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The Civ games tend to share identical concepts, though sometimes they are referred to by different names. Differences between units will not be listed here except for very basic types common to all games. SMAC has the most different terminology, being an unofficial Civ game (although designed in part by Sid Meier) and being set in the future on another planet. For differences in terminology among the Test of Time games, consult the manual. Freeciv always uses the Civ2 term.

Warning: This may not be accurate yet, and does not include Call to Power terms.

Civilization 1 term	Civilization 2 term	Civilization 3 term	SMAC Term	Meaning
Food	Food	Food	Nutrients	Increases city growth
Shields	Shields	Shields	Minerals	Builds units/improvements
Trade	Trade	Commerce	Energy	Goes to taxes/research/luxuries
Taxes	Taxes	Taxes	Economy	Portion of trade that goes into your treasury
Science	Science	Science	Labs	Goes to developing new tech
Luxury	Luxury	Entertainment	Psych	Goes to keeping citizens content/happy
Settlers[1]	Settlers[1]	Settler	Colony Pod	Establishes a new city
Settlers[1]	Settlers[1]	Worker	Former	Enhances terrain
Government	Government	Government	Social Engineering	Affects bonuses and penalties of your civilization
Barbarian	Barbarian	Barbarian	Mind Worm	Unit associated with no Civ; raids player units
Minor tribe[2]	Minor tribe[2]	Minor tribe[2]	Unity Pod	Causes random event
Happy citizen	Happy citizen	Happy citizen	Talent	Offsets unhappy citizens
Content citizen	Content citizen	Content citizen	Worker	Ordinary citizen
Unhappy citizen	Unhappy citizen	Unhappy citizen	Drone	Causes disorder riots if exceeds number of happy citizens
Civil disorder	Civil disorder	Civil disorder	Drone riots	Production ceases

[edit] Footnotes

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} In Civilization 1 and Civilization 2, Settlers function both as city-building units and terrain-enhancing units. If we were to follow Civ1 terminology here, the word "Settler" would create ambiguity for Civilization 3 and SMAC players. Therefore, the Civilization 3 terminology for "Settlers" and "Workers" has been adopted as an exception to the general rule to use Civilization 1 terminology. Civilization 1 and Civilization 2 players can simply read both words as "Settlers".
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2} The word "village" is synonymous with Minor Tribe. They are invariably called "goodie huts" by fans, because they usually dispense "good" things such as free technologies or money and in most graphics sets they are represented by a hut (or small number of huts). "Goodie hut" is often abbreviated to "hut".