The best thing Sid Meier's ever created. One of the greatest turn based strategy games together with x-com, master of orion 1, age of empires, Civ 2 and master of magic. Besides having great mechanics and interesting strategy options this game has one of the best flavors in the genre. The game reveals itself as you play it and it feels like you're reading a science fiction novel. It plays a lot like Civ 2, but with many improvements to game balance and the AI. A lot of innovations (like social engineering) were used here and carried on to other civ games. The game is immersive, the story is great, and the game play can keep you playing for months on end just to experiment with different strategies. This should be the direction the Civ franchise took, instead of going all COD and making it so mainstream that it had no flavor anymore. A must play for any strategy fan.
