Oh man. Civ 1 was the first computer game my father purchased for my brother and me in our earliest teens. We got to choose ONE game from a store, based purely on its packaging, and obviously pending approval by our dad.

I vividly remember the magnetism of the pyramids depicted on the game's box - it had to be that one. Little did we know that we accidentally purchased what is probably the best game in computer game history.

Fast forward a year (and many hours of Civ) later in history class, when our teacher asked the class (somewhat rhethorically..) whether anyone had an explanation for why the Roman Empire became as successful as it was.

Before he could give us his explanation, I blurted out that it must have been their invention of the aqueduct, which eventually allowed the roman cities to grow as large as they did (which is, of course, the game mechanic of aqueducts in Civ). Regardless of whether that's true or not, let's just say that this wasn't the type of answer our teacher expected from a 6th grader!

As someone else noted in here, it's Paradox Interactive games that have somewhat ruined all advanced Civs for me (the exception being Civ 1!). If you're a grown up gamer looking for something to recreate that ol' Civ feeling, give Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings a try.