mecha]]: ''Civilization V'' features the "[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Giant Death Robot]]", which can only be acquired in the late game and is a way to cement your [[Curb Stomp Battle]] victory.
** The official [[Expansion Pack|Beyond the Sword]] [[Game Mod|mod]] "The Next War" also features one.
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* [[Injun Country]]: One of the civilizations added in "Beyond the Sword" is "Native America"<ref>Their leader is Sitting Bull of the Lakota, their Unique Unit is the Cheyenne Dog Soldier and their Unique Building is the Haida Totem Pole</ref>. This historical inaccuracy is [[Justified Trope|justified]] in Civilopedia: it is explained that the "Native American Empire" isn't a historical empire, but a hypothetical result of the different Native American civilizations joining their forces.
** There is a mod that includes every major Native American civilization, [[Shown Their Work|using their own native names]].
** ''Civilization V'' and its expansions meanwhile does it better by presenting various distinct Native American civilizations like the Iroquois and Shoshone.
* [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Mecha]]: ''Civilization
* [[Instant Win Condition]]: Once an ending condition is reached, that civ wins, no matter how the actual situation looks at the time. There could be a massive column of tanks ready to flatten an enemy's capital, but if the spaceship reaches Alpha Centauri, they win.
** Or, more egregiously, by cultural victory. In ''Civ IV'', for example, you win instantly for getting your third city up to legendary culture, regardless of whether it's in the process of being destroyed.
* [[Irony]]: The United Nations in ''Civilization II'' actually makes it easier to wage war on nations that aren't willing to fight.
* [[It Will Never Catch On]]: Napoleon providing a Real Life example is the quote for steam power in ''IV''.
** Added on to in ''V'': Napoleon gets free culture per turn until Steam Power is discovered.
* [[Just One More Level]]: Some games directly invoke this by prompting the player with the option "Just one more turn" after they win the game or when they try to quit.
== K-O ==
* [[Katanas Are Just Better]]: Played straight in ''III'. The best time to be playing Japanese is during the Medieval Era in that game. Once you get access to the Samurai, you can hack and slash your way through any and all other Civs using a pure Samurai force, until the gunpowder era finally renders them obsolete.
** Play somewhat straight in ''4'', as well. Instead of replacing knights, samurai instead replace Macemen, who are the best melee units in the game. Against other melee units, the samurai's strong attack and First Strikes make them damn near unstoppable. Against knights, which serve as the medieval cavalry unit, [[Curb Stomp Battle|it's a whole 'nother story]].
* [[Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better]]: You can play this game far into the future as you like, rack up a bunch of "Future Techs", discover Fusion Power and journey into the stars. However, weapons technology will never pass the modern day era. Can be averted with player-made modifications or official scenarios, such as Next War and Final Frontier in ''Beyond the Sword''. The non-canonical ''Civilization: Call To Power'' averted this trope by introducing two new Ages: Genetic and Diamond, featuring advanced plasma and fusion-based weaponry.
* [[Large Ham]]: The [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlTIk80uBPg Military Advisor] in 'II''.
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** The main way of controlling the player's expansion is happiness. Playing on the Prince ("normal") difficulty, the AI only gets 60% of the unhappiness that the player does, and gets more happiness to start and an extra point of happiness for each luxury. This roughly translates to allowing an AI Civ to be twice as large as a human one with the same level of happiness, on normal, the difficulty where "The AI receives no particular bonuses".
** In earlier games, it would simply decide "now's a good time to instantly build a wonder". Nowadays, the cheating is mostly relegated to numbers; a lot of them.
* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: Giant Death Robot in ''Civ V.''
** The [[Oh Crap|Dreadnought]] in Beyond the Sword.
* [[Narrator]]: In more recent games, they've had most of their descriptive text be read aloud, following in the footsteps of ''[[Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri]]''. Though in this case, they only have one person doing the job:
** [[Leonard Nimoy]] in ''Civ IV''. Though Nimoy wasn't hired for the expansion packs, and their narration ends up quite jarring.
** W. Morgan Sheppard in ''Civ V''.
** [[Sean Bean]] for ''Civ VI''.
* [[Neutral No Longer]]: In ''II'', a Spy planting a nuclear device causes all civilizations to go at war against the perpetrator. In ''V'', city-states become permanent enemies to a civilization which keeps attacking and conquering city states.
