WolfETPlayer

Here's one of the many reasons, why this game is still the greatest ever in my book. Civilization (1991) is one of the finest examples of a game that impressed me deeply. Not just because of its brilliant concept and gameplay, but because of the huge customization options you had even before you moved your first settler. There were 3 options each for land mass, age, climate, and temperature. You could also choose the number of opponents (2 to 6) and the difficulty level (1 to 5). That gives you a whopping 2,025 (!) unique combinations to start the game. I sometimes tried extreme setups: small land mass, arid climate, cool temperature, 3 billion years, 6 opponents, highest difficulty... just to see if it was still winnable. Honestly, I can’t recall a game from around that time that came even remotely close to Civilization’s replay value. Absolutely unmatched.