Not sure what version of Civilization I was playing in 2002, but the fact that a big part of the game is building up your armies and crushing the other civilizations en route to victory is basically the same.
I did another couple of comics on Civilization later in the comic — I never got into multi-player versions of the game and wow, I am constantly amazed at how quickly technology has changed over my lifetime. There’s probably more power in a knock-off android phone than most desktop computers that were around in 2002.