Earlier quoted context omitted.
He coded those games single-handedly AND in x86 assembly. Yep, that's a good example of a genius, right there.
Braben too, for similar reasons.
Braben & Bell, no?
Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’
31–40 of 172 posts
Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It does seem like games, of all things, would have the potential to be at their greatest under the vision of a single author, but history has shown the opposite I have to disagree with you here. Both Civ II and Alpha Centauri were headed by a strong single author. As were both the original Civ and Civ IV which I and many others would see as the best manifestation of the game. We can also see this outside of the Civ…
> Doom/Quake Doom was a tense collaboration between Carmack and Romero. Carmack was geniusing out the engine, while Romero was pulling hard on the game atmosphere, music, level design and details like the timer that spawned Doom's speedrunning culture. Quake , which was Romero-less, was a technical masterpiece, but not a very memorable game. There was the brown level, the other brown level, and the brown level again…
The artist of doom is a forgotten hero apart from Romero/Carmack. He had a background with nasty medical images, so the hellish deformed people were a good fit.
Without it's art, doom would be a very different game.
Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’
#33Civ 4 was the last true Civ to have a gameplay similar to the the originals. Civ 5 and 6 introduced unit stacking constraints that completely change the way the game is played. If WW2 happened in Civ 5 or 6, the Normandy landings would not have been possible because you would not be able to stack large number of units in one tile. Those landings were "a death stack". But even if every large battle in history could be…
ehh, 6 is a good civ game.
As far as death stacks and etc goes, it makes better civilization gameplay imo.
If i want wargame i will play wargame specifically, you could try paradox games or jump straight into slitherine/matrix wargames. To me there is huge difference between the 2 genres.
Any way that's my personal opinion. My overall favorite civ was 2 for what it's worth.
Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the timer that spawned Doom's speedrunning culture Could you elaborate on that? I'm aware of speedrunning (it's fun to watch!) but I don't know anything about "the timer".
Doom was one of the first games that showed how long you'd spent to complete a level at the end of each level. This made it easy (and obvious) to compare times and compete with others.
Ah, the levels were timed. Got it, thanks!
Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’
#35>A growing pile of video-game histories [...] suggest that the medium has always had collective effort at its heart, from its academic beginnings to its ascent into everyday life. In Meier’s memoir, we discover that he was a good game-maker when he fought this essential fact, but that he became great when he learned to embrace it. >The strength of the modding community is, instead, the very reason the series survived…
Claims that Alpha Centauri or Civilization II were best games are over exaggerated - I have never understood why people had to make such controversial claims and why they have to continue to do so. IMO, they were unappealing games slapped on top of a very simple concept of first Civilization, that had unique component among all the strategy games - digital encyclopedia - long long time before wikipedia. That was one…
Civilization games to me looks be like a software representation of board games. They are not simulations, and they are very gamified. It certainly feels good to play them, but after sometime with it, one might get a feeling that these are really board games with overcomplicated rules, and really nothing ambitious about them (I am speaking of games Civ 3 and upwards, the ones before are technologically remarkable considering the era in which they were made).
One other hand if you take XCOM in its various incarnations, it does have a very compelling game play loop, with very consequential decisions to be made, and the combination of tactical decision making at battle level and the long term factors in the overworld is a very interesting one.
In short, we do need to reassess if Civilization games are indeed great games, considering that they are unqualfyingly praised in much of the discussion.
Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’
#36Any one remember the Global Warming mechanic, which was removed in some of the subsequent games if I'm remembering correctly?.
Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’
#37>A growing pile of video-game histories [...] suggest that the medium has always had collective effort at its heart, from its academic beginnings to its ascent into everyday life. In Meier’s memoir, we discover that he was a good game-maker when he fought this essential fact, but that he became great when he learned to embrace it. >The strength of the modding community is, instead, the very reason the series survived…
I think that's just like the fact that John Lennon did his best work in The Beatles, or that George Lucas's best films are the ones where he was challenged by collaborators. Once art requires a certain amount of diverse techniques in order to be produced, the chances that a single individual will excel in all of them fall dramatically.
Makes me think about Gene Roddenberry, too. The more I learn about history of Star Trek, the more it seems that Roddenberry was a bit over-the-top with his ideas. If he got his way with everything, the show would be quite cheesy (the way Andromeda is). Star Trek's golden era (TNG/DS9/VOY/ENT) is the result of other producers pushing back on Roddenberry's influence, and after his death, increasingly subverting some of his ideas.
(Of course over time things strayed too far from the original vision, and the result is the post-ENT crapfest that carries the official "Star Trek" name, but is otherwise a generic action movie franchise. A strange situation, in which the only work still sticking to the deep and hopeful vision of the future is the little animated show that everyone thought will be a joke.)
Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’
#38Any one remember the Global Warming mechanic, which was removed in some of the subsequent games if I'm remembering correctly?.
It is definitely a thing in Civ 6: Gathering Storm. I don't think it was a feature before that.
Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’
#39Any one remember the Global Warming mechanic, which was removed in some of the subsequent games if I'm remembering correctly?.
The second expansion for Civ 6 -- Gathering Storm, has a global warming mechanic built in. Civ 5 did not have it, but Civ 4, 3 and 2 definitely did in one form or another. I don't remember if it was a thing in Civ 1.
Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’
#40Any one remember the Global Warming mechanic, which was removed in some of the subsequent games if I'm remembering correctly?.
It is definitely a thing in Civ 6: Gathering Storm. I don't think it was a feature before that.
Civ 2 had pollution and rising sea levels due to melting ice caps. The most interesting unintended gameplay that came out of that must have been the Eternal War savefile: