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Sid Meier and the meaning of ‘Civilization’
- cable2600 5y agoArchive without the annoying popup: https://archive.is/enQvE https://archive.is/enQvE
- gpvos 5y agoWith a captcha for me this time though (first time this happened to me for archive.is).
- ksia 5y ago"There is a concept which corrupts and upsets all others. I refer not to Evil, whose limited realm is that of ethics; I refer to the Infinite" Games are infinity generators. Mark Zuckerberg and Sid Meier are superficial heros. They just stand around with their 6 inch chimp brains staring at that Infinity they have seeded, trying to take credit for what works and hide behind good intentions for what fails. They and their behavior distracts, and should be filtered out of any discussion of Games as infinity generators.
- Guthur 5y agoWhat the hell are you actually on about. Don't take any single point of view as Canon gospel, sure. But just completely dismissing them would call into question whether anyone's view is actually relevant. What nihilistic nonsense.
- jens67 5y agoI read the superficial as they both are propped up by experienced people to attract similar talent acoording to the article. Its a great marketing and hiring strategy. And that has probably more to do with the success of the game than the individual game designers.
- seanhunter 5y agoI have no idea what you're getting at here, but it certainly isn't any kind of response to the actual article posted.
- prvc 5y ago>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. Oddly, the best games to bear his imprimatur, Civ II, and (by far) Alpha Centauri, were not headed by Meier. 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 (many times, after designers of successful games go on to head their own projects with total control, the results fall short of their predecessors). Part of this might have to do with the possibility space of game states (far too great for a single person to test, explore, or even conceive of), and also the complexity involved in programming a complete game. However, another explanation is that it is still possible to achieve greatness via that approach, and we merely have not had any genius game designers so far.
- toyg 5y agoI 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.
- dataduck 5y agoI don't even think there needs to be more than one "technique" - think of all the authors that are worse without an editor. It's about not having any pushback, and missing your blind spots or getting high on your own supply.
- TeMPOraL 5y agoMakes 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 his ideas. (Of course over time things strayed too far from the original vision, and the result is the post-ENT crapfest that carries the official "Star Trek" name, but is otherwise a generic action movie franchise. A strange situation, in which the only work still sticking to the deep and hopeful vision of the future is the little animated show that everyone thought will be a joke.)
- smitty1e 5y agoAfter an 18-hour Civ III maration in 1996 or so, I just haven't had the stomach for games.
- tricolon 5y agoCiv III was released in 2001, but I feel the same way.
- thaumasiotes 5y agoCiv III came out in 2001...
- midasuni 5y agoCiv 3 caused me to go out and buy a hard drive to put windows on it so I could play it, it was that good. I played the Americans in one game, and as time progressed oil appears. I had a large empire, but no oil. My peaceful neighbouring empire however did, so I had no choice but to invade. 20 years. Great times.
- hef19898 5y agoI still remember my "great iron wars of the North" between the Japanese (me) and the Celts (AI) in Civ 4(?). The went on for around 100 years or so and decided the dominance of the continent. Still among the best games I ever had, despite hundreds of hours in Civ 6 since then. Side note, the japanese-celt wars ended in a nuclear exchange later on.
- thaumasiotes 5y agoI have Civ III through Good Old Games, but sadly, they only provide it with the expansions included. They do provide a readme that tells you you can play previous versions of the game by navigating to the install directory and running the particular executable you want, but they only ship the one executable. Not sure why they went to the trouble of removing the other executables.
- smitty1e 5y ago
- 29athrowaway 5y agoCiv 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 represented as a "death stack", Civ 5 and 6 players do not like them. Then, the hex tiles do not create a good keyboard experience.
- flyingfences 5y agoCall me strange, but I actually really enjoyed the minutiae of managing unit deployments across the map, engulfing an enemy city, in Civ 5. It felt more like an actual assault than the stacks of doom in Civ 4.
- 29athrowaway 5y agoThere are mechanics in Civ 4 that discourage the stacks of doom. Artillery, bombers, tactical nukes, etc.
