Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Civilization: 25 years, 33M copies sold, 1B hours played, and 66 versions

venturebeat.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 195 posts

Re: Civilization: 25 years, 33M copies sold, 1B hours played, and 66 versions

#111

Post by eropple »

ekianjo wrote: post #43

I highly prefer Colonization to all the Civilization episodes I have played. Colonization feels more focused, more tangible, and yet still manages to be a great management game with credible threats with multiple parties: natives trying to fight back for their land, other European powers trying to establish successful colonies on their own, and ultimately the royal power you will fight against to secure your Freedom.…

Colonization, as a game, is a lot of fun, has mechanically held up superbly over the last two decades, and is probably my favorite Civ-family game as well, but I have a beef with the way it actually presents itself as a piece of art. Eliding such things as, oh, Europeans enslaved a shit-ton of people and killed a lot of others[1] bothers me as a student of history and as somebody acutely aware of the ongoing consequences, both for Native Americans and African-Americans, that reverberate through American society to this day.

The Rise of Revolution mod for Civ4Col is a little better (it's also just really good in general, aside from being better about its recognition of marginalized people), but...there is a fundamental "ick" to colonizing other people's shit that I don't think this game properly grapples with. Because there's a moral issue to European colonization, and while I can see that being surfaced very well in a hypothetical game (I noodled on one for a while) I don't think either Colonization or Civ4Col even tries. And that's a real shame.

[1] - Yeah, you can go play the Spanish and knock over a bunch of native settlements. But you almost never will after you get to a certain level of play. Instead, you will find yourself near the Arawaks or whatever, who have their AI ramped up to turbo-aggressive, and suddenly you'll just have to roll out your army at them, it's not your fault, it's not your fault, it's not your fault...ew.

Re: Civilization: 25 years, 33M copies sold, 1B hours played, and 66 versions

#112

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

mikeash wrote: post #30
ra1n85 wrote: post #6

Amazing series. I still recall being able to recount all of the 7 wonders, all of the large Greek city states, and all that other countless historical context that the developers packed into the game that gave me a slight leg up in middle school history class. And of course I'll encourage my children to play someday. No childhood is complete without having to fight back Gandhi's unrelenting hordes of musketmen with s…

It would be remiss to mention Civilization and Gandhi on a tech site without discussing why he was such a crazy warmonger. In the original Civilization, Gandhi's "aggression" rating was set to 1 to make him a pacifist. Except that when a civilization adopted the Democracy form of government, this reduced the leader's aggression rating by 2. The ratings were unsigned, so this wrapped around and gave Gandhi an "aggress…

Wow - that's hilarious. I guess we should be grateful it was only a char ...

Re: Civilization: 25 years, 33M copies sold, 1B hours played, and 66 versions

#113

Post by ekianjo »

eropple wrote: post #111
ekianjo wrote: post #43

I highly prefer Colonization to all the Civilization episodes I have played. Colonization feels more focused, more tangible, and yet still manages to be a great management game with credible threats with multiple parties: natives trying to fight back for their land, other European powers trying to establish successful colonies on their own, and ultimately the royal power you will fight against to secure your Freedom.…

Colonization, as a game, is a lot of fun, has mechanically held up superbly over the last two decades, and is probably my favorite Civ-family game as well, but I have a beef with the way it actually presents itself as a piece of art. Eliding such things as, oh, Europeans enslaved a shit-ton of people and killed a lot of others[1] bothers me as a student of history and as somebody acutely aware of the ongoing conseque…

> slave trade

Sure, but it's not extremely relevant to the whole era covered by the game. From Wikipedia:

> It is estimated that more than half of the entire slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the British, Portuguese and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted in Africa.[42] By the 1690s, the English were shipping the most slaves from West Africa.[43] They maintained this position during the 18th century, becoming the biggest shippers of slaves across the Atlantic.[44]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade#16th.2C_1...

While slave trade started early, it was still minor in the early stage of colonies. But you are right, the game completely ignores slave trade even in the 18th century, while it technically should not be ignored. But it's an American game, and it would never have been published if it "featured" slave trade in its mechanics.

Re: Civilization: 25 years, 33M copies sold, 1B hours played, and 66 versions

#114

Post by chris_wot »

eropple wrote: post #108
danharaj wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Civ 5 is definitely the weakest game in the series. I think Civ 4/Beyond the Sword was the highest point the series has yet reached.

I felt that way before the Civ5 expansions. Bounced right off of it. With the expansions, though, I enjoy Civ5 quite a lot. It is emphatically not the same game as Civ4BTS, which I still play pretty regularly too, but it's a pretty decent spin on the formula as far as I'm concerned.

I loved Civilization: Beyond Earth, except I could not stand the 500 turn limit. It killed the longevity of the game for me.

Re: Civilization: 25 years, 33M copies sold, 1B hours played, and 66 versions

#115

Post by jcadam »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #31
jcadam wrote: post #19

Played the original Civilization on an Amiga and have played every release since (including CivNet). Civilization II was easily the best game in the series. It's sad that Civ V, as pretty as it is, is so freaking horrible.