* [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot]]: In ''Revolution'', granting certain upgrades gives the unit a title, so you can wind up with unit called a "Ninja Samurai Knight Army." And it is just as awesome as the name would suggest.
* [[No Blood for Phlebotinum]]: If you don't have a resource and can't get it through trade or peaceful expansion, the only options left are either do without it or resort to violence.
** Beyond the Sword introduced the "Greed" and "Corporate Expansion" quests, which codify this.
* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: In ''Revolution'', the modern era diplomacy advisor is clearly
* [[Non-Entity General]]: Both played straight for the player's leader (although you can choose your leader from among all the available ones, AI players react to you the same way regardless), and averted by AI leaders, some of whom are much more trigger-happy than others (we're looking at you, Isabella), and all of whom have personalized and sometimes entertaining interactions. For instance, if <s>sufficiently offended</s> presented with any deal she doesn't like, [[My Girl Is a Slut|Catherine the Great]] may "slap" "the player", complete with [[Star Trek Shake]], while if your relations are good (heh heh) she may favor you with a flirtatious wink. Tick off Sumerian badass Gilgamesh, and he'll grab your throat, bring you up close for a [[Death Glare]], then hurl you back.
* [[No Swastikas]]: The Third Reich is conspicuous in its near-total absence, although there is one quote from [[Adolf Hitler]] for ''IV''{{'}}s Fascism tech, and Erwin Rommel is featured as a Great General in ''Warlords'' (though Rommel wasn't actually a Nazi). The strange people who yearn for Hitler's inclusion in the series tend to note that [[Josef Stalin|Stalin]] and [[Mao Zedong|Mao]], who were just as nasty if not quite as infamous, are playable leaders (though [[Banned in China|no country with paying customers will ban the game because of them]]).
** Because of this, one of the best-known player mods to ''II'' is the so-called "Fascism Patch", which, in addition to doing a great many other things (bugfixes, better-looking units and so on) replaces the Fundamentalism government type with Fascism and gives the player appropriate units including the Stormtrooper (elite infantry) and the Dive Bomber.
** And there's the [[World War II]] scenario in ''II''; it has special AI so that in the first few turns the Axis and Allies will repeat events that happened in the real world, like the Axis occupying Holland.
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* [[Not Even Bothering with the Accent]]:
** The intro movie for ''Civilization V'' has a Arabic Chieftain explaining a dream of world domination to his son. For some reason, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMW5-YXTKtY both speak with heavy English accents]. Of course, since he dreams of his people being samurai, building the Great Pyramid, storming a castle, and being Norse invaders, the two are likely suppose to represent a generic vision of humanity rather than a specific civilization.
* [[Nuke'Em]]: Across all the games, nuclear weapons are by far the most devastating weapon it's possible to build (but see [[One-Hit Kill]] below). Using them, however, is something of a [[Moral Event Horizon]] as far as the game is concerned, causing all AI players to declare war with you automatically and leaving horrendous pollution behind, beginning a catastrophic period of [[Hollywood Global Warming]]. Interestingly, in ''IV'' you can get the [[United Nations|UN]] to sign a nonproliferation treaty banning the building (but not use) of nuclear weapons, and an advanced player can sometimes do this after building his own nukes, [[Manipulative Bastard|leaving himself the sole nuclear armed power in the game]].
* [[Obvious Beta]]: When ''V'' first came out, it had a lot of bugs and balance issues, routinely crashed to desktop for many machines, and had obtuse, sociopath AIs in an over-reaching effort to make them more like human players. Patches fixed many of the crashes, fan-made mods such as VEM took care of the balance issues and bugs (and much of VEM was later implemented into official patches), and the AI has found a balance between the above and the manipulable point-based relations of ''4''.
* [[One-Hit Kill]]: The Eco Ranger unit in ''Call To Power''. Don't let that brightly-painted Flower Power exterior fool you. What it kills, in one hit, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxBVc2cSFeI is a city].
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*** Finally, Japan's cultural power is that damaged units do not lose combat prowess. There is even an achievement to be earned by sending a [[Critical Existence Failure|1-HP unit]] against an opposing unit and winning.
* [[Ominous Latin Chanting]]: [[Byzantine Empire|Justinian I's]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEVNDw90VyI diplomacy theme], which is contrary to popular belief ''[[Dan Browned|NOT]]'' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9K_pe00F2o Deus Iudex Iustus].
