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JeremoudCorbynejad posted:Edit: sorry i misread the above post. Yeah, if they give each civ several unique abilities i will not be best pleased. Remembering all those in Endless Legend was a pain in the rear end. The situation I'm describing above is a bit different than that. I chose the Germans because they are probably a late game civ, and by the time you've seen them, their abilities probably consist of the 7-8 civs that player has chosen before them. So even each civ only getting one ability is an issue because of the nature of each civ being composed of multiple civs through time. Now imagine 8 players in the 8th era. That's 64 abilities floating around. No way I'm going to be able to remember which 1 of those opponents has which 8 abilities. That's the advantage that Civilization or Amplitudes own Endless games have over this. If you like the game you start to memorize it and you can have a pretty good idea of what the Zulu or Sophons are capable of when you see them. But with this new system, it appears your in for some studying in every era for every opponent.
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Feb 27, 2020 18:23
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Elias_Maluco posted:I think it works well enough. In any case, its incomparably better than Civ AI, thats for sure Then we shall disagree, friend! Although I suppose it depends in large part on what game is in question. If you tell me the AI is fine in Hearts of Iron or Crusader Kings, ok. If you tell me the AI is fine for Stellaris or Imperator, loving nah son!
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Feb 27, 2020 18:24
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Chronojam posted:You could have the AI system respond in meaningful ways to the actions the player takes (more than the AI's choices) by matching results with expectations directly. Abstract away more of the mechanics. One of the big problems with having all these interlocked systems is that when you want to, say, hit an AI's "breadbasket" or something and starve them, you've already won anyway if you can do it- knocking out nodes in the happiness/culture/trade system of an opponent fucks them all sorts of ways so you just take whatever city and you win. It's one of those big problems with 4x games and their bag of management features trying to be more like Paradox games. Through the Ages is the best 4x game by a longshot.
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Feb 27, 2020 18:25
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Chomp8645 posted:Then we shall disagree, friend! I was talking about the ones I have enough experience with: CK2 and the EU series. Stellaris I own but never played enough to be able to judge. I never played Imperator
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Feb 27, 2020 18:33
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The Rhyes and Fall mod for Civ 4 did some interesting stuff wrt the stuff people are talking about. Ancient era civs start out in an empty world, and new civs appear at appropriate times. This way the franks and the turks spawn in position to capture the crumbling remains of the Roman Empire. Victory conditions are unique to each civilization, so the Egyptians win by becoming an early cultural powerhouse, the Romans win by establishing their historical empire, the Americans win by controlling the majority world's oil production, and so on. Its far from perfect, but removes the early game snowball effect. (Unless you're playing as China)
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Feb 28, 2020 16:31
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I skipped Civ 4, but now I want to grab it sort of just to play that mod...
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Feb 28, 2020 17:49
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Yeah that sounds amazing. I have to experience that.
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Feb 28, 2020 18:32
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Huh, looking into it it was really big and popular, to the point where the mod has a bunch of mods for it! That's pretty neat. Maybe I'll finally get Civ4 instead of buying Endless Legends.
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Feb 28, 2020 18:46
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Panzeh posted:One of the big problems with having all these interlocked systems is that when you want to, say, hit an AI's "breadbasket" or something and starve them, you've already won anyway if you can do it- knocking out nodes in the happiness/culture/trade system of an opponent fucks them all sorts of ways so you just take whatever city and you win. It's one of those big problems with 4x games and their bag of management features trying to be more like Paradox games. Through the Ages is amazing.
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Feb 28, 2020 19:31
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GlyphGryph posted:I skipped Civ 4, but now I want to grab it sort of just to play that mod... Skipping Civ4 is a huge mistake, it is the best civ by far. Unmodded is a very tight and well-paced game with an AI that can actually play by the rules. At a difficulty of Prince or above, you will actually be challenged, and can actually lose the game.
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Feb 29, 2020 06:25
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Yeah, Civ4 is still really, really good, and I still love its civics system. Also ach era feels really different- classical has its logic puzzle unit interactions, medieval sees longbows and walls making expansion really difficult, and then renaissance arrives and suddenly you can cross oceans and get a big burst of new science and civics. It has a great arc, and all the classical music sells it beautifully. Civ5's main flaw (I'm only half joking here) is the various sad discordant drones used for the background "currently at war" music. When I'm sending my cartoon mans to blow up other cartoon mans, I don't really want to hear the soundtrack from a documentary about war crimes.
