Sid Meier's CivNet (1995)
There are more varied opinions among gamers concerning CivNet than any other Sid Meier game. Some reveled in the chance to finally enjoy their favorite strategy game multiplayer, while others considered CivNet an abomination - most likely because, in all-too-typical mid-'90s MicroProse fashion, it took three patches before the bugs were sufficiently squashed to properly play the game.
Design: Sid Meier and
Mike Denman
Publisher: MicroProse
Genre: Strategy
Difficulty: Intermediate
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Worse, MicroProse tried to pull the wool over the eyes of the fans of its most storied franchise by releasing CivNet a mere four months before Sid Meier's Civilization II, without letting anyone know of the latter game's impending release until after the sales curve of CivNet had flattened. The controversy deepened when Civilization II shipped with no multiplayer options, but with some evidence of multiplayer hooks buried in the code.
Even if you ignore all the controversy, CivNet is a mixed bag. It's still Sid Meier's Civilization at the core, but Civilization was really outdated graphically by 1995 (Operation Crusader and Panzer General led the way to SVGA graphics for strategy games in 1994, a year earlier). The Macintosh-like interface didn't endear itself to PC strategists much, either. At one time, MicroProse was so out of touch with its audience that it actually considered making CivNet real time, but Sid himself evidently stepped in and squelched that idea.
With none of the scenarios or accelerated start options found just months later in Sid Meier's Civilization II, it took an eternity to play a game of CivNet to a reasonable conclusion. And whatever small steps CivNet took towards simultaneous turn-based play, it has been surpassed by such games as Warlords III. The irony is that it's taken MicroProse nearly three years to come up with what it should have done in the first place: a multiplayer version of Civilization II. If MicroProse takes the time to finish Ultimate Civ II Multiplayer, then CivNet can slip quietly into the dustbins of history.
Next: Sid Meier's Civilization II 