* [[One World Order]]: It's possible by conquering other civilizations, if you're going for a Conquest Victory. In later games, this can also be achieved by aiming for a Cultural Victory, in which your nation's culture is so superior that the rest of the world embraces your enlightened way of life with nary a shot fired, or a Diplomatic Victory, by being elected leader of the United Nations but with your nation calling the shots.
* [[Opening Narration]]: In the first game, this was used to cover the [[Loads and Loads of Loading]]. In the fourth game, it was brought back as a tribute... And recited by [[Leonard Nimoy]]! ''V'' has [[Gargoyles|Xanatos' dad]] doing the opening narrations as well as the quotes for when you research something.
* [[Overt Rendezvous]]: In the intro to ''Civilization IV'''s expansion, an image of Lincoln giving the Gettysburg address [[Match Cut|Match Cuts]] to his memorial, where two spies are passing along photos of Soviet missile sites.
== P-T ==
* [[Path of Greatest Resistance]]: This is very useful to determine the point of origin of an enemy (Barbarian or Civilized) whose camp/cities you haven't found yet.
* [[Permanent Elected Official]]: You. Heck, not even ''TIME'' will free them from your rule.
* [[Political Ideologies]]:
▲* [[Please Select New City Name]]: The [[Trope Namer]].
*
** ''Civilization VI'' further builds on this by allowing you to customize your civilization's government, policies and cultural development.
* [[Politically-Correct History]]: As mentioned elsewhere on the page, the Civilopedia and leader descriptions desperately try to portray all civilizations in an entirely positive light. They glorify expansion without necessarily mentioning what that entailed (say, for the Spanish or Mongols), and gloss over some inequality. For instance, Korea's Joseon Dynasty is praised as intellectually and culturally enlightened, while not mentioning how conditions were [[No Woman's Land|for females]]. More recent games increasingly lampshade this trope while trying to be more balanced in describing the civilizations depicted, usually with a nod to [[Deliberate Values Dissonance]].
* [[The Power of Rock]]: Rock 'N Roll is a constructable Wonder of the World in ''Civ IV''. It even plays [[The Velvet Underground]]'s "Rock and Roll" during the movie. Thanks to the [[Tech Tree]], it usually gets finished around the same time a Diplomatic Victory becomes possible. Since building it allows you to export "Hit Singles," you can build global good will by giving them away for free right before elections are held, thereby literally winning the game via [[The Power of Rock]].
* [[Privateer]]
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* [[Puppet State]]:
** In one of the Expansion Packs for ''Civilization IV'', any sufficiently powerful civ can make any sufficiently weak civ into their vassal state. If the vassal grows powerful enough (there are exact numbers), it can regain independence.
** In ''Civ 5'', you can't make an entire civ into one, but when you conquer an enemy city you have the option between annexing it (which simply makes it on of your civ's cities, but generates a lot of unhappiness until a courthouse is built) or making it a puppet (which gives all the science, culture, and gold it generates to your civ, but you cannot control its production, for either buildings or units).
*** Puppeted towns are also automatically set to focus on gold production, making them fairly useless for any other purpose.
* [[Pyrrhic Victory]]: In general, it's possible to defeat an enemy nation or even win a conquest victory by simply nuking them to oblivion in the late game. Though this tends to leave you with an irradiated, flooded wasteland that's just barely habitable.
* [[Random Event]]: Introduced in the ''Civilization IV'' expansions. A lot of them are just random things that affect improvements and tile output (mine collapses, tornados, striking a deposit of jade), while others can change your relationship with your neighbors, such as a politically-arranged marriage collapsing or a high-ranking intelligence agent defecting. Other Random Events depend on your government, such as your hereditary dynasty dying out or [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|an election being too close to call and being settled by the courts]], giving you an incentive to try out as many Civic combinations as possible.
** ''Civilization V'' uses this for city state requests. Especially when they ask for a certain resource or want another city state eliminated. ''Brave New World'' meanwhile brings back certain elements from ''IV'' in terms of random events.
* [[Randomly Generated Levels]]: In general, the games offer a variety of randomly generated maps, in addition to preset ones.
* [[Redshirt Army]]: "Nationhood" allows you to draft military units, but they are less effective than ones built the normal way and cost population.
