
No More Religion, More Tactics for Civilization V - yread
http://news.softpedia.com/news/No-More-Religion-More-Tactics-for-Civilization-V-135898.shtml
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pragmatic
This may date me, but I've played all 4 previous Civ games.

Although the games have improved graphically and added interesting concepts.
However, the games have become VERY long. I used to be able to sit down and
crank out a game in an afternoon or 2. Now it seems to take days to complete a
normal game. Time I just don't have.

I think there's an opportunity for someone to make a turn based strategy game
with the original CIV concepts. Just make it playable in one sitting. There
isn't much else out there in the turn based strategy genre. Seems like wide
open category.

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rms
You might want to check out Rise of Nations -- it's an RTS but it incorporated
Civilization like gameplay better than any other game of its type that I have
played. If anyone knows of a more recent similar strategy game, I'd like to
hear about it.

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GHFigs
Seconded. The lead designer of Rise of Nations was Brian Reynolds, who also
designed "Sid Meier's" Civilization II and Alpha Centauri, and it shows.

Just make sure you don't have anything important planned for the next six
months.

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adamc
The changes sound to me like Civilization is evolving into a completely
different game. A big part of the appeal of the original Civ was the
simplified combat. I think this may open that niche to other competitors.

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mynameishere
The biggest problem with Civ I and II was the combat system. (Not really
because it was simple, but because it was broken in every way.) Modern armored
units attacking Greek Phalanxes and losing? Modern riflemen being defeated by
chariots? Routinely.

~~~
byrneseyeview
Civ II basically fixed that. But I'm not even sure it's possible to have a
balanced game and a historically accurate game, unless you have some kind of
"Zeitgeist" function that keeps one player from getting a big technology lead
over another. If the game mechanics let you discover gunpowder in 0 AD, they
turn the entire thing into a race to get good technology.

Alternatively, they could make technologically advanced units prohibitively
expensive _if you're the only player with the technology_ , and very cheap
when everyone has it.

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argv_empty
In Civ4, at least, later units are significantly more expensive, regardless of
who else has the same technology. If your production is high enough to field
an army of riflemen (cost 110) and cannons (cost 100) against opponents using
axemen (cost 35) and archers (cost 25), you'd still steamroll him even if you
spent that production on swords, axes, and catapults.

~~~
byrneseyeview
Sure. The idea is that the _first_ rifleman you build costs nearly as much as
a wonder, if your opponents are using archers. That way, you can have a unit
that pretty much demolishes anything, but you still have to use it
strategically. As you field more of them, and your opponents develop similar
technology, the cost goes down.

So people with technology will field smaller, more effective armies; as the
technology spreads, the armies get bigger but the individual units are
comparatively less effective. This would make the game more balanced.

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InclinedPlane
For those who are interested, Civilization 1 is abandonware and now
(mostly)legally downloadable and playable for free:

<http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/14/Civilization.html>

It's a 16-bit DOS app so there's a pretty high chance you'll need dosbox to
play it.

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btilly
I must have missed the memo where copyright law had changed so that
abandonware was legally downloadable and playable for free before the absurdly
long copyright term (thanks, Disney) expired.

The rules may not be actively enforced, but they still exist and there is
always the possibility that someone could wake up to the fact that they now
own the copyright, and they could create grief for you. An admittedly unlikely
scenario, but still possible.

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frederickcook
Tough not to draw a comparison here with illegal music. Is there any
reasonable expectation that the gaming industry will take the route the RIAA
took and start going after people?

It seems like these old games are quite different from old music: both make
most of their money immediately upon release, but games lose their appeal much
faster as newer games come out, while the appeal of music may last an order of
magnitude longer, and isn't necessarily replaceable. Also, while music may
continue to make money on the radio or in commercials or movies or other
media, games pretty much lose the revenue stream after the first few months.

I recall a few weeks ago another game (C&C maybe?) made news here for
releasing an early version in promotion of a new version. You don't see
Metallica giving away old tunes in promotion of a new album, do you?

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btilly
I am not a prophet, but I doubt that will happen.

However there are a lot of people with nostalgia. If someone, somewhere, could
put together a legal product that made it easy for a lot of people to take a
walk down memory lane, they could find a good market. Such a vendor would have
a strong incentive to acquire copyright to abandoned titles then enforce said
copyright. This would cause backlash, but it isn't impossible that someone
with money and energy could take this step.

Of course the first barrier that such a company would have is getting
copyright permission to the core operating system they need to emulate. Those
copyrights are owned by companies like Apple and Microsoft which are aware of
the issue and show no desire to bother themselves by getting involved.

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allenp
You might check out <http://www.gog.com/> \- "good ol' games"

They sell a fairly large back catalog of older games as downloads.

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btilly
Interesting.

They seem to be avoiding the operating system issue by focusing on games from
the 90s that can still run thanks to Microsoft's efforts to maintain backwards
compatibility. (They may need to do minor tweaks, but basically the OS is
still available.)

