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Classic Game Postmortem: Sid Meier's Civilization

GDC Festival of Gaming · talk · Watch on YouTube

Game designGame history & retro gaming

What it is

A 2017 GDC postmortem in which Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley tell how Civilization came together from board game design and sim game experience. They cover its development history and design decisions, including fairness and luck.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN recommends it as a great account of how Civilization was made and as a source on perceived fairness in game design.

  • 4 people recommended it
  • 5 different months
  • 2 strong recommendations
  • first 2017, last 2021

What HN commenters said

  1. “Highly recommended.”

    GDC talk on developing the original Civilization

    simonh, 2020-10 · Strong recommendation · in “Sid Meier's Memoir”

  2. “The talk is only an hour long and worth watching.”

    Sid Meier on fairness versus perceived fairness in games

    eriknstr, 2017-07 · Recommendation · in “Show HN: A Set of Dice That Follows the Gambler's Fallacy”

  3. “Here are videos of two GDC 2017 talks about Civilization that I enjoyed”

    GDC postmortem with Civilization creators Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley

    cpeterso, 2018-03 · Recommendation · in “The Game of Everything, Part 1: Making Civilization”

  4. “You might enjoy these videos as well”

    Further talk on Civilization design and luck

    codetrotter, 2019-03 · Recommendation · in “How Designers Engineer Luck Into Video Games (2017)”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: civilization, sid meier, gdc, postmortem, strategy games

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