Anyone who relates Civilization Revolution to a true Civilization game needs to go play one of those.

The miniscule maps and sad excuse for gameplay fall short of even Civilization 2.

Sid Meier sold out on CivRev. No excuse for it.

Now give us our Civ IV: Colonization and do it right.

Johivin

Some guy on a blog didn't like Civilizations because he didn't like the poster that came with the game.

ALERT THE INTERNET!

thenino85

This guy is a lot of hot air, in my opinion. He seems to imply that min-maxing strategies are more important in Civilization games than player personality. He couldn't be farther from the truth. Maybe play one of Sid Meier's games before you seek to revolutionize the genre he fathered?

jettokisora

CivRev is a fun game. Too bad you were too cool to play it and missed it.

bobcaticus

@Ad-hominem: Same here. "Why do I have to do everything for you peons?!"

Evil Tortie's Mom

Ever heard about being succesful by satisfying a niche? Civilization itself was a niche at some point...

Stardock (just an example, many other devs are similar) follow through that concept just fine, if they just wanted to attract EVERYBODY with their games they would only develop casual titles for Wii, not 4X space strategy games for PC.

He talks of how great his game would be, but he doesn't make it because it wouldn't be a mainstream title? What kind of backwards thinking is that? If everyone thought like that then we would just get Wii party games and EA Sports' titles for every system, nothing else.

I think the guy is basically full of himself and brings up lame excuses for not making games that would compete with what people consider classics of their genre.

Agnates

What I learned from reading this article is that the level of pretentiousness of people who write about video games has grown at an alarming rate, and needs to be stopped right away!

DukeOfPwn

He doesn't know whether he is the audience for the game, since he's never even given it a try, thus invalidating his entire argument.

DukeOfPwn

Lolz, I haet civilization, my gaem would be so much bettar but I won't make it cuz then it won't sell cuz it's too good for most people, lolz!!!11

Agnates

I just find myself confused by the writing. I get mixed feelings from the entire thing. I'm not sure if he's separate from the audience for games and happy, or if he's better... I don't think I'd mind some specification.

jBusiness

What I learned from Playing the Civ demo for about 10 minutes is that tutorials are tedious.

Mr. Tambourine Man

Seems like a pretty inane ramble to me... but maybe I'm just missing his point.

Tulkamir

What I learned from playing Civilization is that "one more turn" means [i]at least[/i] a dozen more turns. And I'll buy Civ 5 on day one whenever they get around to making it, being fully aware of that fact.

Avrithor

So the guy is critical of Civilization despite never having played a single iteration of it? At the very least, he's being honest, but that's still lame.

Lezard

@Emperor_Guam: Comment of the week. I'm in tears.

.endejas.

What I learned about Civilization is that I suck at playing Civilization because I get bored with micromanaging.
"Run your own damn country, you worthless ingrates".

Ad-hominem

I learned from playing Civ 3 that boats with arrows can beat boats with cannons and spearmen when fortified can beat 3 waves of tanks before dieing.

"Admiral, what do we do? Their boat has archers on it!"

Emperor_Guam

@ara: Dude, you speak the truth. Just build a ridiculously huge army and steal technology from the cities you destroy.

dowingba

He's saying that he's realized that he is "not the audience for games, even though I have spent my life playing them." Thus, by finding out who the audience is for games in general or for a certain genre, he might be able to better himself as a writer.
I love my indie game like ThreadSpace Hyperbol, but when I tell friends about it, I include a couple of statements. That is has a Steep learning curve due to how different it is. And, that it might not be your thing, so at least try the demo, and give it a fair chance until your used to the controls and see if it 'clicks'.

HappyWulf

I learned fortified pikeman can defeat tanks.

Reikoku

One thing I learned from playing Civ is that I like to micromanage things more than I expected. It must be the control freak in me.

flashtut

The only thing I have learned from Civilization 2 is that Fundamentalism is the most efficient governmental form ever.

ara

>:(... It seems liked he wanted a completely free game void of any constraints... Wouldn't that just essentially make the game, or a lot of games, completely pointless!? Eh.. whatever.. The lol thing about this is I'm playing Civilization IV right now =D!

