Just one more turn. That's what you tell yourself at 2am, in 2001 as much as today.

This profile is a textbook case, and a fascinating one. On the desert island question, Civilization III lands ahead of 94% of games: the title you take when you'll only get one box to open for ten years. Fun follows, ahead of 88% of titles, though that rests on two duels, so treat it as a first signal. Connection edges past 62% of games, art style 68%, the music settles in the middle. And then there's the feel in the hands, right at the bottom, ahead of just 5% of titles. That's the real tension: you can't put this game down, yet it gives you nothing physical. Which is fair, it was never built for that.

That's what defines the 4X: the pleasure isn't in the gesture, it's in the decision. Where an action game is judged by the millisecond, Civilization is judged by the empire it lets you build, city by city, technology by technology.

So, who is it for? For you if you love thinking long, planning, watching a whole world grow out of your choices. Much less so if you want immediate sensation, tempo, a controller that kicks back.