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Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

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141–150 of 172 posts

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#141
I absolutely adore Civ V, it's one of my top played games of all time (behind SC1, SC2, and now Dominion the card game). I play an Earth style map, large size, with 10-15 other Civs, and just go to town on Science/Industry. I love to play as Babylon, Korea, Egypt, and Poland, and I love to play on Emperor (Difficulty 6). I've tried playing other Civs and on Other difficulties, but this set-up of "strong civ" on level 6 is a nice mixture of ease/challenge. I also love the raging barbarian and random personality settings, they really add an element of chaos and unpredictability to the AI's and the early-mid game expansion and wars.

One of my all-time favorite starts was as Poland with 4 salt resources next to Warsaw. Salt is such a baller resource because it's a luxury good, but it also allows the creation of a mine which boosts production, and production is super key in Civ. I could blast out wonders and the cutting-edge buildings in 5-10 turns, and my tech lead meant almost none of the wonders were unavailable. Don't you just love having 20 wonders in your capital by the end?

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Orville is also in that vein, IMO. It tries to be a comedy, a parody, but you can also tell it's a love-letter to old-school Star Trek.

My pet theory is that they went over the top with comedy aspects in S1 only to establish The Orville as a parody , to avoid being accused of IP misuse/plagiarism. S2 toned down the jokes a lot, and it feels more like a lighter TNG, which I believe was the goal all along.

Yeah, I got the same impression -- they really wanted to make Star Trek, and were like, "Exactly how much parody do we need to include to make a lawsuit unprofitable?".

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#143

Absolutely loved this series, but never acclimated to the 3D maps they switched to after Civ 3. You couldn't see as much of the world at once, and units and terrain became more difficult to discern. I wound up playing in the strategic overlay, with mods that relieved some of the claustrophobia, but it never felt as slick as the earlier 2D / isomorphic view. Other classic strategy games from that era followed the tren…

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.

> The Civilization board game

Which one? There are at least two different ones, with the same name, based on the computer game franchise. (And, of course, the Avalon Hill game predating the computer game, but that doesn’t seem relevant.)

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Battle for Wesnoth is my go to 2D turn-based strategy game. It isn’t anywhere near as advanced as Civ but it scratches my itch.

Wesnoth is tactical, not strategy. Its a good game (albeit too luck based IMO... Just get used to the "luck swings" of battle), but a totally different genre than 4X / Strategy. Civilization is on the easier / simpler end of 4X / Strategy... and believe me, this is a good thing!! Things get really complicated. Paradox games (Victoria, Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings, Europa Universialis) are the "complicated" games, t…

Haven’t thought of it like that before. Thanks so much for the breakdown. What is your favorite? Or what would you suggest to someone that likes the tactics side more than the strategy side with my two faves actually mentioned by you: Héroes of Might and Magic and Starcraft.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wesnoth is tactical, not strategy. Its a good game (albeit too luck based IMO... Just get used to the "luck swings" of battle), but a totally different genre than 4X / Strategy. Civilization is on the easier / simpler end of 4X / Strategy... and believe me, this is a good thing!! Things get really complicated. Paradox games (Victoria, Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings, Europa Universialis) are the "complicated" games, t…

Haven’t thought of it like that before. Thanks so much for the breakdown. What is your favorite? Or what would you suggest to someone that likes the tactics side more than the strategy side with my two faves actually mentioned by you: Héroes of Might and Magic and Starcraft.

If you've never tried Advance Wars-style tactics, I suggest Wargroove, which has been my favorite tactics-game for the past couple of years.

Wargroove's AI is a bit dumb compared to Adv. War's Days of Ruin however. The game really shines as a competitive player-vs-player setting. But if you're not used to the mechanics of Adv. Wars, you probably need the easier AI to learn how quirks of Adv. Wars style / Wargroove style play.

Nintendo is remaking Advance Wars 1 and Advance Wars 2 ("Reboot Camp") for the Switch. I'll be revisiting these originals-remakes as they come out in a few months. I remember the CO-powers being incredibly overpowering (while Wargroove's special "grooves" are quite powerful as they are, they are no where on the level of CO-powers or CO-superpowers of the original).

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#146

I absolutely adore Civ V, it's one of my top played games of all time (behind SC1, SC2, and now Dominion the card game). I play an Earth style map, large size, with 10-15 other Civs, and just go to town on Science/Industry. I love to play as Babylon, Korea, Egypt, and Poland, and I love to play on Emperor (Difficulty 6). I've tried playing other Civs and on Other difficulties, but this set-up of "strong civ" on level…

Very similar to my play style.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#147
A lot of things in my life have changed in the last thirty years, but one thing that has not is late nights and lost sleep (and angry/confused roommates, girlfriends and wife) due to a Civ obsession.

I've played every version on the Mac, and VI is my favorite so far except for some of the cheezy quotes that accompany tech discoveries. And it's horribly buggy and slow.

Nevertheless, here I am thinking about the game I started last week but paused reluctantly to participate in real world civilization.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#148

A lot of things in my life have changed in the last thirty years, but one thing that has not is late nights and lost sleep (and angry/confused roommates, girlfriends and wife) due to a Civ obsession. I've played every version on the Mac, and VI is my favorite so far except for some of the cheezy quotes that accompany tech discoveries. And it's horribly buggy and slow. Nevertheless, here I am thinking about the game I…

Now that I have kids I rarely find the time to play Civ. But my favourite pre-pandemic guilty pleasure when faced with a long flight was to start up Civ 6 immediately after takeoff and play until landing. An eight hour flight would feel like two hours.

Only downside, related to the slowness, is that it's an utter CPU hog, so my Macbook's fans would be straining within ten minutes. Not so comfortable to have on your lap.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#149
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 tha…

Let me repeat my words: "All the greatest scientists in late 1970s were talking about coming of a new Ice Age." Different theories of global warming at that time were only theories and not that significant and are not even comparable to that heavy weight of the whale what is understood under "Global warming" today.

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

I can draw conclusion about culture of that age - just like I can draw conclusions of my own on this culture of modern era, which sure will also raise questions to future generations. However my conclusions about human behaviours has nothing to do with the volcanic activity, that will prove theory of Global warming wrong.

My main point here is that Sid Meyer during the creation of his game probably had no idea about those early global warming papers and "research" that you are so eager to point in that publication from earlier times - including earlier centuries, but clearly the idea about global warming was in the air in 1980s for completelly different reasons. Since I did not live in US, I can't recollect any talks about global warming in 1980s - this really exploded in my region only in 2000s(not much after it became a thing in US), when effects of global warming could be seen and when Al Gore was pioneering the usage of this question to gain political power.

>Explain.

The wiki part is not that interesting as background story of childish - even Hitler Nazi behaviour of scientists, where the one who provided that chart(without any proof) and who later could not admit that he was wrong about calculations(that this whole model was based upon) and who caused grief to anyone else who opposeed him.

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

>The other 10% is the problem.

Providing numbers like these are what I call a religious belief.

Re: Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’

#150

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.

> The Civilization board game Which one? There are at least two different ones, with the same name, based on the computer game franchise. (And, of course, the Avalon Hill game predating the computer game, but that doesn’t seem relevant.)

I meant the old Avalon hill game indeed.
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