I have been playing Civilization World on Facebook for a while now, and I feel I am ready to review it. It is, I’ve found, a slavery simulator, in which a despotic deity—the player—forces upon hapless individuals, born only for the purpose of labor, the task of building a civilization. It is interesting how one never sees these people walk around town, such as in Cityville. All one sees are the tiny people working, menially and repetitively, once in a while muttering how a road increases their productivity or how they are, overall, content.
When one reaches a certain amount of food, another citizen is born—to a brilliant civilization brought upon by the sweat of their forefathers and to a life of slavery of either being an artisan, a worker, a scientist, a farmer, or a merchant. The goal, then, is to handle your slaves well. Make sure they do not travel too far from their house to their area of production. Make sure they have homes. Make sure to build the increasingly expensive edifices which do little more than increase productivity for resources, so that you may build even more edifices. Make sure your empire is secure. Most of all, make sure the slaves are producing enough surplus value—so that you may take it from them—via your divine right—so that you may build more glorious wonders, compose an army, and create your own civilization.
In this light, one may also see it as a history game—which is not that bad.
A four out of ten.
