sid meier’s civilization.

— Create a civilization to stand the test of time!

By Patrick S. Baker

(Read Part one here)

Moves: Legal and Business

In 1996, MicroProse released Sid Meier’s Civilization II (Civ II) for the personal computer (PC) and Avalon Hill then sued MicroProse over the use of the name, Civilization, asserting they had reclaimed the previously licensed copyright. As this lawsuit worked through the legal system, Activision released Civilization: Call to Power, also for the PC, in 1998. This set off a three-sided legal battle over the use of the name.  At the same time “the video game industry … was like the Wild West, with companies starting up, closing, buying and selling other companies, and also trading, assigning and purchasing Intellectual Properties (IPs) at a furious rate.”

“Dominate the world through diplomatic finesse, cultural domination, and military prowess.” -Giant Bomb

By Patrick S. Baker

Introduction

After, shall we say, the mixed critical and commercial reception of 1999’s Civilization II: Test of Time, which has an aggregate of only 66% on Metacritic, famed game developer Sid Meier and his company, Firaxis, immediately set to work on another Civilization game. Originally, the development of the game that would become Civilization III (Civ III) was given to Brian Renyolds, the man behind the highly successful base Civilization II game. However, Renyolds left Firaxis before development really got rolling to start his own company, so the assignment was handed to game designer Jeff Briggs and game programmer Soren Johnson.

Briggs was an experienced game designer, and one of the three founders of Firaxis, along with Reynolds and Meier. Briggs had previously helped design such games as Colonization and Civilization II. He also held a PhD of Music Theory and had written the original music for many of Microprose games.

Johnson had gone to work at Firaxis after an internship at Electronic Arts (EA). He was assigned as the primary game programmer for Civ III under Briggs direction. Johnson joined the development team with just 16 months left to finish the game. Still, he rewrote much of the game’s code, with his main focus was on the its Artificial Intelligence (AI).

“There seems too wide agreement that the best version of Civ ever, was Civ II – Test of Time.”

Or

“They screwed around with Civilization and made it worse.”

By Patrick S. Baker

By 1997, famed game designer Sid Meier had left MicroProse and founded Firaxis with other former MicroProse employees. At about that same time, MicroProse was acquired by Spectrum Holobyte, and then the merged company was purchased by gaming giant, Hasbro Interactive.

In February 1999, Meier’s new company released Sid Meier’s Alpha Centuri. This game did not carry the Civilization name yet was no doubt a sequel to Civilization II (Civ II). Also, in April 1999, a rival game company, Activision, released the game, Civilization: Call to Power. This release sparked a legal dispute between MicroProse/Hasbro and Activision over the use of the name Civilization for computer games. Part of the settlement was that Activision could continue to make Call to Power games, but not use the Civilization title.