Civilization (the games)
Oh-so-many years ago, a little game called Civilization came out, and I was hooked. It offered the perfect blend of "one-more-turn"-itis, coupled with a sincere attempt to let you "build your own empire" in a quasi-historical way. It was, and remains, a standout in Computer games.
And then, Civ2 was brought out, and all things Civ got better. Civ2 remains on my hard drive even today. By that standard, few games pass "the test of time": Civ2, Civ3 (heavily modded, though), XCOM (the original), System Shock (the original).
Civ 3 was an improvement and a disaster. Corruption was set so outrageously high as to be ridiculous. Rules were broken, and the game crashed way too often. But over time, and definitely by the time of its last expansion, Civ3 became a great game. And when Rhye's mod came out, that was It: Civ3 became what it should have been out of the box.
Civ4 was a curious dilemma. A lot was improved: Religion was at least conceptually a good addition; civics using the Alpha-Centauri design was excellent. But a LOT was broken, or poorly implemented. Civ3 gave us a great standalone world and rules editor which put the power in the hands of everyone. Civ4 broke that rule by putting the mods only in the hands of the self-identified elite, those who would learn or already knew Python and so forth. The included world builder was a waste, in that it wasn't standalone; it required you to launch a game beforehand and be in it to access the builder; and it offered ZERO rules modification in a simple way, as was the Civ3 way.
Civ4 was off my hard drive quickly. It came back with its Beyond the Sword expansion... and was gone in a few months. Meanwhile, civ2 and civ3 (modified) remained.
And that brings us to today and the release of Civ5. Gone are religion, Alpha-Centauri-inspired Civics (the best ideas from Civ4, just removed). Gone is a breakdown of research, wealth, and happiness, whittled down into a single "happiness" metric. Gone are the myriad simple ways to see what was going on -- you can't see whether the other country leader talking to stands on things, you just have to choose from whatever offer popped up (do I want a pact with this guy, or will that cause lots of side-affects? Oops, can't see that). For example.
Gone are the squares, replaced with hexes, and that's a good thing. Hexes are better. Any old-time wargamer will attest to that.
Gone is the ability to stack units -- not a bad thing, but very poorly implemented. They just set a 1-unit-per-hex rule. I would have set a 1-per-hex rule, but offered military philosophy (command and control) options in the Research tree that changed that. In other words, you research "combined arms" or some such and it lets you build an Army (a la civ3) that contains more than 1 unit, but the units cannot be of the same type. Great Generals are able to better manage their troops, so if you add a Great General to an Army, he lets you put in more than 1 of the same type of unit as well. And the stack fights together, not as individual units -- the most appropriate offensive unit in the stacks moves forward, with bonuses based on the types of units also in the army. So if you move forward with a Swordsman, but your army has an archer in it, he gets a ranged bonus from that -- and the animation shows a swordsman physically attacking with an archer raining arrows at the target.
it's not complicated. It would have been historically accurate, it would have eliminated the so-called 'stack o' doom' of prior Civs, and it would have more realistically, in a strategic as opposed to tactical sense, mirrored actual battle strategies (combined arms, etc).
Everything in Civ5 is built for short games and around their wargame -- the world-builder stuff seems tacked on and shallow. For the first time, I haven't bought a Civ game on day one. I played several games on a friend's laptop. And what I saw did not impress at all. It reminded me of the third XCOM game -- a travesty that tried to fuse a realtime game onto the turn-based glory that was XCOM.
So, in the order of greatness:
Civ2
Civ3 modified
Civ
Civ4
Civ5
At least, until Civ5, I always thought that they were at least trying to improve each game and that they suceeded at least in ideas if not implementation. But with Civ5, the moronic ability of archers to shoot multiple hexes, literally showing you an archer who can shoot an arrow across a city and hit a target on the other side of the city -- immersion-breaking stupidity, not to mention utterly and glaringly dumb. It's the real root of my dislike of Civ5: Civ is a strategy game, with a worldwide perspective. They built civ5 around a TACTICAL combat idea, but fused that onto the worldwide Civ perspective -- and that is tragic. Worse still is the fact that far too many people can't seem to grasp the difference between STRATEGIC and TACTICAL. And, of course, Civ5 continues the recent trend of trying to get rid of anything that might break the short-attention-span of modern gamers -- hence, ever-smaller-maps and tactical wargame.
I find it utterly unsatisfying and sad. It gives me no hope for Civ6. Like the glory that was the XCOM series, until the third game, and which is now a dead series, so too goes Civ, sacrificed on the altar of short-attention-spans, ahistorical feel, and dumbing-down of anything that might remotely "look" complicated.
