[automatic6131]

I always imagine the board game as essentially being SM's Civilisation but really, really good in an indescribable way - with some card games inbetween.

[0_gravitas]

I believe Banks himself said that he used to play Civ and took some inspiration from it

[bduerst]

Definitely for his later books, but Player of Games came out three years before the first Sid Meier's Civ game.

What cool is that Paradox's Stellaris, a civ-in-space game, definitely takes pages from Ian's Culture series.