* [[Rock Beats Laser]]: Due to the behind-the-scenes dice rolls, you can have some truly bizarre outcomes, like the common meme among fans of a spearman beating a tank. Each game after the first altered the combat equations in various ways without actually removing the problem. Fundamentally, it's about units having attack and (in some versions) defense values that fail to take into account basic concepts like range. Therefore, the [[Random Number God]] will eventually allow the spearman to get lucky.
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** Also in ''IV'', if you've been at war with someone else for a while, one of the "War Weariness" descriptions is "WAR... What is it good for? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!"
** In ''V'' the music for the Helsinki city-state is "Ievan Polkka" by Loituma, a Finnish song best known from the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wnE4vF9CQ4 Leek Spin] meme.
** The [[Cosmetic Award|achievements]] for ''Civilization V'' are almost entirely [[Shout-Out|Shout Outs]]. [[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog|"The World Is a Mess, and I Just Need to Rule It"]], [[Battlestar Galactica
** In the expert lumberjack's Civilopedia entry for the ''Colonization'' expansion, it states that "[[Monty Python's Flying Circus|they were lumberjacks and they're OK.]]"
* [[Shown Their Work]]: ''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'', a historical simulator for ''the entire world'', is ridiculously detailed, with pretty much every tile named after a city that really exists there, [[Istanbul (Not Constantinople)|and they change according to the controlling
* [[Sliding Scale of Turn Realism]]: Round by Round.
* [[Space Is Noisy]]: Averted in ''IV''. If you pull the camera back far enough to show the entire planet, the sound and music fade away to silence.
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** In ''Civilization Revolution'', the advance that makes the great person Leopold Stokowski more likely to appear is Superconductor.
** In Civ IV, [[Julius Caesar]]'s greeting to you when you first meet him is "Welcome to Rome, <player>. Care for some salad? I made it myself."
** The Tech quote for "Machinery" in ''IV'' is "[[Deus Ex Machina|A god from the machine]]."
* [[The Stoic]]: Augustus Caesar in ''Civ 5''. Everything he says, including a declaration of war or the announcement of his total defeat, comes out bored and monotonous. His body language isn't more vivid either: he sits on his throne and occasionally waves a hand as he speaks. It's possible that [[Fridge Brilliance|this is him after the Battle of the Teutoburger Forest]].
* [[Suspiciously Small Army]]: A "unit" can be anything from one ship or aircraft to 10 soldiers, depending on the game. Most players, however, seem to regard this as a non-issue, regarding land and air units to represent larger groupings (what seems to be ten Riflemen is actually a whole division of rifles; what seems to be one Jet Fighter is actually a whole wing of jets). For naval units, early units like Galleys seem to be groupings, but it would actually make sense for later units to be individual ships (those things are big and expensive enough, and tend to be built in smaller numbers anyway).
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* [[Tech Tree]]: Generally containing upwards of 80 technologies. Of course, it does take 6,000 years to climb to the top of it. In later games, there's generally enough flexibility to pursue certain tech paths far ahead of their historical equivalents.
* [[The Theme Park Version]]: ''Revolution'' is definitely the "kiddie introductory Civilization game." Not that it's bad, per se, but it's very simplified and over-exaggerated, especially in art style and presentation.
* [[Theme Music Power-Up]]: Of sorts. In ''Civilization IV'', the national themes of each civilization dynamically evolve to match the era you're in. Civilization ''VI'' takes this [[Up to Eleven]], showing myriad renditions of said themes that culminate in modern variations that range from orchestral to [[Cyberpunk]].
* [[This Is Gonna Suck]]: Deity difficulty in ''Civilization IV''. "Muahahahaha! Good luck, sucker!"
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: The AI is fond of insulting your "puny little empire" even if you own half the world and are poised to run over them with a legion of tanks. "Now I have a warrior! Ho ho ho!"
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** Even better, sometimes the AI will ''declare war on you'' from that state, only to dash their army to pieces against your technological superiority. At this point they frantically sue for peace, bribing you with gold, resources and even cities. [[Attack! Attack! Retreat! Retreat!|To end a war that they started]].