I shall wear black for a few days, I think, as mourning seems appropriate.
And then, Civ2 was brought out, and all things Civ got better. Civ2 remains on my hard drive even today. By that standard, few games pass "the test of time": Civ2, Civ3 (heavily modded, though), XCOM (the original), System Shock (the original).
Civ 3 was an improvement and a disaster. Corruption was set so outrageously high as to be ridiculous. Rules were broken, and the game crashed way too often. But over time, and definitely by the time of its last expansion, Civ3 became a great game. And when Rhye's mod came out, that was It: Civ3 became what it should have been out of the box.
Civ4 was a curious dilemma. A lot was improved: Religion was at least conceptually a good addition; civics using the Alpha-Centauri design was excellent. But a LOT was broken, or poorly implemented. Civ3 gave us a great standalone world and rules editor which put the power in the hands of everyone. Civ4 broke that rule by putting the mods only in the hands of the self-identified elite, those who would learn or already knew Python and so forth. The included world builder was a waste, in that it wasn't standalone; it required you to launch a game beforehand and be in it to access the builder; and it offered ZERO rules modification in a simple way, as was the Civ3 way.
Civ4 was off my hard drive quickly. It came back with its Beyond the Sword expansion... and was gone in a few months. Meanwhile, civ2 and civ3 (modified) remained.
And that brings us to today and the release of Civ5. Gone are religion, Alpha-Centauri-inspired Civics (the best ideas from Civ4, just removed). Gone is a breakdown of research, wealth, and happiness, whittled down into a single "happiness" metric. Gone are the myriad simple ways to see what was going on -- you can't see whether the other country leader talking to stands on things, you just have to choose from whatever offer popped up (do I want a pact with this guy, or will that cause lots of side-affects? Oops, can't see that). For example.
Gone are the squares, replaced with hexes, and that's a good thing. Hexes are better. Any old-time wargamer will attest to that.
Gone is the ability to stack units -- not a bad thing, but very poorly implemented. They just set a 1-unit-per-hex rule. I would have set a 1-per-hex rule, but offered military philosophy (command and control) options in the Research tree that changed that. In other words, you research "combined arms" or some such and it lets you build an Army (a la civ3) that contains more than 1 unit, but the units cannot be of the same type. Great Generals are able to better manage their troops, so if you add a Great General to an Army, he lets you put in more than 1 of the same type of unit as well. And the stack fights together, not as individual units -- the most appropriate offensive unit in the stacks moves forward, with bonuses based on the types of units also in the army. So if you move forward with a Swordsman, but your army has an archer in it, he gets a ranged bonus from that -- and the animation shows a swordsman physically attacking with an archer raining arrows at the target.
it's not complicated. It would have been historically accurate, it would have eliminated the so-called 'stack o' doom' of prior Civs, and it would have more realistically, in a strategic as opposed to tactical sense, mirrored actual battle strategies (combined arms, etc).
Everything in Civ5 is built for short games and around their wargame -- the world-builder stuff seems tacked on and shallow. For the first time, I haven't bought a Civ game on day one. I played several games on a friend's laptop. And what I saw did not impress at all. It reminded me of the third XCOM game -- a travesty that tried to fuse a realtime game onto the turn-based glory that was XCOM.
So, in the order of greatness:
Civ2
Civ3 modified
Civ
Civ4
Civ5
At least, until Civ5, I always thought that they were at least trying to improve each game and that they suceeded at least in ideas if not implementation. But with Civ5, the moronic ability of archers to shoot multiple hexes, literally showing you an archer who can shoot an arrow across a city and hit a target on the other side of the city -- immersion-breaking stupidity, not to mention utterly and glaringly dumb. It's the real root of my dislike of Civ5: Civ is a strategy game, with a worldwide perspective. They built civ5 around a TACTICAL combat idea, but fused that onto the worldwide Civ perspective -- and that is tragic. Worse still is the fact that far too many people can't seem to grasp the difference between STRATEGIC and TACTICAL. And, of course, Civ5 continues the recent trend of trying to get rid of anything that might break the short-attention-span of modern gamers -- hence, ever-smaller-maps and tactical wargame.
I find it utterly unsatisfying and sad. It gives me no hope for Civ6. Like the glory that was the XCOM series, until the third game, and which is now a dead series, so too goes Civ, sacrificed on the altar of short-attention-spans, ahistorical feel, and dumbing-down of anything that might remotely "look" complicated.
I shall wear black for a few days, I think, as mourning seems appropriate.
posted by Thurken | 6:13 AM
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