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Feb 29, 2020 06:35
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England has a pretty sweet war theme but you're right, I feel like it's being pretty guilting about the whole thing -- when instead we should be celebrating the arks racing to Mars amidst the nuclear fire in the background 
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Feb 29, 2020 06:42
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Is through the ages really that good?
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Feb 29, 2020 06:56
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Stairmaster posted:Is through the ages really that good? Picture a typical PC 4X game in your mind, then simplify and abstract all of its mechanics until only the fun stuff is left and that's basically Through the Ages. it's a brilliantly designed game that was hampered somewhat by being a physical board game with tons of fiddly bits and manual bookkeeping that made games take ten million hours. The digital version naturally fixes all that so you can play the game without having to waste an entire afternoon doing so and is the de facto best version of the game. And it even has an AI that works too.
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Feb 29, 2020 08:10
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It's very abstract. There's no map, just representations of important bits of land you own. There isn't a tech tree, just cards for more advanced archetypes to unlock, with almost no dependencies. The minute-to-minute gameplay is totally unlike Civ (or the Endless games). It's pretty good for what it is: a short version of the civ experience, taking your people down some different path and building an enduring culture. The AI can put up a decent fight, too.
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Feb 29, 2020 08:19
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I just tried Through the Ages. I think I might like it if I put the work into it, but I'm having a lot of trouble understanding it. I think it's the kind of game I'd understand immediately if I played it in board game form, but as a digital game, it confuses me.
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Feb 29, 2020 21:43
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Yeah just grabbed it last night because of this thread recommending it. Won my first game against the computer so that was pretty cool. It feels too quick to play though, like you're lucky if you fit in one war on that rampant race. I wonder if adding more players would slow it down a bit
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Feb 29, 2020 21:47
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Since we last looked at @HumankindGame, there've been some developments: The eras have been (re)named: 1. Ancient Era (previously Bronze Era) 2. Classical Era 3. Medieval Era 4. Early Modern Era 5. Industrial Era 6. Contemporary Era Classical Era civs revealed so far: * Scientist Greeks, with emblematic unit Hoplites and emblematic quarter Amphitheatron. * Militarist Goths, with emblematic unit Gothic Cavalry and emblematic quarter Tumulus. * Merchant Carthaginians, with emblematic unit War Elephant and emblematic quarter Cothon.
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Mar 13, 2020 06:35
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Aerdan posted:4. Early Modern Era alright, that's a choice i guess
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Mar 13, 2020 14:16
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Sir DonkeyPunch posted:alright, that's a choice i guess what's wrong with it? lots of people use the early modern period to describe the time roughly 1450-1800
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Mar 13, 2020 14:23
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Did...did we stop at some point calling it "Renaissance"?
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Mar 13, 2020 14:24
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When do you think the Renaissance ended
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Mar 13, 2020 14:28
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renaissance is a bit euro-centric and doesn't encompass all of the stuff that was happening during that period of time. it would be like describing the contemporary era as the "space race age" and leaving it at that. the renaissance definitely happened during the early modern period but it's not the only thing that was going on then, nor does it fully represent that whole stretch of nearly four centuries
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Mar 13, 2020 14:28
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luxury handset posted:what's wrong with it? lots of people use the early modern period to describe the time roughly 1450-1800 hm, guess i learned something today
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Mar 13, 2020 14:30
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Aerdan posted:Classical Era civs revealed so far: And still not even a vague description of what any of these things mean.
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Mar 13, 2020 14:43
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the word emblematic is losing all meaning for me
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Mar 13, 2020 15:04
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Davincie posted:the word emblematic is losing all meaning for me It's terrible, they just didn't want to use the word that's always used for this type of stuff ('unique')
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Mar 13, 2020 15:35
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 Finally a video about a game mechanichttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDGnigR6uQo Summary:
Microplastics fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Mar 13, 2020 |
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Mar 13, 2020 16:07
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Mr.Misfit posted:Did...did we stop at some point calling it "Renaissance"? If you're talking about global stuff, yeah. Renaissance is a more specific period of time within part of Europe. Of course classical and medieval also refer only to the Mediterranean world/Europe so.  It's hard to pick a term that works globally since anything you do before very recent history is not going to be global. The old stone/bronze/iron age divisions don't work either. It's not solvable, really.
Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Mar 13, 2020 |
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Mar 13, 2020 16:18
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Call it the Colonization Era. That's what it was, and it did affect the entire globe. But, that's what they were trying to avoid though, by copping out and calling it the Early Modern Era. That's what everybody is trying to do by calling the it the Early Modern Era. The Human Crouton fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Mar 13, 2020 |
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Mar 13, 2020 19:29
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just call it Paradox Interactive's Europa Universalis IV Era
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Mar 13, 2020 19:56
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The Columbian Era
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Mar 13, 2020 19:59
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Grand Fromage posted:If you're talking about global stuff, yeah. Renaissance is a more specific period of time within part of Europe. Of course classical and medieval also refer only to the Mediterranean world/Europe so. But isnīt the game, as a 4x, already western-centric ? It takes the ideas of "ages/eras of humanity", "forced technological development" as being an imminent part of societal evolution, which, if I remember correctly, isnīt even the standard model for most of the worlds development and "development by expansion and refinement of land and ressources"?
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Mar 13, 2020 23:42
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Early Modern is what everyone writing actual historiography calls it you goons. Renaissance has been out of vogue for quite some time for reasons already outlined. There were in fact things going on outside of colonialism and european bullshit in the early modern era. Did you know the Ottomans existed and that borderline landlocked non-colonial empires had significance for a while there like Poland? Fukken wild. Captain Oblivious fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Mar 13, 2020 |
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Mar 13, 2020 23:45
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Don Pigeon posted:It's terrible, they just didn't want to use the word that's always used for this type of stuff ('unique') The word "unique" is emblematic of the Civ series; they needed something unique
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Mar 13, 2020 23:52
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The Renaissance is definitely a thing, but it's limited in scope. While northern Italy was in the Renaissance, Germany and Spain weren't, for instance (this is just Europe, too). It's more of a vague in-between step for some countries taking small steps to get out of the medieval feudal systems and has a lot more definite meaning in art history.
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Mar 14, 2020 00:41
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Mr.Misfit posted:But isnīt the game, as a 4x, already western-centric ? It takes the ideas of "ages/eras of humanity", "forced technological development" as being an imminent part of societal evolution, which, if I remember correctly, isnīt even the standard model for most of the worlds development and "development by expansion and refinement of land and ressources"? The 4X model of history is indeed colonialist/imperialist, but that doesn't justify the application of a label that isn't particularly accurate even for Western Europe. We haven't used 'the dark ages' to refer to anybody's medieval periods for a few decades now, either. Unfortunately, it's hard to really formulate a historical simulator that doesn't get skewed toward imperialism, since wars (and especially invasions) have had a major impact on history in most regions. (I suspect the best way to manage it would be to do something like King of Dragon Pass or Six Ages, but I'm not sure how to adapt that formula to the several thousand years of human history that Civilisation and Humankind are spanning.)
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Mar 14, 2020 01:21
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You basically need to have it defined by technological and/or administrative progress too, otherwise you'd have to invent a completely arbitrary and inherently racist cultural teleology.
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Mar 14, 2020 01:27
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Mr.Misfit posted:But isnīt the game, as a 4x, already western-centric ? It takes the ideas of "ages/eras of humanity", "forced technological development" as being an imminent part of societal evolution, which, if I remember correctly, isnīt even the standard model for most of the worlds development and "development by expansion and refinement of land and ressources"? Not really. There was plenty of technological development and imperialism all around the globe, the west did not invent either of those things. There are societies that hit a certain level of technological progress and didn't do much after that, which is a subject of study in anthropology. One popular hypothesis is those societies tend to be in places where the environment is very favorable to daily life and there just isn't much pressure to change, life is pretty good as-is. There are also many, many societies that divide their history into different ages, but the model selected for most 4X games is European based since if you're playing a 4X game in English it was probably developed by westerners. There are attempts to apply it elsewhere but they don't work very well. Some exceptions exist--bronze age before iron age does crop up in other parts of the world because refining iron is simply a much harder thing to do, so the technology tends to come after bronzeworking. But then if you try to apply say, stone age to different societies, you end up calling massive and advanced empires like the Aztecs or Inka stone age, which really does not make a lot of sense with how stone age is used in European contexts. In any case, "all of human history in a video game" is always going to have simplifications so it's not a huge deal.
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Mar 14, 2020 02:46
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I think it's just flavor text so calling it renaissance vs bronze age, vs information age or whatever is perfectly fine and great.
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Mar 14, 2020 05:42
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