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

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

#171

Post by douche »

ekianjo wrote: post #167
douche wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> with the indentured servant class of colonist Actually this has nothing to do with slavery. Indentured servants were a real thing back in the days, with poor people accepting to work for x years to pay for their passage to the New World, and after that they were usually granted their freedom (not 100% always the case, I know). Slaves were, for the most part, never able to gain their Freedom back, and were slaves fo…

Oh, I'm well aware - my family tree traces back to an indentured servant that bailed on his master before his term was up and ran away from the Massachusetts Bay Colony to live in the wilds of Vermont.

And some of the first Africans were brought to the colonies under terms of indentured servitude, and became free the same as the poor whites after some years.

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

#172

Post by infogulch »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #112
mikeash wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ...

The expected range for aggression is 1-10. So a max unsigned char makes Gandhi plenty aggressive.

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

#173

Post by frik »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #130
frik wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah sadly. More game developers changed to "console first" or "mobile first". Streamlined casual gameplay pay to win / free to play and the lack of a precise input device (mouse) on consoles almost killed the former very popular PC strategy games segment. Civ, SC and Anno barely survived that trend in some streamlined form or another. I am still playing old perls from Age of Empires, Roller Coaster Tycoon, SimCity,…

There are hopeful signs that this is starting to change. The 2012 XCOM title has a more console-friendly interface (it plays better with a controller) and has a great mobile port (the iOS version is mechanically identical to the PC game, and is only missing a few maps and graphical flair). Yes, that title is streamlined, but that streamlining sanded off the rougher edges of the 1990s games (especially in the tactical…

Sorry, but you wrote 180 degree opposite response to what I actually wrote.

The problem I see is a lack of strategy games, especiall real time strategy games that are not trying to clone Star Craft 2 (like 10 SciFi clones, boring!). And the casualization and streamlining of gameplay makes it pointless for real core PC game players. PC games of the 1990s and 2000s had a great PC UI, I don't want dumbed down UIs and gameplay of bad console ports. I want micro management and real time gameplay like in the games mentioned in my previous comment. (The same goes for console players who don't want to do micro management of single small units with a controller, that's why console strategy games aren't very popular and have different gameplay.)

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

#174

Post by minikites »

endgame wrote: post #32
minikites wrote: post #13

Civ 2 and Alpha Centauri are still the best balance of simplicity vs fussiness in my opinion. I like Civ 5 quite a lot but there's a lot of fussing about with the resources like horses or oil and there are a lot of edge-case city improvements.

Given the amount of fussing required to get the most of Supply Crawlers in SMAC, I'm surprised to hear that viewpoint. Nevertheless, the scope of SMAC's vision continues to inspire: https://paeantosmac.wordpress.com/ is analysing the canon and implications from the various quotes and project videos.

You're right that the fussiness is there with supply crawlers and some of the terraforming options, but they can be ignored.

Civ 2 is pretty much perfect. Each terraform has 1 or 2 upgrades (road/railroad, irrigation/farmland, etc) and each city improvement serves an exact purpose with no "filler" improvements.

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

#175

Post by vidarh »

locusm wrote: post #23

The way Civ let you email a multiplayer round was awesome when connectivity was an issue.

Lots of similar BBS games, like some versions of Empire for example [1], supported "play by mail" in various forms so they could be played on custom clients offline followed by uploading the moves.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_Classic

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

#176

Post by ascagnel_ »

frik wrote: post #173
ascagnel_ wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are hopeful signs that this is starting to change. The 2012 XCOM title has a more console-friendly interface (it plays better with a controller) and has a great mobile port (the iOS version is mechanically identical to the PC game, and is only missing a few maps and graphical flair). Yes, that title is streamlined, but that streamlining sanded off the rougher edges of the 1990s games (especially in the tactical…

Sorry, but you wrote 180 degree opposite response to what I actually wrote. The problem I see is a lack of strategy games, especiall real time strategy games that are not trying to clone Star Craft 2 (like 10 SciFi clones, boring!). And the casualization and streamlining of gameplay makes it pointless for real core PC game players. PC games of the 1990s and 2000s had a great PC UI, I don't want dumbed down UIs and ga…

There's a difference between streamlining useless micromanagement and removing gameplay mechanics.

