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1 entry of 164 involving MicroProse

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1990-1999 The 1990s

Civilization asks players to guide a society for millennia

Sid Meier's strategy game handed players a single group of settlers and several thousand years, asking them to manage research, cities, armies and diplomacy. Its interlocking systems and long sessions defined a durable computer genre.

Key facts and significance Hide details
Region
North America
Period
The 1990s

Why it matters

Grand historical strategy became a commercial genre rather than a hobbyist one. The design proved that systems interlocking at several scales, city, empire and era, could be made legible to a general audience, and it established the technology tree as a way of representing progress that software still borrows.

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