Ograbme posted:

Ograbme posted:

Ograbme posted:

Ograbme posted:

Virtual Russian posted:

An extremely good Vietnam video game would give you a tutorial that in no way actually prepares you to win the game, and should teach you strategies that can only result in defeat.

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

In Meiou and Taxes, Portugal is incentivized to go east, rather than west. You'll do better securing the India trade, coast of West Africa and Indian Ocean/Red Sea, than trying to compete with the Spanish for the Americas, outside of some islands if you can get them, and Brazil.

gradenko_2000 posted:

let's go POPs love da POPs

EDIT: I got hit by the Treaty of Tordesillas! How dare!!!

Tankbuster posted:

time to become protestant

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

The entire system was designed to produce people who could suppress the helots, it was not a good military system, per se.

quote:

The rise and fall of the Sid Meier's Civilization franchise from 1991 to 2018 is both one of the great tragedies of the computer gaming industry, and a window into the massive change in psychology of the US ruling class. This thread will explore both.

I have played every civilization game many times, but in preparation for this thread, I have replayed each civilization game at least once from beginning to end; with the exception of Civilization VI, which I refuse to dignify with my further attention.

Civilization I was a groundbreaking game in which the player acts a sort of archon spirit controlling a civilization from it's birth in 4000BC until either it's death by conquest, or it's conquest of the earth. The game was a genre-defining 4x.

The game was implicitly based on both the 18th century view of international relations - that all nations are continuous competitors and that peace is only ever an interlude between wars, and the 20th century notion that the all states are total states.

Civ 2 is essentially a straight remake of the game, but updated to reflect the then-current hardware constraints of the post window-95 world. The game retains the essential political and social perspective of the original game, but with a more elegant skin.

Civ III [2001] was an inflection point; introducing new game concepts which forever altered the telos of the game to reflect the changed underlying assumptions of the creators of the game. Strategic resources, ethnic citizens, stable diplomacy, culture, & non-conquest victory.

The 18th century frame on international relations is gone, replaced with a post-war American anti-colonial frame.
- It's a net-drag to conquer more than ~25% of the globe
- Stable peaceful relations are possible
- resources are scarce and a key cause of war
- Nations form coalitions to resist domination against aggressive players, even if the aggressive player is not the human player.
- Nations consider whether they can win before declaring war.
- Most games end in cultural victory or world government by the UN.

Civ IV [2005] begins is another substantial change in the franchise, ending the "reign of quantity" as the basic principle by which the game is organized through the introduction of real penalties for scale and the concept of "great people".

Civilization IV fundamentally disrupted the assumption of the three previous games that all great nations must control large territories in order to be able to control enough strategic resources and generate enough commerce to remain competitive.

With the addition of religion and diplomatic pledges; Civ 4 game had well begun it's transition into a game of politics and international relations instead of a game of industrial scale and conquest.

Civ 5 made two profound changes that ended the game as previously known forever. Cities defend themselves without the need to muster troops, and units cannot stack constraining dramatically the value of having a large army.

Civ 5 also has the distinction of being the first genuinely bad game in the series. A game with a user interface that is way less information dense, and with a real dedication to a number of mechanics that are totally irrelevant to the outcome of the game (e.g. religion).

Civilization 6 is less an actual game than it is a propaganda art-form designed to express to it's use that the world is constrained by geography which necessitates planning and the voluntary choice not to pursue the 4 x's that were the foundation of the genre. An utter disgrace.

When looked at in totality, you can see the fingerprints of the change in culture of the designers. The men that created Civ I were unapologetically part of the Faustian Western tradition. Civ 6 was created by men who completely disconnected from that tradition.

gradenko_2000 posted:

code:

https://twitter.com/TheBlackHorse65/status/1777734629358805223

the reactions I've seen to this thread (including from Brian Reynolds himself) tend to dismiss it as it swerves at the last-minute into (as they perceive it) RETVRN right-wing nonsense, and for being overly harsh against the later Civs, or that it's outright dumb to push back against the "increased complexity and increased reflection of geopolitical reality", but there are parts of it that this thread has gone over before.

