Rating: 
Summary: Addicting
Review: Now that I'm away at school I've been deprived of my Civilization. However, during the summers, it is basically all I do. I know that I should be doing something active or even reading. But being that I'm a student, reading is something with which I am altogether unfamiliar so let's get real here. Civilization is addicting and it is an extraordinary waste of time. Again, being a college student, wasting time is a good thing. If you are trying to kill a couple days, or even weeks, I recommend this game. If you actually have a life and, say, enjoy contact with people, do not buy this game. I used to have friends, but then Sid Meier came into my life and it's been downhill since then.
Rating:
Summary: Pretty Amazing
Review: Don't buy this unless you don't mind graphics. I don't and I loved it but some may find it a rough start to get into. I recommend it to AOE fans. It is so hard to get high technologies though and because of this slow part of it then it is a game that can easily turn one off.
Rating:
Summary: A Great and Addictive Game
Review: Civ2 is one of the best stragety games that I've ever had the pleasure of playing. The controls are simple and easy to understand, but play is complex enough to keep me rapt for hours. Your objective is simple: conquer the world, or be the first civilization to put a colony on alpha centuri. There are minor problems, as with any game, such as balance skewing wonders (such as Leonardo's workshop(not as much a problem when you build it, though.)) but the worst of this game is better than some other's best.
Rating:
Summary: Best game ever.
Review: I got hooked on this game a couple of years ago, and it's still my favorite. You are the leader of a civilization, and you control the moves and decisions of what to build where, and what civilizations you want to conquer. Sort of like starcraft, but in my opinion much more addictive. You found cities, and each town builds one thing at a time, whether it be a troop of soldiers, a city improvement, or a wonder of the world. The goal is either to wipe out all other civilizations, or be the first civilization to colonize the moon. Sometimes I decide to play this game for an hour, and end up playing it all day. Very, Very addictive.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Game
Review: Civilzations 2 was an outstanding game. It was by far the greatest strategic pc game i have ever expierienced. PERIOD!
Rating:
Summary: Still #1 on my list
Review: After playing this game for (yikes!) 9 years, I can say without a doubt that this is still the best turned-based strategy/empire building game ever. How can I say that? Simple. First, this game is not real-time strategy (RTS) in nature, so I clearly distinguish it from RTS games like Age of Empires (and others). Secondly, it never relied on graphics to sell itself. Way too many games today eat up RAM and require expen$ive video cards to do far less than this game does.
I had played the original Civilization (and loved it), but Civ II was a gigantic leap forward in game concept and design. The graphics were an improvement, yes, but I'm a child of the 70's, raised on Atari games. So I know that great games can have meager graphics. I also have learned that lousy games can have awesome graphics. Graphics get me to look at the game, but the game's overall concept and implementation keep me going long after the graphics have worn themselves out. Civ II is a game that long outlasted its graphics. Here's why:
1) Replayability: No two games are ever the same. That's even true of the scenarios. The choices for startup (world settings, civilization choices, game options, etc.) alone give you a fantastic variety that will allow you to keep trying the game from entirely new starting conditions. Even choosing the same options every time still leads to wildly different games each time, simply because the game is quite adaptable.
2) Strategy: Play the WWII scenario from nearly any of the 3 major sides (Axis, Allies, Russians) and you will find yourself learning-often times the hard way-that the European theater was not a forgone conclusion. The normal game mode is no less exciting for those who love exploring, building, expanding, and (of course) conquering.
3) Two different approaches to victory: This game is very good about not punishing the player for seeking a non-combative victory. The space race, while competitive, does not require direct aggression against the other civs. This can be a refreshing change for those who prefer to let their infrastructures do their fighting for them. I have tried both paths multiple times, and I can testify that both are equally challenging. I can also tell you that you get more points for winning the space race than for conquering everyone.
4) Scenarios: Whether building them or playing them, this feature of Civ II, along with a map builder utility, has provided me with countless hours of entertainment and challenge. It only gets better if you get the expansion packs.
Really, I can go on...and on. But these are the main reasons I will always keep a copy of Civ II on my computer. Even Civ III has not replaced it.
Rating: 
Summary: wwwwwwwaaaaaaa!!!!! The grandfather for RTS
Review: I played this game for a long time. This is the grandfather of real time strategies. The graphics aren't that great, they had Aztecs use horses (and thats a shame,):( and it's easy to get cheats. And no multiplayer! waaa!!!!! So you can't get a chance to show-off your skills to others online (unlike Age of empires, Age of empires 2, Rise of nations, Medieval total war, Rome total war, etc.)But the space is so small, and the plot, BLAH!! But some of these RTS have blood, intense violence, etc. This is for ages 3-7. So there is the review. If you have no room for the big daddies, then this game is ok..... Since this is a three star review, you decide whether you want to buy this game or not..
Rating: 
Summary: This game is so boring!
Review: This game is extremely boring and very ugly! The graphics look like they came from the 80s and civ games are still coming out with the same old graphics. Ridiculous! This game is a waste of money and time. You may like it if you love ugly, terrible graphics, but for rts fans skip the whole series!