Katorok

Well, I guess I can agree on the idea of not having preconceptions about a certain game genre before creating a game in the genre, but, at the same time, that can back-fire on you; you'd better know enough about a genre so that you DON'T make it exactly like every game you ever played, because chances are a member of your audience HAS played those games.

My360broked

So basically he's saying "I don't play this game, so I have a life"

HobbaHobba

I get what he's saying, but a lot of the article is broad generalization, which kind of dilutes his point. Good read, tho.

XivGNP

Pretty pointless...

tooji

What I've learned from not reading the article is that he is a wanker.

ps CivRev is great. I hope there's a sequel for it after Civ5 comes out.

megazver

@Aname: *He, damnit

Aname

@jettokisora: Hi didn't father the god game genre, that would be Peter Molyneux as Polulous predated Civilization by 2 years.

@Johivin: And if I related Civ:Rev to a "true" Civ game and have played that series for years?

Aname

Anyone else having problems with CivRev? The dialogue on my version seems to be stuck on "Garbled Mess".

DanTheMagnum

Just reading that blurb was a huge waste of time.

Daiden

i can understand not liking sid meier games but its hard for me to fathom anyone who makes computer games not even playing one. that's like being in a rock band and not ever listening to a beatles or stones song. then again i know a lot of musicians that wouldn't admit to listening to the beatles or stones.

youareivan

I didn't read more then the title, but I read some replies...
I learned all I needed to know from not reading this useless post. Sorry for being a loser and liking civ games

GodKiller0

I thought this was going to be clever turns out its just kinda blah. I guess what I've learned from not reading this article all the way is...

stupidjason

*Scratches his head*

MoaM

Wow. "Because min-maxing exists, all gamers are min-maxers" what an elitist dolt.

AngryLagomorph

@Aname: I don't think many people consider Molyneux the father of anything. Sid Meier is the one who cultivated this genre from its roots to its modern incarnations.

jettokisora

@Awoken: I completely agree. I didn't find anything of substance in the statements made.

EmTeeZ

@jettokisora: I think many do consider that, since the fact is Populous was the first god game out there. Civ:Rev was the first Civ since the first that Sid Meier's been lead designer on so I don't see that he's been the one to cultivate the genre.

Aname

This is a terribly ambiguous article. The guy who wrote this essay complains about how much he hates the technology tree in Civilization 4. He's either upset on a fundamental level because games have rules (constraints on what the player can do, which are fundamental to just about every game), or because the tech tree "encodes certain preconceptions about history". I'm not exactly sure what this means. Is it a 'preconception of history' that you might need knowledge about physics before developing nuclear fusion, and knowledge about mathematics before developing physics? While we're at it, is Newton's Third Law a 'preconception of history'?

But back to the point. if there's anything in his article that's really pretentious, it's his claim that he can extrapolate what's going to 'be successful' and what's not going to 'be successful' in the gaming market solely based on his questionable prejudices. I seem to remember at least two genre-building games which went against the prevailing opinion of what a game 'ought to be', and managed to be extremely successful. The original SimCity didn't have a score or a defined 'game over' condition; The Sims was basically a suburban middle-class family life simulator. If this guy really thought his idea was outstanding and feasible, I think he would have taken it a bit further than grousing about how it would never, never ever make his clients any money.

UERD

I am not impressed by his commentary and find it shallow. It seems political types are always afraid of being on the wrong side of the fence.

Awoken

What I learned from playing Civ (4) is that I find Civ pretty dull.
I avoided war and ran through the tech tree as fast as I could, didn't quite make the Space victory but still won on points when time ran out.
Then I started a war, just to see what it was like. And what was it like? Dull, that's what.
I can't see the tech tree being interesting the second time, and for tactical wargaming there are much better games (just about any RTS or game that uses hexagonal spaces, depending on which way you want to go).
So why do people love Civ?
I honestly want to know, because I can't figure it out. Didn't get it when people spent days playing Civ2, don't get it now.

erlik

Civ is a great game, but it is Eurocentric. According to Civ, every civilization took the route through history that Europe took, which is clearly not the case.

