I’m in love with the idea of Civilizations Online. Just the idea of playing in a big open world where each civilization can be built up and ultimately vie for control of the world sounds neat. Players can take on the role of workers to help build up and gather resources, or become a soldier to attack and defend.

Daydreams start to kick in at this point and I can see myself as a worker going out into the world and chopping trees, gathering ore, building farms, etc., to grow my civilization’s resources. I imagine it feeling a little bit like Harvest Moon meets UO meets Savage meets RTS.

Playing a soldier I can imagine taking squads of friends out to go harass the enemy civilizations. Finding their workers in a mine and wiping them out to have our workers come in and steal resources, go on bombing runs with zeppelins, or defend my civ against enemy raids. I’m creating this Planetside-esque map in my head where we are fighting for control of territory and building towers, cities, etc., all in real-time.

The entire game playing out as a MMO RTS/Strategy game paints this wonderful picture. I can see civilizations growing and advancing through various ages and ultimately having there be this cool showdown between a civilization still in the Bronze Age and another which has reached some sort of Industrial Age.

Will it actually be that way? I’m worried. Civilization Online is being developed by XL Games. Yeah, the same studio who made ArcheAge. Ugh. I also watched a few of these videos. Check them out. (more…)