To use XCOM as an example:

The 1994 game featured a time unit stat. You would have to measure out, manually, the number of tiles you would move past, multiply that by four (the amount of TU moving one tile would take), add two if you were kneeling at the start of the turn, subtract two from the available total if you wanted to kneel at the end of the turn, and subtract from the available total the number of TU necessary for the number of shots (or reaction shots) you wanted to take. On top of that, there were three different shot types (an aimed shot that would take up almost all TUs, an auto shot that would take up about half of the available TUs, and a snap shot that'd only take up about a quarter but also maxed out at a 20% chance to hit, making it mostly useless). This process and complexity was not fun, especially since the UI didn't make it easy to count the tiles you'd be moving.

The 2012 removed TU and replaced it with a few systems. For moving, you have a pair of lines that marked a move or a dash. A basic move allows for a shot (either on-command or as a reaction), while the dash would extend range (and could be coupled with a shot based on a class-specific ability). A single character move takes seconds instead of minutes, regardless of the platform. It took an overly-complex mechanic, simplified it, and made it more fun.

Civ 4 vs Civ Revolution. Civ Rev combat is simplified in a bad way -- it's build a giant stack of combined "army" units and whittle away at your opponent, with combat resolved by die rolls and modifiers rather than unit attributes.

It's worth noting that the new XCOM was developed by creating a board game; measuring distance is common in tabletop war games (think Warhammer and its ilk).

In my mind, it's a suitable like-for-like replacement of TUs (you still have to balance movement, exposing the map, etc., with firepower) with an implementation that requires less fiddling with the UI.

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

#177

Post by GurnB »

freehunter wrote: post #163
gurkendoktor wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age of Empires 2 is actually alive (again). A modernised HD edition, a new add-on for it, and also a new add-on for Age of Mythology have been released on Steam in the last years. That's not really the same as releasing proper sequels, but good enough for me :)

I waited for years to get Age of Empires 2 on digital distribution as my computer hasn't had a CD drive since... shoot, 2009? And right after it was released on Steam, my PC broke down and I bought a Mac. And AoE2 doesn't work on a Mac. Boo.

I just played AoE II (HD) on my MacBook Pro this weekend while stranded in a Hotel. What am I missing?

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

#178

Post by mbajkowski »

mattzito wrote: post #24

I started playing civilization when I was 12 or 13 (Civilization 1), and still, to this day, the closest thing I have to meditation is playing Civ V. I travel a decent amount, and one of my great joys is being on a plane without wifi but with inseat power (Civ V on the mac is a ridiculous power hog), and knowing that I've got X hours of civilization to play with no one to bother me. My strategy isn't great, I have ev…

In the exact same boat, or plane I suppose. Every time a trans-oceanic trip is in order this is my go to time killer. I started playing Civ 1 back in the Amiga days and when I was young it took me a while to sort out what the game was all about - I'm glad I stuck with it thought, as over the years it has been an absolute joy to experience the new versions. I have to say, that on the Amiga the games did seem to take a lot longer, I suppose it is because once the game got sufficiently complex the time for the computer turns ended up ever longer - not so much an issue on modern laptops.

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

#179

Post by cmdrfred »

Pxtl wrote: post #169
cmdrfred wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revolutions was too simple for my taste.

Yes, but we're talking about Civ 1. Civ 1 is also much simpler than the modern games. Revolutions I thought was a good distilling of the Civ mechanics.

Civ 1 still felt deeper to me then rev. It was ok, but I would have preferred a mobile version of Civ 1 instead.
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