The world of civilization simulations is definitely getting better – not only in terms of the graphical elements, but in the way the player seemingly interacts with the civilization in which he or she is the power behind the throne.

There seems little doubt that Tropico (Top Pop Software and Gathering of Developers) took the standards established by Microsoft’s Age of Empires and Activision’s Civilizations series, and expanded the format, lessened the micromanagement, improved the graphics with a three-dimensional flair, and gave gamers an inside look at the lives of their subjects.

Now along comes The Nations, from JoWooD Productions. This game showed up with an imaginary tag that said ‘déjà vu.’ Why? Because way back on October 2, GameZone published a review of a civilization game called Amazons and Aliens. It was released by Simon and Schuster Interactive, in conjunction with Neo and JoWooD, and featured the same three races that this program has – the Pimmons, Amazons and Sajkhi.

Is this the same game marketed under a different title? Hmm … not really. In Amazons and Aliens, the first missions involved building a tavern (Pimmons), scouting (Amazons) and building storage buildings (Sajkhi). In The Nations, the game is much more basic – establish a first-level civilization with a certain amount of citizens and buildings.

There are certain similarities, but The Nations is months older and looks it.

Each race, though boasting buildings that perform similar functions, is wildly different in appearance. But there is a pervasive tone to each civilization – develop as you are capable, not before you are ready. You train civilians for jobs in a school. But there is little sense training them, if the facilities they are to work at are not built. If you have trained personnel, but the construction of their workplace has been stalled because of lack of processed resources, they you will have disgruntled citizens.

In some ways, this aspect mirrors Tropico. In that program, the citizens of the island walked around with balloons above their heads that indicated what they were about to do (like eat or sleep), or their mood. The same is true in The Nations.

For example, you can’t train a baker without having a bakery ready. But even that depends on having a farm built (for the grain) and a trained farmer to work it. And you had better have warehouses ready to store the material. And you can’t build a jail at the first technological level, because a jail requires steel bars, and you haven’t researched the technology to build the forge to process the materials to make them.

However, there is a serious downside to the typical civilization-genre game. In this program, each time you accomplish the scenario challenge, you will receive another. However, it is not with the group that you have developed. Take the first scenario for example; you will spend hours building the civilization to accomplish the mission statement. Then you are presented with another challenge, but the village that you spent time building is pushed by the wayside – you get a different group in another location. Yes, you can continue with the group you initially start with, but resources begin to fall by the wayside with no options but to begin to wither as a culture.

Graphically the game is quite strong. The three-dimensional elements, and lush graphics, provide a terrific amount of eye candy. The game can be played at several speeds and several screen resolutions. There is the obligatory zoom in and out buttons that allow you to really get up close and personal with your subjects. You don’t want to get too close though. At its closest zoom, the characters and overall graphics take on a soft focus effect – which is a polite way of saying, they start to blur. You can see their antics much better, but you may feel the need to run to the eye doctor if you prolong a session at extreme zoom.

The sound elements of the game are a mixture with those we have come to expect from this type of game, and a wonderful musical score.

The control elements, while located in an easily accessible location, combine the easily understood functions with a few that will take you time to grow accustomed to. Learning curve for this game is about 40 minutes. Yes, work through the tutorials, just to brush up on your skills, and to get a feel for the game in a non-confrontational setting, then launch into building your civilization.

This game is rated Teen and does feature a multiplayer mode with Internet support.

The Nations is an upgrade from Amazons and Aliens. But it has ‘borrowed’ some of the newer looks of civilization games. Nonetheless, this is a fine product. The three-dimensional graphics are very good, the animation is nicely rendered, and the sound is wonderful. In many regards it has the same elements as other titles in the civ genre, save for the lack of ability in continuing to build the civilization you begin with. However, if you have never played one of these types of games before, this could well be a great introduction to the genre.

Install: Easy
The program installs easily, but there is a patch already out to upgrade any 1.0 versions. Also, there were problems in trying to get this program to run with the 32x R/W CD-ROM. When transferred to the 12x DVD ROM drive, it ran well.

Gameplay: 8
Auto-save can disrupt the flow of the game, but once you enter a scenario, the action continues. If you are concerned by the time frame of the game, you can speed it up. This is particularly useful if you are waiting for resource development, buildings or training to occur.

Graphics: 8.
The game features nice three-dimensional graphics. There is a problem if you zoom in too tightly with the focus, and the map board is incapable of rotating, which is particularly nasty if you are trying to create a road system.

Sound: 8.5
The ambient effects are terrific, and the musical score is wonderful.

Difficulty: 6
The controls are easy to pick up, after about 15 minutes of play. The game itself is not that tough to negotiate through, as long as you have a solid game plan. Combat presents another challenge, but again, if you know what you wish to accomplish, hit the pause button to take it out of ‘real-time’ play, you can formulate strategies that will insure victory.

Concept: 6
This game borrows way too much from other current civ games, and from its predecessor, Amazons and Aliens.

Multiplayer: 7
Well supported, but more of the same old hat as far as innovations and missions are concerned.

Overall: 7.5
The lack of continual play is a drawback. The soft focus when you zoom in close doesn’t enhance the game. This smacks too much of recent games to earn a truly high score, but if you ignore the other products on the market, and look at this game for what it is, it does a nice job of depicting the civilization genre.