Civ thoughts

Civ III continues to be a fine game. Another sign that it's a winner in my book: I almost never load from previous saves when things go wrong -- I lose a city, or another Civ's settlers beat mine to a nearby flood plain, for example -- because I'd rather play out the consequences of my mistake. (Except when things go very wrong very early in the game, in which case I'll retire, or just quit, and start over.) I don't think I "time warped" once in that last fantastic game I had, and I haven't yet in my current game, which is also going quite well; playing the Greeks, I've managed to claw my way from last place among nine tribes during the late Ancient era to the number-three spot in the late Industrial era. I have a suspicion that the computer, when not self-hobbled by the lower difficulty levels, plays a very strong opening game, but its skill peters out over the long haul of history; if your pathetic hoo-man tribe can survive into the Medieval era, clever play should let you gradually shoulder your way to superiority. (Interestingly, according to FAQs I've read, the skill level I'm playing on now ("Regent", or level 3 of 6) represents the AI playing its "natural" best; the tougher levels all have the computer-controlled civs making up for their lack of human wile by giving themselves generous combat bonuses and accelerated production!)

I have to wonder how multiplayer Civ works, since some aspects of the game strike me as being feasible only with one human player. A properly Machiavellian player can turn neighboring civs into happy lapdogs, feeding them treats in exchange for military alliances, favorable trading, and (should it come up) a vote in the U.N., all the while making sure they're strong enough to remain a worthy ally but not so strong as to challenge your ultimate superiority. Computer-controlled civs are only too happy to play along, because (like real-world civilizations) they seem happy to take the best deals they can realistically get, given the global situation. Human players, though, are interested in winning, and unless there's some in-game mechanic for a shared victory among formally allied players, a human-controlled civ would rarely take up a position of Favored Inferior to another one. Then again, I have a stated dislike for playing diplomacy-heavy games with other people, so maybe I'm just not suave enough to understand why this actually would work. Hrm.

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Reading some threads on apolyton.net where some people treat the game as a math puzzle, spending 20 minutes per turn carefully plotting our their moves, treating cities and units like cogs in an assembly line, moving them around with such precision and attention to the game's literal rules that they can crank out a 200-unit army by the time the Ancient era ends. They tend to name their cities in RPN according to the function they currently serve. This sounds really non-fun, to me.

I'm having a blast injecting some role-playing into my present game. Most recently, I goaded the neighboring Romans into declaring war on me, took one of their weaker cities (which was in the middle of my territory anyway), and then drew up a peace agreement. This was sweet revenge for my losing a city to them about 2,000 years prior, and now I am satisfied. (Of course, I won back that particular city long ago due to culture-defection, but that's not the point.) OK, and I tried to sack Rome too, but that was too hard, so enh. It still makes me smile.

"Pop-rushing" (sacrificing a percentage of a city's population in order to get a job done faster -- the in-game reason is terrified citizens heading for the hills to flee your tyranny) is a common strategy of the hardcore math-players, but I've never been able to bring myself to do this, except once at the tail end of a losing game when I desperately needed some defensive units to (futilely) keep the angry Germans away. In the moments I had left before the end (and the Dan Quayle screen) came, I felt pretty bad about it. Those poor people! I am a bad, bad despot. I have never been able to intentionally starve my Sims to death, either. On the other hand, I have no problem crashing planes and bulldozing hospitals for yuks over in Sim City, or smearing pedestrians to pass the time in GTA3. I guess it's all about feedback.

Stuff

Various items of possible interest to those who know me.

• Planning on hitting ol ' W-ville next weekend.


• Weekend after that is moving day. I mean, that Saturday is. (Yeah, I decided to save the $600 and get it all done at once, after an orker of ORA-flavored yore offered to loan his pickup truck to the effort. I really don't have all that much stuff. (Yes, yes, so say I, before I even get started...))


• Does anyone want to play Gnostica sometime? Kory Heath sent me a rule tweak I want to try. It modifies the win-or-die rule that I so dislike, and I'm looking forward to seeing if it improves the game. (As far as I know, I like everything about Gnostica except for the losing rule.)


• I want to resume development of Currents, which is not yet quite done; I love the gameplay, but don't think it has much of an endgame yet. I'm considering having a special playtest-night at my new home, split between maybe Currents and Gnostica research.


• I think I will name my home The Arbitrarium, and have the name follow me around and attach itself to wherever I happen to live at the moment, much as my furniture does. I first thought of this name quite a while ago, maybe before I moved into a community where house-naming is the norm. Happy that I remembered it again.