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Civilization (video game): Difference between revisions
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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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* [[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...
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** 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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* [[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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** 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 V'
* [[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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* [[No Celebrities Were Harmed]]: In ''Revolution'', the modern era diplomacy advisor is clearly modelled on Condoleeza Rice.
* [[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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*** 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.
▲* [[Please Select New City Name]]: The [[Trope Namer]].
* [[Political Ideologies]]:
** Play a major role in the ''Brave New World'' DLC for ''Civilization V''. Particularly highlighted by the three ideological paths your civilization can follow, roughly corresponding to Fascism, Capitalism/Democracy and Socialism/Communism.
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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.
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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 ==
▲* [[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.
* [[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.
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