in particular, while this poster pegs the shift in ideology as having happened in Civ 4, we've talked before about how as early as Civ 3, they started introducing the Cultural Victory as an expression of the post-Cold-War zeitgeist, that it was supposed to be possible to win the game without bathing the world in wars of conquest, and this has only gotten "worse" over time during, as this poster says, "it's transition into a game of politics and international relations instead of a game of industrial scale and conquest"

gradenko_2000 posted:

code:

https://twitter.com/TheBlackHorse65/status/1777734629358805223

the reactions I've seen to this thread (including from Brian Reynolds himself) tend to dismiss it as it swerves at the last-minute into (as they perceive it) RETVRN right-wing nonsense, and for being overly harsh against the later Civs, or that it's outright dumb to push back against the "increased complexity and increased reflection of geopolitical reality", but there are parts of it that this thread has gone over before.

in particular, while this poster pegs the shift in ideology as having happened in Civ 4, we've talked before about how as early as Civ 3, they started introducing the Cultural Victory as an expression of the post-Cold-War zeitgeist, that it was supposed to be possible to win the game without bathing the world in wars of conquest, and this has only gotten "worse" over time during, as this poster says, "it's transition into a game of politics and international relations instead of a game of industrial scale and conquest"

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

But even then, the contradiction of the helot system is apparent - as warfare in the Greek world developed, light troops played a growing, eventually decisive if you think of the thyreophoroi, role. Well, obviously, giving out weapons to the helots was not on any Spartan's agenda.

StashAugustine posted:

FF have you read Soldier of the Mist? You seem like a Gene Wolfe kinda guy (Catholic, soldier, very odd)

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

I have not, but I will, that sounds 100% up my alley.

I really enjoyed, and can't recommend enough, The Crystal Cave, which seems similar.

Tankbuster posted:

it simply can't be that people grew out of civ for more paradox style offerings no.

gradenko_2000 posted:

code:

https://twitter.com/TheBlackHorse65/status/1777734629358805223

the reactions I've seen to this thread (including from Brian Reynolds himself) tend to dismiss it as it swerves at the last-minute into (as they perceive it) RETVRN right-wing nonsense, and for being overly harsh against the later Civs, or that it's outright dumb to push back against the "increased complexity and increased reflection of geopolitical reality", but there are parts of it that this thread has gone over before.

in particular, while this poster pegs the shift in ideology as having happened in Civ 4, we've talked before about how as early as Civ 3, they started introducing the Cultural Victory as an expression of the post-Cold-War zeitgeist, that it was supposed to be possible to win the game without bathing the world in wars of conquest, and this has only gotten "worse" over time during, as this poster says, "it's transition into a game of politics and international relations instead of a game of industrial scale and conquest"

gradenko_2000 posted:

I'm going to try and establish the Nazca and East Africa and Papua New Guinea colonies into their own full colonial subjects, and see what happens from there. I don't know yet how to declare war on natives that are already there, although I guess as far as the time period is concerned that might not be a thing I'm supposed to be able to do yet?

FrancisFukyomama posted:

The three future govt types in civ 6 being just 3 turbocharged variants of neoliberalism was pretty funny
the series has kind of gotten more and more noticeably liberal in outlook as it’s gone on, though considering from the start it’s been a pretty uncritical Whig history narrative I’m not sure what else you would expect from it

imo if you wanted to analyze the politics of a popular strategy game series, you could probably get an insane amount of content from command and conquer, what with CNC1 being 90s End of History: the Game, or generals being an ultra neocon caricature world that somehow ends with America exhausted and humiliated and quietly leaving the world stage for the Chinese century

Tankbuster posted:

Stereotypes are the other side of having a cool faction identity. A lot of the unit blandness is made up for by good voice work and general unit banter. People still quote the "AKs for everyone" or "China Will Grow Larger" but what is even the american equivalent.

palindrome posted:

Thinking about reinstalling Wargame: Red Dragon and playing through the singleplayer campaign. Is it still a good experience? My recollection is that the post-release unit balance patches skewed the campaign quite a bit since they didn't go back and modify the campaign unit allocations (?).

I'm not good at the games in general but they're kind of fun, just wondering if any of them are worth a new playthrough. I also have airland battle and european escalation if those are better balanced by not having boats. Never managed to complete all the campaigns, I'm just looking for the best ones.

Tankbuster posted:

Stereotypes are the other side of having a cool faction identity. A lot of the unit blandness is made up for by good voice work and general unit banter. People still quote the "AKs for everyone" or "China Will Grow Larger" but what is even the american equivalent.