On Sun, 16 Jul 2023 09:41:17 +0100, JAB <
noway@nochance.com> wrote:
On 11/07/2023 15:08, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
"May you live in interesting times" is a traditional curse. It doesn't
sound like one, at first, until you start thinking about it. And even
if you just focus on tech issues - ignoring all the political,
economic and social changes - there is a lot of 'interesting' stuff
going on. And too often, these changes are just purest evil.
Case in point: https://www.fciv.net/
Do you know what this malefic website is? It's "Civilization"... in a
browser. Have you ever heard of anything so hideous and cruel? No
longer can you escape the lure of "just one more" turn by not
installing the game, or turning off your computer, or by leaving the
house. No, "Civilization" (well, technically, the open-source
re-implementation "FreeCiv") is online now. It can follow you wherever
you go.
Sleep? Work? Human interaction? None of that for you; not anymore.
Whether it's on your PC, your console, your phone, your automobile
entertainment system, your refrigerator... Civilization will be there,
waiting for you. Taunting you. Tempting you. There's no escaping it.
Don't believe me? Visit the website. But I don't recommend it. The
dire threat of "just one more turn" is real. Don't say I didn't warn
you.
I played a lot of Civ 2/3 and although I enjoyed 4 for me it had lost
that ability to make me have to force myself to go to bed at midnight
and not just have one more turn. I did get 5 but I never even managed to >finish a complete game. 6 I passed on.
Part of the problem is the same one I have with most franchises, after a >while I think I'm basically just playing the same game aren't I.
Yes. It's been a problem that Civilization has been battling since...
well, the Civilization II.
(Maybe even before, since "Civilization for Windows" and "CivNet"
preceded even that game)
It's an issue all games face, but is particularly notable in strategy
titles: after creating a game with a solid game-play loop, how do you
convince the rubes to buy a sequel? Sure, you /could/ completely
revamp the game, but then you're making a sequel-in-name-only, that
runs the risk of all new IPs. Instead, most games just make a few
minor tweaks to the gameplay and update the graphics. But after a
while all these tweaks start becoming top-heavy and you need to do a
radical re-adjustment anyway. And past a certain point, you're either
just remaking the same game for the nth time, or have become something
entirely new: either way, you've likely lost what made the original so appealing in the first place.
For me, the original "Civilization" remains the quintessential
Civ-experience. "Civilization 2" gets a lot of fanfare, but I felt a
lot of its changes were made simply for the sake of change; more
units, more actions, more nations. It all distracted from the core
game-loop. "Civilization 3" just added more, even as it tried to
correct some of the excesses, and its new additions didn't gel well
with the overall strategy. "Civilization 4" was all about polish; it
took the ideas from the past two games and reworked them into a more
unified whole; it's why it's my second favorite of the series. #5 and
#6 are just repeating the cycle, essentially the modern versions of #2
and #3.
Hopefully "Civilization VII" - if there's ever such a beast - will
bring back some sanity to the franchise. But even if it does, why
should I bother playing it when all its really doing is returning the
game back to the balance found in #1 and #4, both of which I already
own?
I'd rather they just let the franchise rest, and move on to new ideas.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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