** In Civ V, if the computer believes it has the upper hand in a war through some nebulous logic that apparently reaches this concussion even if you are rapidly blitzkrieging through their cities, it will offer you a peace treaty in exchange of essentially everything you own (money, resources, cities) except for your capital. To end a war ''you are winning''. Perhaps it’s betting on your hand twitching and clicking Accept by accident.
* [[Ungrateful Bastard]]: Tokugawa is a strict isolationist, and it takes ''ridiculous'' amounts of bribery to get him to even open his borders. If Japan is one of the rival empires in 4, you should probably just consider them an enemy and forget diplomatic measures - it's a lot cheaper.▼
== U-Z ==
* [[United Nations Is a Super Power]]: The Diplomatic Victory in later games tends to involve having the UN elect you world leader, in the process uniting humanity. With your nation the ones actually pulling the strings, of course. ▼
▲* [[Ungrateful Bastard]]: Tokugawa is a strict isolationist, and it takes ''ridiculous'' amounts of bribery to get him to even open his borders. If Japan is one of the rival empires in ''4'', you should probably just consider them an enemy and forget diplomatic measures - it's a lot cheaper.
* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: The Civilopedia in 4 claims under "Police State" credits it with helping Stalin not lose World War 2, while Stalin's entry says only Russia's sheer size and winter prevented a quick loss. (Of course, would you expect any less [[Doublethink|from Stalin?]])▼
▲* [[United Nations Is a Super Power]]: The Diplomatic Victory in later games tends to involve having the UN elect you world leader, in the process uniting humanity. With your nation the ones actually pulling the strings, of course.
▲* [[Unreliable Narrator]]: The Civilopedia in ''4'' claims under "Police State" credits it with helping Stalin not lose World War
* [[Unstable Equilibrium]]: Present in all ''Civilization'' games. An empire that manages to secure good territory early on can research faster and produce more units, making it easier for them to expand even further. The endgame is typically resolved between two or three strong empires while the weaker ones have already been wiped out or reduced to barely influential lapdogs with practically zero chance of winning.
* [[Useless Useful Skill]]: Some of the Civics in ''Civ IV'' were notorious for being worthless -- most notably Environmentalism, which granted a bonus for a resource (forests and jungles) that you'd more than likely eradicated by the time you became able to use it. Environmetalism became ''far'' more powerful in the ''Beyond the Sword'' expansion.
* [[Video Game 3D Leap]]: ''Civilization IV'' marked a point in the franchise when it fully transitions into 3D, though the game itself plays much like its predecessors.
* [[Video Game Caring Potential]]: [[100% Adoration Rating|"We Love The King Day celebrated in <city name>."]]
** It's a part of gameplay for ''V''; a City will require a certain resource and if you can get the required resource the local populace start getting busy.
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** Note that "Baba Yetu," which (as mentioned above) is considered the new leitmotif of the series, is actually an adaptation of the Lord's Prayer in Swahili.
*** Which, when you think about it, is actually a pretty good fit for a game called Civilization.
**** It's doubly fitting since ''Civilization IV'' was the first installment to introduce real-world religions.
** The Greek theme, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kpVrmRkPWk Epitaph of Seikilos,] is the single oldest surviving example of a complete musical composition from anywhere in the world and is roughly 2000 years old. The song was found carved on a tombstone by Seikilos to his (presumed) wife Euterpe. For a more accurate version, try [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xERitvFYpAk here.] It also makes a return as the Greek theme for ''VI''.
** Genghis Khan's theme, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfpLk5AJ1ME Urtiin Duu], is also a love song, and it's also incredibly ominous. They're not exaggerating it, either; [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcIgvxdRlIw here] it is being performed in concert.
** The American theme in ''VI,'' "Hard Times Come Again No More," is a 19th Century parlor song that manages to come across as simultaneously patriotic and optimistic for the future.
* [[What the Hell, Player?]]: Try to perform certain illegal actions in the game, and you'll get some smart-aleck game notifications.
** For ''Civilization II'':
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* [[Whole-Plot Reference]]: Many scenarios reference the plots of other works:
** ''Beyond the Sword'''s "Next War" is basically ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]]'' with another state added for balance.
** ''Call to Power 2'''s "Nuclear Detente" is the ''[[Star Trek: The
** Another ''CtP2'' RPG-like scenario essentially follows [[The Magnificent Seven Samurai]] plot.
* [[Worker Unit]]: Workers and settlers.
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