> Was thinking similar thoughts recently about Civ 6, and how much longer it takes to load saved games than Civ 2 ever did.
Original Civ opens with a dramatic intro sequence:
In the beginning
the earth was without form
and void.
But the sun shone upon the sleeping Earth
and deep inside the brittle crust
massive forces waited to be unleashed
(It goes on for quite a while after that. The unofficial guidebook to Civilization, Rome on 640K a Day, notes that there's a text file containing the intro lines, and suggests replacing them with Douglas Adams' popular quote "In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and been widely regarded as a bad move. [...]")
You can press escape to skip the intro, except that that won't work on computers contemporary to the game.
I eventually realized that the intro sequence is there to mask the time the computer takes to create the world at the beginning of the game. Skipping won't work until the world has been laid out in the background.
Loading is quick though.