Sid Meier

Sid Meier's name became a genre unto itself, a guarantee of deep, turn-based strategy where one more turn quietly dissolves an entire evening. This collection is dominated by Civilization, the series that defined the 4X strategy game, tracing its design from Civilization II in 1996 through the streamlined Civilization VI and beyond.

Around that spine sit the other classics that carry his name: the sci-fi landmark Alpha Centauri, the swashbuckling Pirates!, and the lighter Railroads! and Ace Patrol. The unifying idea is systems you can learn, exploit, and lose yourself in, history and geography rendered as interlocking rules. Everything here is a game, which suits a brand whose reputation rests entirely on design rather than spectacle or story. For strategy players this is close to a canon: decades of refinement on the question of how to make managing an empire feel irresistible rather than tedious.

The Sid Meier franchise spans 18 games in the CrossBinge catalog.