Civilization is coming to Facebook in the form of Civilization Network, creator and all round gaming genius Sid Meier has said.
Posting on the Civ fansite, Meier revealed, "I wanted to let you know we'll soon be looking for beta testers to help us develop a unique new way to play Civilization.
"Ever since we finished Civilization Revolution last year, I've been looking at ways of expanding the Civ gameplay experience to include solo, competitive and cooperative play to take advantage of the uniqueness of social networks. We're calling this project Civilization Network and the full game will be available next year on Facebook."
He explains that Civilization Network will allow you to join up with friends to create the world's most powerful, richest, smartest, or "just plain coolest civilization." Most importantly though, it'll be free to play.
You can coordinate strategies, share technology, lobby friends to form new governments, manage and grow your cities, spy on your enemies... all the things that made Civ the gaming form of crack in the first place.
Sounds like a winner to us. And beats reading other peoples' exciting status updates at lunch or trawling through pictures of your ex-girlfriends. Or is that just us?
Meier's attachment to the project gives me a tiny flickering hope that this won't just turn out to be like one of those "Mafia Wars"/"Fish Tank" things everyone keeps pestering me to join. I rarely check Facebook but I'm sick of the sight of that crap and it is instantly ignored. All 50 invitations per log in...
Oh dear! I can see my social life being absolutely destroyed by this. Mixing what is one of the most addictive games in the world with an already addictive social network could be deadly!!
I hope the game follows more of a Civ IV model rather than a CivRev design, as it was definitely the better system. CivRev just didn't "do it" for me in the same way that Civs I, II, III and IV (or Colonization, for that matter).
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