- hef19898 5y agoCiv 6 is actually rather good, especially with Gathering storm and Rise and Fall. I have to agree so, Civ 4 is better. At least in memory, but that is propably biased due to some really great games under Civ 4. And those games are rare, regardless of version.
- unionpivo 5y agoehh, 6 is a good civ game. As far as death stacks and etc goes, it makes better civilization gameplay imo. If i want wargame i will play wargame specifically, you could try paradox games or jump straight into slitherine/matrix wargames. To me there is huge difference between the 2 genres. Any way that's my personal opinion. My overall favorite civ was 2 for what it's worth.
- ACS_Solver 5y agoTo 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)
- morsch 5y agoHere's Jimmy Maher's multi part series on Civilization: https://www.filfre.net/2018/03/the-game-of-everything-part-1-making-civilization/ https://www.filfre.net/2018/03/the-game-of-everything-part-1...
- billfruit 5y agoAny one remember the Global Warming mechanic, which was removed in some of the subsequent games if I'm remembering correctly?.
- og_pixel 5y agoIt is definitely a thing in Civ 6: Gathering Storm. I don't think it was a feature before that.
- vanderZwan 5y agoCiv 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) https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Eternal_War_(Civ2)
- ant6n 5y agoCiv 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) https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Global_warming_(Civ1)
- genocidicbunny 5y agoThe second expansion for Civ 6 -- Gathering Storm, has a global warming mechanic built in. Civ 5 did not have it, but Civ 4, 3 and 2 definitely did in one form or another. I don't remember if it was a thing in Civ 1.
- lysurgic 5y agoBut gathering storm is by far the worst civ expansion ever.
- t-writescode 5y agoIn 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_playing_the_same_game_of_civilization_ii/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uxpil/ive_been_play...
- gberger 5y agoThe 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/ https://www.reddit.com/r/theeternalwar/
- dunnevens 5y agoIt 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) https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Global_warming_(Civ1)
- Gravityloss 5y agoGlobal 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.
- 5y ago
- janvdberg 5y agoThis podcast also has a few nice excerpts from Sid Meier's memoir: https://overcast.fm/+HBlrqX2zo https://overcast.fm/+HBlrqX2zo
- simonh 5y agoCheck out this great GDC talk by Sid and Bruce on the history of the development of the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ-auWfJTts&t=3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ-auWfJTts&t=3s They mention Empire as an influence, and there's a really nice modern implementation of Empire available for Windows and iOS. http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/mother.html http://www.windowsgames.co.uk/mother.html https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/mother-of-all-battles/id425160860 https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/mother-of-all-battles/id425160...
- euroderf 5y agoIf you want to build a world, try model railroading on for size. Admittedly it can be a bit light on the analytical side, but maybe just maybe that part of your brain needs a break. As things are now, cool stuff like track signaling is very expensive, but there's all-digital engine & accessory control out there, and I'm hoping that 3D printing (and dedicated Raspberry Pi controllers) will help out with the pricier bits.
- rkagerer 5y agoAbsolutely 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 trend, favoring to showcase gorgeously detailed models enabled by their new 3D engines, over equipping you with a clever and efficient UI to conquer the world. Anyone care to recommend a favorite turn-based strategy game with a pleasant interface which you think I might enjoy?
- Gravityloss 5y agoA 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.
- Gravityloss 5y agoTo 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.
- dman 5y agoSame thing happened to Age of Empires and Railroad Tycoon. The 3d versions were never as special to me.
- Gravityloss 5y agoThis was the watercolor terrain pack for civ 3, maybe it was better in my memory. https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/warpstorm-watercolor-terrain.27787/ https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/warpstorm-watercolor-... Maybe there could be a "Civ for adults". With just way less content, shorter games and a more mature art style. Civ 1 didn't have: culture, religion, great persons, great works, armies, ranged units, luxuries, strategic resources, building placement, unit xp/promotion. Civ 1 didn't even have an improvement for forest tiles. Civ 1 did have as extra: home city for units. Marine units had to be transported by ship - but that added an interesting mechanic, you had to protect your super important transport loaded with 7 very expensive units. Terrain improvements took a really long time so you had to have multiple settlers work on the same tile. Some superfluous things like fortresses. Small city spam ruined Civ 1.