Wake me when I can legally revisit my Apple ][ memories.

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nazgulnarsil
Can anyone explain the appeal of "strategy" games? every one I've ever played
seems like excel with a GUI. figure out what parameters affect income,
optimize. I had some fun with Sins of a Solar Empire, but more just for the
spectacle of big fleets than anything else. This will come off as pompous but
whenever my friends convince me to try a new one I play for a little while and
then basically go "I could be playing chess or go right now" and that's the
end of it. Is it mostly just the fun of commanding armies? Do people find
exploring the optimization process fun?

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Dove
When I first started playing Starcraft, I too thought it a trivial game. 12
marines always beat 8, defense is stronger than offense, so mine, expand,
defend, and wait. What was I missing, aside from annoying random noise
affecting battles?

The strategy. It's in the noise. I didn't see it because I didn't know what it
was to think strategically.

Writes Clausewitz in his classic _On War_ :

The conduct of war, then, consists in the planning and conduct of fighting. If
fighting consisted of a single act, no further subdivision would be needed.
However, it consists of a greater or lesser number of single _acts_ , _each
complete in itself_ , which . . . are called 'engagements' and which form new
entities. This gives rise to the completely different activity of _planning
and executing these engagements themselves_ , and of _coordinating_ each of
them with the others in order to further the object of the war. One has been
called _tactics_ and the other _strategy_. . . tactics teaches _the use of
armed forces in the engagement_ ; strategy, _the use of engagements for the
object of the war_.

Anyone can think tactically. I have six zerglings, you have seven; you'll
probably win, but perhaps I can cycle them and dance them around to do the
most possible damage. Perhaps I can find the perfect spot for a siege tank on
a hill, or which turret to use my battlecruiser's main gun on. From such a
perspective, the game seems trivial; whoever brings the better forces to the
engagement, provided both parties do the right thing, will almost certainly
win.

The game is in bringing the better forces to the engagement. Deciding when and
where to engage, what to control, what to build and to bring. To wait 30
seconds and take your eight marines with twelve of my own, rather than six,
and then six a little later -- so I win instead of lose. Or to strike quickly
so your forces are tied down and cannot interfere with another objective. Or
to strike much later with more advanced forces that take no damage.

In any engagement, once both sides see what forces are in play, the outcome is
already determined. Some micromanagement and smart tactics can help, but
ultimately you must decide on the spot whether to spend the units or retreat.
That is not the interesting part. The interesting part is in constructing the
engagements to your advantage. To have the better unit matchup, or the
advantage of surprise or defense, or to have more power in that particular
place at that particular time.

The Excel part everybody does, and everybody gets. Factor that out. Assume
everyone mines and builds perfectly. That's where the game actually starts: in
turning the engagement to your advantage over what you build and where you
fight. All the planning and deception and reacting and struggling that goes
into that. Initiative. Massing. Marching. Scouting. That's strategy. That's
the allure.

The appeal of strats? Take 20 minutes and watch some masters play . . .

<http://www.starcraft2.com/features/battlereports/4.xml>

. . . and with luck, it will be obvious.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
but then why tie people down with minutia that only matters to newbies?
forcing people to get over the hump of learning to mine perfectly is silly.

also: you should try Go if you haven't ever played it.

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lotharbot
Mining "perfectly" only matters against top-level competition. Otherwise, just
pointing a decent number of harvesters toward the resources (SC) or setting
workers on auto (Civ) is good enough. So you have it exactly backwards; mining
_efficiency_ doesn't matter much to newbies.

As for why resource mining / management even exists: from a warfare
perspective, because you can only fight as long as you have the tools to fight
with. From a gameplay perspective, because acquiring resources provides a
major motivation for leaving your secure base, and the cost and risk
associated with setting up a secondary base (versus using the same resources
for some other objective like attacking an enemy position) provides a major
decision point.

Learning the tools -- how to harvest, how to build units, how much your units
cost, etc. -- is newbie stuff. The real game is in setting yourself up to win
the war through the engagements you choose. The real game is in deciding which
resources and technologies to pursue, when and where to engage your enemy with
which forces, what risks to take at what time, how to respond to failures,
what sacrifices to make for the sake of an objective (intelligence, delaying
an enemy, destroying or acquiring something, etc.), recognizing the right time
to press an advantage, and so on. It is the stuff of warfare, and the stuff of
life. Far from an Excel optimization exercise, it's a rich multi-dimensional
decision space with several paths to victory based on numerous factors that
can vary from game to game.

That's why my wife and I still play Starcraft after twelve years.

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Ernestas
It is interesting how their social game play will be developed.
[<http://www.facebook.com/civnetwork?v=info>]

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allenp
For anyone that is getting a 404, more info is here:
<http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=354036>

And screenshots: <http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/browseimages.php?c=36>

Looks shiny :)

