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Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

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Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#101

Post by TeMPOraL »

hef19898 wrote: post #81
TeMPOraL wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love Lower Decks. It's definitely mocking and lampshading plenty of Star Trek tropes, but it does that in a playful and positive way. It laughs, but doesn't trivialize - and unlike the other new shows (Discovery, Picard), it doesn't paint the future as grimdark and everyone as untrustworthy and bloodthirsty.

Picard wasn't too bad actually, I think. Maybe a tad to gritty / realistic when compared to TNG. It did offer a plausible universe development so, incl. Picard sacrificing his career for principle.

I feel DS9 pulled off realism better - Picard seems to me to fly past realism and straight into dystopian stereotypes. And there was too much meaningless killing.

I'm also pissed about the Borg subplot - in the trailer and initial episodes, they set up the scene for some amazing drama and deep storytelling, and then they just literally crashed it into a planet and discarded like space trash. It was a huge letdown to me.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#102

Post by hef19898 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #99
hef19898 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I am the target audiance then. Especially since I consideres TNG to be too optimistic already as a teenager.

I guess I'm not the target audience then - I was a kid when TNG was created, and on the lower end of teenage years when it aired in my country. I bought the optimism wholesale - hook, line and sinker. It had significant influence on my development as a person. As much as I'm disillusioned about the real world, TNG is in my heart a reminder that we could do better. And I feel the first step to do better is for the ide…

I am also a Star Wars fan, and Battletech. Star Wars wise, I loved TIE Fighter. So I guess I always had a leaning towards darker, less otimistic SiFi. Still watch TNG, DS9 and ENT so. Even VOY from time to time. Not sure I'll do that with PIC once I've seen the episodes once. Not sure if that is due to the episodic story telling of the former or nostalgia.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#103

Post by hef19898 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #101
hef19898 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Picard wasn't too bad actually, I think. Maybe a tad to gritty / realistic when compared to TNG. It did offer a plausible universe development so, incl. Picard sacrificing his career for principle.

I feel DS9 pulled off realism better - Picard seems to me to fly past realism and straight into dystopian stereotypes. And there was too much meaningless killing. I'm also pissed about the Borg subplot - in the trailer and initial episodes, they set up the scene for some amazing drama and deep storytelling, and then they just literally crashed it into a planet and discarded like space trash. It was a huge letdown to…

I honestly believed that the AI-gods were the creators / origin if the Borg. DS9 is quite a high bar to be measured against, so. Just shy of Babylon 5 for that period in my mind.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#104

Post by TeMPOraL »

hef19898 wrote: post #103
TeMPOraL wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel DS9 pulled off realism better - Picard seems to me to fly past realism and straight into dystopian stereotypes. And there was too much meaningless killing. I'm also pissed about the Borg subplot - in the trailer and initial episodes, they set up the scene for some amazing drama and deep storytelling, and then they just literally crashed it into a planet and discarded like space trash. It was a huge letdown to…

I honestly believed that the AI-gods were the creators / origin if the Borg. DS9 is quite a high bar to be measured against, so. Just shy of Babylon 5 for that period in my mind.

Right. B5 is a masterpiece.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#105

Post by vanderZwan »

ACS_Solver wrote: post #68
vanderZwan wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Oh don't get me wrong, that sounds great, but for me, the "one more turn" effect is practically equivalent with "compulsively playing and being a slave to the gameplay loop even when I genuinely want to go to bed". It's a real, serious addiction risk, and I almost exclusively have it with 4x games (some RPGs also, especially if they're Baldur's Gate style isometric ones).

So when the review says "it's a fun game but you kind of spontaneously take a break after an hour or two", that is a relief for me!

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#106

Post by ben_w »

Bobylonian wrote: post #67
kergonath wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 count…

> All the greatest scientists in late 1970s were talking about coming of a new Ice Age.

Careful — what was reported in general news was (and is) different from the work of the actual scientists. This is even true when the the news is reporting on a specific scientific report.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-cl...

> 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.

You can’t use sci-fi to draw conclusions about anything except the culture in which it rises.

Climate research explicitly includes “what do volcanoes do?” as well as other, mostly larger, sources of aerosol cooling. Indeed, this is a subset of “can we do geo-engineering to mitigate the effects?” research.

> The current theory of Global warming is very politicized.

It has indeed been politicised, but in the opposite way you claim: the scientific consensus is basically “totes real”, the reporting makes average Jo think it is “scientists disagree”.

> The data that lead to this theory was fabricated and opponents to this theory were silenced.

Explain.

> 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.

Anyone paying attention knows 90%-ish of it is natural, because of the temperature difference between us and the moon. The other 10% is the problem.

> 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.

It does indeed appear to be mostly around the poles. Where the ice is. Which is indeed great if you live in what’s currently an icy wasteland, not so much if you live on the coast literally anywhere else. Will also mess with the thermo-haline circulation, I don’t know the current consensus on how much it will mess with it, but that’s the thing keeping Western Europe warmer than Newfoundland-Nova Scotia right now.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#107

Post by dman »

Gravityloss wrote: post #83
Gravityloss wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the game moved to bonus calculation. Playing a spread sheet so to speak. What happened with units and the map was secondary. The Civilization board game was similarly boring. Most of the time there were no wars, and everybody was just trading and dealing with disasters and barbarians.

To add to it, Civ 1 graphics are actually quite beautiful in a pixel art way. With Civ 3, you could use for example a watercolor art pack for the terrain, which was great. And still very legible. The 3d art just looks like a console game aesthetic - it's extremely kitschy - I guess I'm just not in the target demographic.

Same thing happened to Age of Empires and Railroad Tycoon. The 3d versions were never as special to me.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#109

Post by dr_dshiv »

Gravityloss wrote: post #86
dunnevens wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Global warming was different from pollution. IIRC in Civ 1 global warming turned some coastal tiles into swamp. Don't remember if there was nuclear winter as well.

Yes, it had nuclear winter.

Global warming resulted from not cleaning up pollution. Then the tiles would change irreversibly.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#110

Post by 52-6F-62 »

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...

I love Civ and play 3/5/6 a lot.

But today I learned I've never really played Civ

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