Words by Matt Jarvis
In 1980, a board game called Civilization was published in the UK by a company called Hartland Trefoil. Created by the company’s founder, Francis Tresham, Civilization was the whole of recorded human history packed into a box; each player controlled a single nation from the invention of agriculture in around 8000 BC until the arrival of the Roman Empire in middle of the third century, expanding and advancing their people as they discovered new technology. Civilization was a revolution in gaming, introducing a level of depth and complexity never seen before and pioneering the civilisation-building genre that would go on to flourish and is today populated by games as diverse as Through the Ages, Twilight Imperium and 7 Wonders.
Civilization wasn’t Tresham’s first published game. In 1974 he had invented an entirely different genre with 1829, a lengthy simulation of operating and trading stock in railway companies that gave rise to the niche but cherished 18xx series. The following year saw the release of a lesser-known abstract strategy game, Kingdoms. His interest in designing more complex games for older players was sparked by a combination of encountering 1964’s Acquire, Sid Sackson’s classic game about investing in hotel chains, and being unimpressed by the ‘unbalanced’ gameplay of mainstream offerings of the time.
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March 2018 (#16)
 
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