Rating:
Summary: My all-time favourite game
Review: Back when I hadn't even heard of Windows, I visited a friend whose parents had just bought a stunning `new' computer (as a Pentium 233 was called then). I was introduced to one of their games: Civilization II. The game was (and still is!) about building up a great civilization out f a single settler you have in the beginning. You can build cities, roads, have diplomatic meetings with your AI neighbours, wage war and construct Wonders of the World. And this is just a selection of all possibilities! I still remember those great first moments with the game, when I was trying to defend the noble city of Canterbury from the evil Zulus who were doing a massive amphibious attempt to seize my continent! The game got me at my throat immediately and from then on I visited that place very frequently just to play Civ. II! No wonder that, when we finally got a new pc, the first game I obtained was this one. I have had many great hours since then with all aspects of the game. For it's not just some ordinary thing. No, this game really breathes atmosphere and fun! However, I should say that you really need to get the add-on Scenarios disc to enjoy this game at its max. Take those terrific wonder movies for example! Believe me; it's so enormously enjoyable that, after you have taken much effort building a wonder of the world, these fantastic movies appear! I often built these wonders just so that I could see the cute movies afterwards. No need to say that I was really infuriated when I played this game's successor, Civilization 3, and saw the movies had been left out! Anyway, these things add greatly to the game's superb sphere. Next is the music. This game's soundtrack (again, you need the scenarios disc for this) is perhaps the best I have ever heard in a game, with the possible exception of World Cup 98 (with that terrific Chumbawumba music!). Civ II has some very funny songs, including a humorous take on the Civil War song `John Brown's body'. Furthermore, there is the atmospheric `Harvest of the Nile' and the creepy `Alien invasion'. And for your sheer glorious moments, there is of course... Beethoven's Ninth! I can't say how much fun I had every time when an enemy was destroyed. The game itself changes the music to Beethoven's funeral march from the Eroica symphony then, but I always raced to the music section to change this to the Ode to Joy! Not to mention the really funny unit sounds, the ambassador's animations, the quirky scenarios such as a battle between Zeus and Hades, the way the Napoleon unit speaks out the word `tirez' in his scenario... This game is really full of hilarious moments! And so, so addictive... This game really belongs in the same category as games like Sim City and The Sims: you create things you don't want to leave behind anymore. It's ultimately challenging to try making your citizens even happier than they already are. And to expand your empire and sweep those nasty AI civs away. The ultimate experience of the game, however, is to complete a star ship to Alpha Centauri. Once your forces have reached the planet, you are congratulated with another stunning movie sequence; and again the programmers showed their great feel of humour by putting a certain very well known theme into this movie (yea, what?). The other way to finish the game is simply destroy all enemies, which may be even more satisfying for the player, especially at the hardest levels. Oh, and it's also such a pleasure to see your own name back in the Civ Hall of Fame, after you've completed the game! Your only competitor is yourself of course (unless there are more players in the house!) but that's something I just try to forget. The game's graphics (the movie sequences not included!) are archaic, agreed. However, I don't care at all. Just think of what Sid Meier himself once said: "A game is played in the player's head, not at the screen". Actually, I even like the very simple visualisation of things. It gives much more space for your own imagination. And after all, the programmers created such a beautiful atmosphere throughout the game, that the looks of the world map don't really matter. I could tell a terrible lot more about this game, but that would be of no use at all. This is simply the game of games, and even its fine successor Civ 3 isn't as good as this. If you like the kind of genre, this is a must buy. And if you got tired of it, get Alpha Centauri, the equally astounding successor of this game.
Rating:
Summary: My favorite version of Civ...or, Rome on 64KB a day.
Review: Sid Meier's Civilization II may, perhaps, go down in history as the late and much lamented MicroProse's most popular and best computer game. (MicroProse, which also produced the F-15 Strike Eagle series of flight sims and the World War II submarine simulation, Silent Service II, changed hands several times, having been bought out by Activision, then Hasbro, then Atari before disappearing.) SId Meier himself went on to design other, equally admirable games such as "Sid Meier's Gettysburg," but Civilization (and its sequels) will be remembered by gamers for decades. The first version of Civ (in 3.5 in. diskettes) was released over 12 years ago; this was the first version I ever played and drew me into its addictive web of military strategy, cultural development and technological advances. Civilization II, released on the more versatile and multi-faceted CD-ROM format in 1996, is a vast improvement over the original Sid Meier-Bruce Shelley Civilization 1.0. The concept is the same: you are the long-lived leader of a major civilization (Rome, Greece, Egypt, just to name a few), equipped with one, sometimes two settler units, a few civilization advances (usually Irrigation, Road Building, and a randomly chosen one such as Alphabet or Bronze Working). Using terrain and resources on the mapboard (and usually the map is a sea of black except for the spaces your units are on), you find a suitable place to found your first city, then you start a 6,000 year process to create an empire that will either attempt to conquer the world or, for more points and a tougher challenge, win the game by gaining technological advances through research, building up a huge treasury via trade and taxation, and racing the other civilizations to be the first to reach Alpha Centauri before the scoring period ends in 2010 AD. The 1996 version (since supplanted by Civilization II: The Test of Time and Civilization III) is a single-player edition, but even without multiplayer options it is still quite a challenge even in the basic Chieftain level. It still has those pesky barbarian tribes that old hands at Civ grew to hate in the first edition, but the graphics are way better -- even 8 years later they still hold up. New (at least in '96) features include one additional civilization per color group (Spanish, Sioux, Celts, Cartaginian, etc.), your choice of gender during leader selection (women like to play sims, too, and Civ 1 only had male leaders and titles), 3-D heralds to announce communications from the AI civilizations, multimedia presentations of Wonders of the World (with new Wonders added and new or revised Wonder-benefits), and new military units (Helicopter, Paratrooper). To get the most out of Civilization II's features, particularly a stunning title sequence (by '96 standards) and multimedia presentations, it's best to play the game with the CD-ROM in the appropriate drive. You don't need to play the basic game with the disc, but you'll miss seeing and hearing the film clips that pop up when you build a Wonder or, if you are lucky, reach Alpha Centauri before the AI civilizations.
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