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Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

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Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#61

Post by edwcross »

Torwald wrote: post #12
prvc wrote: post #4

>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…

> 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…

At least on the story front, Alpha Centauri seems to owe much more to Brian Reynolds than to Sid Meier, according to [1]. Unless you mean he was the "strong single author" there (instead of Sid Meier), I'd argue there were at least 2 strong authors.

[1] https://paeantosmac.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/introduction/

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#62

Post by ant6n »

vanderZwan wrote: post #40
og_pixel wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Eternal_War_(Civ2)

Civ 1 had global warming as well, triggered by pollution (which can be a result of industry/city-size, but also as a result of using nuclear weapons). In my very first civ1 game, I eventually took over the Earth with nkues, in the 2500s, but it caused terrible global warming turning the whole world into swamp and desert, which in turn shrunk nearly all the cities down to size 1 due to famine.

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Global_warming_(Civ1)

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#64

Post by vanderZwan »

ACS_Solver wrote: post #48
29athrowaway wrote: post #11

Civ 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…

To anyone who enjoyed Civ4 especially, I would strongly recommend Old World, a classical antiquity period game that in many ways feels like a sequel to Civ4, and does a far better job with 1UPT than Civ5 or Civ6 did. Old World is designed by Soren Johnson, and multiple people on the team are straight from Civ4 days. (Disclaimer: I'm one of the game's developers)

Looks interesting! Also, I like how the RPS review[1] ends with "it actually doesn't have a strong one-more-turn factor, and maybe that's a good thing", because that is actually what has been keeping me away from these games for years now

[0] https://mohawkgames.com/oldworld/

[1] https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/old-world-is-almost-the-per...

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#65

Post by kryptiskt »

prvc wrote: post #4

>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 love Civilization, but I think the most singular thing Sid Meier ever did was Pirates. It's weird that there are so few attempts to modernize/rip-off that concept out there.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#66

Post by gberger »

t-writescode wrote: post #43

In an effort to prove that Civ 2 had global warming to respond to some posts in here, I found this thread on Reddit about a civ 2 game going for 10 years. I think y'all might like it: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uxpil/ive_been_play...

The post is from 9 years ago, I wonder if there has been an update since?

Edit: wow, it spawned an entire subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/theeternalwar/

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#67

Post by Bobylonian »

kergonath wrote: post #56
barbasosi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neat, I did not know civ2 had implemented the global warming mechanic. Anyone who wants a game thats in the same vein, i can somewhat recommend Humankind. But it doesn't really have climate change mechanics, more like 'IPCC naming and shaming' since factions will hate on factions that pollute, even in the medieval era.. I would have appreciated that global warming was a thing that needs to be researched, since the ph…

> I would have appreciated that global warming was a thing that needs to be researched, since the phenomenon has only been discovered relatively late (in terms of the entire span of human civilization). In terms of the entire span of human civilization, yes. But in terms of the age of our modern, industrial societies not so much. It was discussed by Fourier in the 1820, the greenhouse effect was well described by Tyn…

>Just a reminder that we did know about global warming. We've been knowing for a long time.

That is not really correct and very nitpicky. We also know, that volcanic activity that releases those greenhouse gases were actually cooling down planet with catastrophic consequences to humanity that halted economic development. Not to mention, that there is also observation, that cities have higher temperature than in countryside(on average 2 degrees higher in north - 4-5 degrees hotter in south), where cows are generating methane gas. The scourge of 21st century is that human infested urban environment that has constantly hotter temperature than environment around it finally have reached significant enough coverage, so that it is now affecting rest of the planet.

Also, it is worth mention that there is a theory of Nuclear Winter, which is completely avoided in Civilization games.

All the greatest scientists in late 1970s were talking about coming of a new Ice Age. All the science fiction from that era is full of Ice age related stories. So, at the moment global warming is complete bonkers theory, that will fly out of the window as soon as there will be a sufficient volcanic activity level. So far there is also observation, that volanic activity has been going down while global warming has gone up.

The current theory of Global warming is very politicized. The data that lead to this theory was fabricated and opponents to this theory were silenced. And constructive criticism about reasons why there is a global warming is not possible. It is not as much as a theory, as it is a religion with belief system for something that has different natural causes. Besides there is some belief, that there will be high temperatures in equator, that render those regions void of life, while the reality is that highest rise of temperature is going to be around poles and that in turn will improve living conditions to people that are living there now.

The main reason why there exist theory about global warming is because it was a reaction to actions of Arabic Gulf countries in 1980s that halted economy of USA by creating fuel shortage. Suddenly Ice Age theory became defunct overnight...

Though, there are of couse good side effects to this new religion - fuel powered cars are cause for lead poisoning and ending usage of them will be better to health along with other enviromental changes.

When Sid Meyer was making his game, it was not yet known, that lands that are now under ice, would be rebounding and main body of that water will flow to equator(because of planets rotation and shape) to flood things more around equator than lands that are near poles. I did not knew about that either, but I always wanted to build some city on that Earth map in first Civilization, that was turning ocean tiles into land tiles in northern pole because of a bug.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#68

Post by ACS_Solver »

vanderZwan wrote: post #64
ACS_Solver wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To anyone who enjoyed Civ4 especially, I would strongly recommend Old World, a classical antiquity period game that in many ways feels like a sequel to Civ4, and does a far better job with 1UPT than Civ5 or Civ6 did. Old World is designed by Soren Johnson, and multiple people on the team are straight from Civ4 days. (Disclaimer: I'm one of the game's developers)

Looks interesting! Also, I like how the RPS review[1] ends with "it actually doesn't have a strong one-more-turn factor, and maybe that's a good thing" , because that is actually what has been keeping me away from these games for years now [0] https://mohawkgames.com/oldworld/ [1] https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/old-world-is-almost-the-per...

I personally think Old World does have the "one more turn" effect at its best, as in the game is interesting and you always want to see what will happen the next turn. But it's less of a time sink than Civ. Just as Old World focuses on a specific era of history, it also shortens the game length - the max is 200 turns, but you will often find the games last in the 100-120 turn range. And then there's a "double victory" condition that gives you a victory once you're so far ahead that the outcome is decided.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#69

Post by dunnevens »

t-writescode wrote: post #43

In an effort to prove that Civ 2 had global warming to respond to some posts in here, I found this thread on Reddit about a civ 2 game going for 10 years. I think y'all might like it: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uxpil/ive_been_play...

It was also in Civ 1. Industries and nuclear war would create pollution on the map. Would appear as a black cloud over a tile. You could send out a settler unit to clean up the pollution but it was a slow process. If the map accumulated too much pollution, global warming would happen. A random plains tile would be changed to desert. Or a coastal tile would become a swamp.

It wasn't too difficult to stay ahead of the pollution curve in the late game as long as you didn't have a war. But there was one memorable game where I had a massive nuclear exchange with Gandhi. Created too much pollution. The world become a wasteland because I couldn't clean it up in time. And the AI didn't clean anything on its own, iirc. I won the game, but it was such a Pyrrhic victory.

This was probably 29 years ago. Playing obsessively on my old Mac LC. Still remember it because it was the saddest game session I've ever had. I won, but there wasn't much left at the end. Broken cities and the earth was dead.

https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Global_warming_(Civ1)

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#70

Post by hef19898 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #37
toyg wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Lower Decks is good, it is done by people that really liked the old ST series. Sometimes, I am not sure if it is mocking some of the ST tropes, like the two-hand punch, space anomalies and so on. Still light years better then Discovery (which is totally not cannon in my mind).
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