Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization, the 2008 remake of 1994's Sid Meier's Colonization was met with some hostility over the concept at the outset. Trevor Owens and Rebbeca Mir, contributors to Play the Past, have been making a series of blog posts about the inherently problematic nature of the game. It started with "Sid Meier's Colonization: Is it offensive enough?", next was "if (!isNative()[returnfalse;]: De-People-ing Native Peopls in Sid Meier's Colonization?", then "Guns, Germs and Horses: Cultural Exchange in Sid Meier's Colonization" and, the latest, "Playing at Slavery: Modding Colonization for Authenticity" [more inside]
posted by griphus on May 25, 2012 - 88 comments

Microsoft released Age of Empires Online last week -- a free-to-play realtime strategy game, and it's getting some pretty good press. [more inside]
posted by crunchland on Aug 22, 2011 - 42 comments

National Characters is a long, multi-part essay about how computer games deal with the concept of nations and turns it into a game mechanic. The author, Troy Goodfellow of strategy gaming blog Flash of Steel, focuses on how the fourteen indistinguishable national factions of the original Sid Meier's Civilization have been treated by different games through the years. [more inside]
posted by Kattullus on Aug 15, 2011 - 50 comments

Baba Yetu, the much-loved theme song from Civilization IV, has won a Grammy - making it the first piece written for a video game ever to get the nod. [more inside]
posted by bicyclefish on Feb 13, 2011 - 85 comments

The "Civilization" theme -- now with lyrics!
posted by empath on Sep 26, 2010 - 59 comments

Vox Imperium A pretty deep web based civilization game.
posted by boo_radley on Feb 26, 2007 - 20 comments