I could never figure out how to play it. Of course, it didn't help that I only had the disc, not the manual

The game had a very sharp difficulty curve, but in kind of a bad way. It was very tough to get started and to get a decent colony going, but once you did you could snowball through the rest of the yard. I could take on giant spiders and harvest food from them, and of course any other colony.

I shudder at imagining a lot of the earlier Sim* games without a manual and largely pre-web. Without the space or time to create digital help content, there was so much that was only mentioned in the manuals!

I remember the SimEarth one being a pretty hefty tome.

This was my favorite sim. Black and White back in the day. So good.

From all Peter Molyneux games, my favorite was Magic Carpet.

If you liked Magic Carpet, you might enjoy "Arcane Worlds"[1], which is like an unofficial modern remake.

[1] http://store.steampowered.com/app/269610/

Bullfrog should never have died.

Molyneux's new game Godus and Godus Wars wasn't as fun.

if i was ever losing, i'd use my nuclear weapon: putting rocks in all the enemy ant's nest holes