The sprawling cities of your civilization must be connected by an infrastructure of road and rail.

Spearmen sink Battleship

One of the infamous moments in all of gaming occurs when a spearman manages to sink a battleship in Civilization. Yes, it defies all logic until you realize that, as with all games, Civilization is an abstraction of reality. The battleship will win that match the vast majority of the time, but the laws of probability give the spearmen a chance every now and then. This is something that carries on in Civilization III, where it's possible to see modern armor run up against obsolete musketmen and still lose. Sure, the armor will win nine out of 10 times, but that 10th time is still a zinger to accept.

Civ players spent a good amount of time in the city management screen.

We've avoided naming Civilization as one of the Greatest Games of All Time for quite a while, mainly because it's such an obvious selection. But there comes a time when you finally have to give a great game its due. Civilization isn't just one of the Greatest Games of All Time, it's a major milestone in the history of computer gaming. Sid Meier's signature masterpiece is one of the pillars upon which strategy gaming is built, and it continues to define turn-based strategy to this day.

So what exactly is Civ? If you've played the game, then you know we're already preaching to the choir. But if you've never played a game of Civilization before, then you owe it to yourself to give it a try. You start the game in the Stone Age; you're given a primitive nomadic tribe to start with, and you have to find a place to settle down and establish a city. From there, you have to research technologies, build settlers to establish new cities, construct buildings such as temples to foster your civilization's growth, and marshal military units to defend your city from attack and to bring the fight to the other guy's door. As your civilization expands in size and the march of time goes on, you'll advance to the Bronze and Iron Ages and keep going until you hit the modern era. The game ends if you can conquer the world or if you're the first civilization to land settlers on Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to Earth.

But the brilliance of Civilization is that all these elements combined to form an intoxicating blend of open-ended gameplay. You can pursue peaceful economic expansion, or you can go on a military rampage against your neighbors. Every new technology you research has the potential of unlocking a whole new paradigm for you to adopt. Then there's the race to construct wonders, such as the Pyramids of Egypt, before everyone else in order to gain the special bonuses. There's no feeling like not only being the first to hit the industrial age, but to also realize that your closest competitor is still stuck in the dark ages. At that moment, it's time to switch your society into militaristic gear and go on an epic rampage as you send tanks and battleships to crush their lowly military units. Though, to this day, countless Civ gamers still bitterly complain about the "spearmen-defeat-battleship" results that occasionally cropped up.

Civilization's turn-based formula is highly effective; you're never more than a turn or two away from something big happening, like finishing research on a critical technology, or completing construction on a great wonder, or crushing a bitter opponent's last city. There's enough incentive to hang around for "just one more turn" that, before you know it, the dawn sun is creeping up over the horizon and you've realized that you've spent all night playing.

Civilization is the digital equivalent of crack; once it's in your head, you're hooked forever. At least, that's my experience. I've played every version of Civilization religiously. When Civilization II showed up early at my local CompUSA, I grabbed one of the few copies and gloated to one of the employees. He was so surprised that he grabbed a copy for himself. When Civilization III shipped in 2001, I literally hung out at the software store in the mall until the UPS delivery guy delivered the game. He was running late that day, and the store employees actually gave me a chair to sit on while I waited. There's no doubt that if I were stuck on a desert island, all I'd want is a solar-powered laptop and a copy of Civ to keep me company.