Civilization I, II, & III (PC)

Sid Meier's Civilization definitely made an impact on my studies when I was in high school. It was two folded: on the one hand it got me interested in history, on the other hand it distracted me from my studies big time. Yes, the game of battling other historical figures. The thing was, I was never good at battling.

The first one started it all. It had the turn-based building, the cities, and a tech-tree that lasts up into today's games. I spent a lot reading about the Wonders and really was aspired to read about history and travel through the world. Then there was another part of me that just wanted to work for Sid Meiers.

The second CIV featured the space colonization, hence the Antares subtitle. I really didn't play this much, but I got the gist of it. It kind of sucked that my computer wasn't powerful enough to play this. I do remember trade routes, and how annoying they were.

My attention for CIV3 came a lot later, long after it was published. I was in Japan and I had my powerbook G4 with me. There weren't many games available to Mac, and one in particular was CIV3. Now studying abroad is a fun and exciting thing, but if you ask anybody that's done it, there's a lot of down-time. During those hours of self-discovery, I played CIV. And yes, I'd get aggravated at it. The computer doesn't necessarily cheat, but they do plot together. Not only that, but they didn't have the fog of war, so they knew where your cities were. Not cool. I was able to beat the fourth difficulty against eight players once, but only through space race. For conquest, it'd be unimaginable.

Completion: completed all three, but not at highest difficulty.
Civilization = 40 Hours
Civilization 2 = 10 Hours
Civilization 3 = 60 Hours
Hours = 110 Hours