As in past Civ games, the world is made up of a giant grid that mimics the layout of a map of the world (although the continents and oceans are variable, so it usually doesn’t resemble our Earth at all). It’s up to you to found cities, build them up by constructing different kinds of structures, and train military units to defend your borders.

The controls for Civ Rev on the DS are almost identical to its console cousins and the d-pad fills in for most of the selection duties. Of course, the DS’ stylus is put to good use and comes in handy for more minute selection options like when you have multiple units in one square and want to choose only one. Tapping the stylus on anything on the screen will select it (or you can scroll over it using the d-pad) and then you are free to direct your units by dragging the stylus from your unit to where you want it to go or whomever you want it to attack. While the d-pad seemed a bit more intuitive for actually moving units around, it’s nice to have the option of using the stylus if you so choose.

IGN Entertainment, Inc