Sid Meier’s Civilization is one of those games that holds special memories for me. Sure, there were old LAN parties, but what I really remember about it was working graveyard shifts at a call center, before I even had my first career position. Turn based games were ideal, because while it was mostly dead, at least one of the 8 people on the team was usually on a call, and this made it so that the gameplay didn’t have to stop, nor punish the person who was actually doing their job.

When I found Unciv, the README on the github repo actually had all the points right there that I was interested in.

According to the US Copyright Office FL-108, intellectual property rights do not apply to mechanics - as I’m sure you know, there are a billion Flappy Bird knockoffs.

The mechanics were what I was into. Sure the super polished UI and the absolutely incredible soundtrack (Christopher Tin’s Baba Yetu still gives me the chills) made the game a huge success, but I didn’t need that to have a good time. Yet again, the README seemed to be just for me.

At the top, under the heading Is this any good?

Depends what you’re looking for. If you’re in the market for high-res graphics, amazing soundtracks, animations etc, I highly recommend Firaxis’s Civ-V-like game, “Civilization V”.

If you want a small, fast, moddable, FOSS, in-depth 4X that can still run on a potato, you’ve come to the right place :)

I don’t spend a lot of time playing games, but Unciv is one I highly recommend. I even used setting up a server over the net as a project to motivate my nephew as he started digging into technology. Hasn’t worked yet, but the computer is fun to play against as well.