That game was Civilization: Call to Power, and having sprung into existence in that environment, it's no wonder that upon its release in 1999 it turned out a little… odd. MicroProse successfully counter-sued, leaving Avalon-Hill to pay compensation, and Activision with the rights to create a single game under the Civilization brand (presumably because MicroProse was in dire straits financially, bereft of Sid Meier and co, and had no intention of making another Civ game itself). Subsequently, Activision and Avalon-Hill sued MicroProse for trademark infringement, so MicroProse went one better by buying out Hartland Trefoil, the original creators of the Civilization board game and true owners of the license. The Civilization brand remained with MicroProse, though this was called into question by Activision, who in 1997 bought the rights to the Civilization brand from Avalon-Hill, which was responsible for distributing the original Civilization board game outside Europe. They left and went on to found Firaxis Games. Stealey had already sold his share and scarpered in 1994, but this move was the final straw for lead Civ designers Sid Meier, Jeff Briggs and Brian Reynolds. Spectrum Holobyte, the company that owned Sid Meier and Bill Stealey’s MicroProse since 1993, laid off most of the staff at MicroProse and consolidated the company.
In 1997, the Civilization series was in jeopardy, despite the roaring success of Civilization II the previous year. The surreal history that’s rolled out on my screen is just too far removed from any that I recognise from reality or fiction. It’s chaos, so vast and shambolic that I struggle to immerse myself in that classic Civ fantasy of guiding a nation through history. decimating it - in an instant.Īt the click of a mouse button, I zoom out to orbit, where the most developed nations are building space colonies while the weaker nations are still prodding each other with pikes and the oceans - overflowing due to global warming - are filled with sea cities. Must’ve been that crusty bastard Eco-Ranger (best described as a Hippy Hovercraft - complete with a peace symbol) that was loitering around, capable of returning a city to nature - i.e.
There was a city there a moment ago, wasn't there? There was definitely a city there but now it’s been replaced by a forest. I’m tied up in a endless shadow war with my neighbours lawyers suing other Civs over who knows what advertising blimps are beaming discontentment onto rival populations and once-great cities are turning into barbarian dens of iniquity at the callous click of a spy’s fingers. The best part of a millennium later in my Call To Power game, the political dynamics of the world bear no resemblance to reality in fact, they don’t even bear a resemblance to the dynamics of any of the other Civilization games. Sending a spy to investigate, I uncovered that a man in a blue suit (all the rage in 1600s Thailand, apparently) was behind it all - a scummer lawyer catapulting bloody injunctions.Ĭivilization: Call to Power and its sequel are baffling, yet also fascinating - they’re the shameful secrets of the esteemed 4X series that Sid Meier and Firaxis had no involvement with, borne of huge ambitions, an inexperienced dev team at Activision, and (fittingly, given the stifling, all-pervasive role of lawyers in the game), a lawsuit. I think things started getting strange when my still ancient-looking capital city of Rome circa 1700AD started being showered with little animations of paper, crippling the city’s production. I’m playing Civilization: Call to Power, and at some point the world turned from relative Civ familiarity (with shoddier mechanics) into a Twilight Zone where everything is just… wrong.