TimeWasters highlights many of the excellent Web-based/lightweight downloadable titles that you can dive into within the space of a lunch break. This week, Chris Gampat explores Civilization Wars.
If there is something better than ancient little people trying to kill other ancient little people as in Civilization Wars, then it had better be a free version of Total War. Otherwise, this is a pretty damned good game. It even saves your progress on your computer. If you’re bored at work or languishing through another day of unemployment hoping for the economy to recover, then you’ll probably want to check this out.
The premise of the game is simple: you start off with a Mayan-type people that need to expand beyond their borders, so they go into other neighboring areas to conquer new lands. The way this is accomplished is a bit different from normal RTS games or even turn-based strategy games because you’re literally just rushing to one spot after another.
You start off with a population in a large housing and need to spread your people from one house to another. Each time you spread, you lose half the population in that household. You also need to spread to magic crystal areas to hoard magical resources and perform spells. Beyond all that, there are also towers that need to be captured to protect your areas too.
Competing with you is one or two other civilizations. You need to wipe them all off across the map as well. Eventually you’ll encounter boss levels where you need to destroy some giant animal like a turtle. It’s very fun and very fast paced. And when the mission is over you get to choose different power-ups to help you along. Once you beat the game you unlock other civilizations such as the Roman and East Asian types.
The music is really nothing special, in fact it’s very simplistic. Imagine a Nintendo game with Mayans and that’s the music. But it’s not chiptunes quality; think Wii-style music meets Hawaiian and Mayan influences.
The controls are all mouse-based. You click and drag to move units from place to place. You release the button again when you want them to move. Units can only be moved from building to building and cannot face each other on the field of battle. That’s the only downer.
If you’re looking for a quick diversion this is a game to check. Warning: It will become really, really addictive due to its fun, fast-paced gameplay.