Let me guess, II was the first you played? Everybody has a special attachment to the first one they got addicted too. In my opinion II was the worst of the five. It was basically the same as the first with more of everything. More techs, more unit types et cetera. Didn't really add anything to the game except make it longer. It meant you couldn't finish a game in a single sitting which really lessened the appeal to m…

Yea, Civ1 was the first I played. I like Civ2 for most of the reasons you dislike it -- They took the original, updated the graphics, made some modest improvements/additions, but didn't mess with the fundamentals of the game :)

Re: Civilization: 25 years, 33M copies sold, 1B hours played, and 66 versions

#116

Post by douche »

ekianjo wrote: post #43

I highly prefer Colonization to all the Civilization episodes I have played. Colonization feels more focused, more tangible, and yet still manages to be a great management game with credible threats with multiple parties: natives trying to fight back for their land, other European powers trying to establish successful colonies on their own, and ultimately the royal power you will fight against to secure your Freedom.…

Too bad they kind of missed the mark with the Civ 4-engined reboot.

The only really unbalanced part of the original was if you happened to land in a temperate area with lots of beavers, friendly Indians with the Fur Trapper training, and managed to roll Henry Hudson for the first Continental Congress member. Very quickly you could start churning out full stacks of furs and basically printing money that would allow you to buy specialists, cannon, ships and supplies.

Re: Civilization: 25 years, 33M copies sold, 1B hours played, and 66 versions

#117

Post by ekianjo »

douche wrote: post #116
ekianjo wrote: post #43

I highly prefer Colonization to all the Civilization episodes I have played. Colonization feels more focused, more tangible, and yet still manages to be a great management game with credible threats with multiple parties: natives trying to fight back for their land, other European powers trying to establish successful colonies on their own, and ultimately the royal power you will fight against to secure your Freedom.…

Too bad they kind of missed the mark with the Civ 4-engined reboot. The only really unbalanced part of the original was if you happened to land in a temperate area with lots of beavers, friendly Indians with the Fur Trapper training, and managed to roll Henry Hudson for the first Continental Congress member. Very quickly you could start churning out full stacks of furs and basically printing money that would allow yo…

Yeah the Civ4-reboot was awful. Or at least, it was just a recreation of the original without any addition while it could have been a great opportunity to build on it.

> The only really unbalanced part of the original was if you happened to land in a temperate area with lots of beavers

Sure - there are actually many ways to make money fast, but they also have a system that rebalances prices back in Europe when you sell too much of the same thing (price fall) - this forces you to diversify your production.

Re: Civilization: 25 years, 33M copies sold, 1B hours played, and 66 versions

#118

Post by baldfat »

ionised wrote: post #92
lackbeard wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever play 4? Was the best one, IMO.

Agreed. Civ 4 with Beyond the Sword was the pinnacle of the series I think. Thousands of hours I lost in that game.

I prefer Alpha Centauri and Civ 3.

MOO2 was much more to my liking. (I still play it)

Civ end game are just brutally boring and just never really wanted to finish them. The start and middle were the best parts.

Re: Civilization: 25 years, 33M copies sold, 1B hours played, and 66 versions

#119

Post by acheron »

I like how so many of the posts in this thread are "[this one] was the best!", but I'm pretty sure I've seen all 5 of the main games held up and possibly one about Alpha Centauri too.

I'm sure when Civ 6 comes out we'll have people complaining because it's not like 5 or 4 or whichever one was their favorite, but I like that they change every time. If I wanted to buy a new game every year that was the same as the previous one, I'd be playing Madden.

Re: Civilization: 25 years, 33M copies sold, 1B hours played, and 66 versions

#120

Post by douche »

ekianjo wrote: post #113
eropple wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Colonization, as a game, is a lot of fun, has mechanically held up superbly over the last two decades, and is probably my favorite Civ-family game as well, but I have a beef with the way it actually presents itself as a piece of art. Eliding such things as, oh, Europeans enslaved a shit-ton of people and killed a lot of others[1] bothers me as a student of history and as somebody acutely aware of the ongoing conseque…

> slave trade Sure, but it's not extremely relevant to the whole era covered by the game. From Wikipedia: > It is estimated that more than half of the entire slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the British, Portuguese and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted in Africa.[42] By the 1690s, the English were shipping the most slaves from West Africa.[43] They maintained this p…

They do sort of cover this in game, with the indentured servant class of colonist, as well as the convicts - which fits for the early stages of North American colonization, particularly the British angle that Colonization is mostly playing to. Not to mention the "converted" natives that you could obtain, for instance, by sacking their villages...

I'm not sure how you would introduce slavery into Colonization without making it a cliche. Slave colonists are twice as skilled at picking cotton, but can never produce liberty bells? That would go over real well.

Post reply on HN