- knighthack 5y agoWhy does the author keep referring to the player as 'her'? This neither seems in line with the traditional use of 'he/him' in English texts, or even the neutrality of 'he/him and or she/her'. It reads more like a stunted attempt to virtue signal. I'm quite confident that Civilization games skew to male players, rather than female. What a great way to alienate readers. More so when gender was not a central feature of the article at all.
- Sevaris 5y agoSorry, why do you care? Why does it matter? "He/she" is simply unwieldy in writing text meant to be read by other people. Pick whatever pronoun you want to use. It. Does. Not. Matter. What I don't understand is complaining about how somebody else is not using your preferred generic pronoun.
- mdp2021 5y agoSome languages use the form also used for masculine as generic - officially, as part of their grammar, long before the political matter about what is appropriate exploded. To find that the English language does not follow this rule ("he" as generic) leaves some confused, and even unconvinced: 'she' looks like a modification of 'he', so 'he' looks generic. In fact, their "close" relation is just apparent: it seems that 'he' comes from variations from the demonstrative 'ki' ("this/here"), but 'she', while still coming from a demonstrative, comes from a different demonstrative, 'so' (feminine 'seo') - the source of 'the' -, which came into use to disambiguate as original feminine 'heo' collapsed into 'he' in spoken language.
- UncleMeat 5y agoReferring to abstract actors as "she" and "her" only alienates a very specific kind of reader. Consciously using female pronouns in these contexts is a very small way of pushing against the norm of everything being male, which is commendable. You'll see it more and more in CS papers nowadays. I cannot possibly imagine being upset by this.
- 5y ago
- fourtrees 5y agoI've always enjoyed 4x games and some of the Civs have been the best among them. It's ultimately a minor gripe and sort of needed for the game to function, but I don't like how they represent history as a linear progression from the Neolithic to the present in the sense that technology A necessarily proceeds to technology C via tech B. The history of technology, as I understand it, has not normally progressed in such a simple way. Technologies are lost and regained and lost (look at the Maya or the Rappa-Nui) again in what seems like a some random movement towards an unknowable and not necessarily pleasant future. It's the one simplification in the game that irks me because some people really do believe, contrary to the evidence, in humanity's direct, unstoppable progression towards a utopian future. I find that degree of optimism dangerously blind to the threats that could be posed by innovation.
- eu 5y agoOne can play Civ1 here: https://www.myabandonware.com/game/sid-meier-s-civilization-1nj/ https://www.myabandonware.com/game/sid-meier-s-civilization-...
- LightG 5y agoIn awe of how many games Sid Meier made that made my childhood. Didn't even know he founded MicroProse
- WhompingWindows 5y agoI 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?
- Florin_Andrei 5y agoVery similar to my play style.
- burntoutfire 5y agoI'm just starting to get serious with Civ V (have logged 100+ hours in the past couple of months). My favourite is smaller map (the AI turns take too long on larger maps), and large islands. The islands make war more fun, as you can sail to most enemy cities with your fleet and don't have to crawl through the landmass. Also, once Frigates are available, the land units become largely irrelevant, but the AI doesn't really comprehend that, which gives you a big advantage. I play as Phoenicians, as they get nice bonuses for a water world.
- WhompingWindows 5y agoOoooh boy, the islands set-up is super fun! England is mega OP on that scenario, and if you get Great Lighthouse? My god, so broken :) One thing with the speed of AI turns, you may be able to go into the advanced settings and turn on "quick combat" and "quick movement" settings. These take away the combat movement animations and help speed up the game a little bit (sorry, I didn't run the benchmarks, haha). Enjoy your naval victories, admiral!
- scelerat 5y agoA 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.
- afavour 5y agoNow 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.
- dancemethis 5y agoIt's so good, and it would be so much better without his name in the title! Man, does putting the person's name before the game name sour it. So antipathic.