Ahh, look at that: a perfectly constructed civilisation. Not too far apart and well linked by the blue trade routes

A semi-official sequel to the finest strategy sim ever made, Call to Power builds on the original rather than rethinking it...
Steve Owen

For those of you who didn't read FG16, the essence of the original Civilization and its sequel live on in Alpha Centauri - a project spearheaded by the pioneer and creator of the series, Sid Meier, and crafted by his own development company Firaxis. The story essentially carries on where Civ II left off, but is 'officially', an entirely unrelated game.

Call to Power was Activision’s first game to use their newly acquired Civilization licence (it was originally a board game you see), when MicroProse suddenly pointed out, using the gift of the lawyer, that they didn’t have the rights to the name after all. Now you don’t want to go throwing away a half-finished game, so, with tails between legs, Activision licensed the name from MicroProse instead and finished off their half-sequel, probably a good year ahead of MicroProse’s own, official Civilization III.

In Call to Power everything looks very familiar if you’ve played the originals. It’s 4000 BC, you are a settler, and you’re looking for somewhere to plonk your first city. This time, though, you aren’t attempting to colonise a distant star before 2100 AD, but to capture alien DNA and construct your own other-worldly being before, gulp, 3000 AD.

Yes, an entire new millennium (and various other extra complexities) now mean that just one little go of Call to Power is likely to eat up a week’s holiday. FG's first game took seven days to complete – no room for the lightweight player here.