This one is a genuine question about the word rather than about the game that took its name.
Short answer
The short definition is a complex society with cities, division of labour and lasting institutions — everything else is detail about which of those matter most.
- Specialised work — craft, administration, priesthood, trade.
- Monumental building, which tends to follow from the rest.
- Read the whole sequence once before doing the first step.
Picking the wrong line in World of Tanks costs weeks, so the research order matters more than any single tank. Archaeology tends to look for cities, surplus food and record-keeping as practical markers. The plural is regular, and both the singular and plural are common in ordinary writing.
What separates it from a society or a culture
The community wisdom on this is roughly half right, and the half that is wrong costs the most time. In everyday use it often means simply "a large historical society", which is looser than the academic sense. Historians treat it as a description of scale and organisation rather than of merit. Anything that behaves differently on console than on PC is flagged where it matters.
Dictionaries agree on the core and differ on the edges, which is why several definitions circulate. The strategy game borrowed the word, which is why searches for it return two very different kinds of result. Most of the disagreement you will find online is two people describing different builds.
The short definition
The term has a difficult history: it has been used to rank societies, and that use is now widely rejected. The word entered English from Latin by way of French, and its older sense was closer to "making civil". If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about.
- A food surplus that frees people from producing their own.
- Cities and permanent settlement rather than seasonal movement.
- Stop and reassess after two failed attempts rather than repeating the third.
- Institutions that outlast the individuals running them.
How it is used today
Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work. If your result differs from what is described here, note what is different first rather than starting over. It helps to understand why a step exists, because then you can adapt it when your situation is slightly different. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why.
Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows.
Why the definition is argued over
Treat anything stated without a version number as provisional. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over. None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of.
Patch notes move numbers around constantly; the shape of the answer holds even when a specific value shifts. The developers have changed their mind about this at least once, which explains the older advice. World of Tanks is not shy about hiding useful information two menus deep, so some of this is simply knowing where to look.
Where the word comes from
What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. There is no hidden trick here that the game is keeping from you. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration.
Where people go wrong
- Downloading a helper tool for something the game already does in its own menu.
- Skipping the prerequisite because it looked optional in someone else's summary.
- Grinding a method that was patched months ago because a thread still ranks well.
- Rushing the last step, which is usually the one with the actual requirement in it.
World of Tanks FAQ
Why do other guides describe this differently?
Most were written for an earlier version and never revisited. Compare the steps against what your build actually shows.
How long does this take?
Minutes if it goes cleanly, an evening if you hit the edge case in the caveats list. Neither is unusual.
Where does the word come from?
From Latin roots relating to citizens and cities, through French. Its earlier English sense was closer to the act of making something civil.
What is the simplest definition?
A large, settled society with cities, specialised work and lasting institutions. Everything beyond that is a matter of emphasis.
Work through it in the order above and quotes stops being a question you have to look up again.