Don't get me wrong, I love Civ.

DomoKun1

I learned that fortified settlers CAN kill a bomber with enough save and load (i.e. about 8 hours worth of it).

Max Freak

@UERD: I think a lot of his grousing about not being allowed to go through "the master narrative [of European history]", and the generalization of this statement as a whole, is due to what he implies is the main characteristic of this master narrative: progress, as an ideological facet of Modernism.

Although Civilization's (at least in terms of Civ 4) hierarchical tech tree is fairly straightforward for natural and physical sciences -- mathematics does precede physics, etc. -- it seems like he is miffed that the natural pace of the game favors balanced tech development. Bonding the development of, say, atomic physics and spiritual thought, tends to imply that the development of values in addition to empiricial thought, reflects the march of time. Although this might be historically sound for us, I think it doesn't jive well with the sort of pluralistic freedom that this blogger Chris desires from Civilization.

Of course, I think what Chris is missing out on is how the mechanics of the Civics system operates. War, for instance, is prohibitive for Pacificism, and popular sentiment can even move a state religion from Buddhism to Taoism and then back to Buddhism. To the experienced Civ player, religion and politics are well balanced and ever changing, and this is especially evident in the Spirtuality leader bonus that throws out the penalties for civic change. The bottom line is that civilizations reorganize themselves, and just as war breaks out regularly, so does the adoption of Vassalage, Theocracy and Police State.

Civilization 4 is just as prominent an example of history as a cyclical process as it is a vector. It wasn't just Europeans who saw time passing in cycles, but a great deal of early civilizations (a good example being the great Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian). Isn't this sort of depiction removed from the historical narrative Chris loathes? While it is easy at first to dismiss Civilization as covering science, technology, religion and civics as a matter of solely Modern European values, it's utterly nearsighted to claim that Sid Meiers and co. hasn't made great strides to encapsulate all of the important (even overlooked!) facets of history.

unfathomablej

Also, Sid is god.

Max Freak

Disclaimer: I have not played Civ 4, so all of my discussion pretty much focuses on Civ 1-3, Alpha Centauri, and FreeCiv. Note, however, that it is based on a lot of the above games. However, since the blogger in question has never played any of them, we're in the same boat if Civ 4 fixes any of my issues.

I have for years been bothered by the lack of quality diplomacy options in Civ games, particularly in relation to the AI. I have wanted the UN Security Council from Alpha Centauri to become a more complete subgame within the game. I have wanted aggressive diplomacy to be a viable game-winning tactic, and not just a good way to have a friendly AI park all of his units near your trade routes so you can't get caravans through and then declares war as soon as you have the gall to do the same to it.

But I also realize that quality diplomacy is limited due to various technological and developmental constraints. (That, or you can view the limitations as a somewhat astute commentary on diplomacy in general, but I digress).

This gentleman seems to be complaining that, from a tech tree perspective, he cannot make wild leaps and bounds around discoveries that fall outside a Euro-centric view of historical development. Okay. Granted, where there is possible ambiguity (does polytheism have to come before monotheism, which would imply that it is a less-advanced "technology"?), the designers familiar with European history will most likely pick a Euro-centric order of development. What he doesn't seem to acknowledge is that the game limitations (it has choices for government, but not religion, for instance) are dictating certain assumptions: the technology tree does not dictate anything outside of a system of progression. Just like someone who has researched Democracy can set their government to an earlier model, as the game does not dictate the current state religion, you can mentally tell yourself that polytheism is still your religion, even though you've developed something else as well. (Do you really think, for instance, that people who practice Hinduism have never heard of monotheistic religions?)

However, when he starts going off on Sun-Tzu and how he is a strategic gamer, not a tactical gamer, is when he seems to lose it in a cloud of armchair general elitism. As someone else in the comments points out, Sun-Tzu discussed a lot of clever ideas about warfare, but not as a means of separating strategy from tactics, rather as a means of marrying the two together in a refinement of both. His lament about how "knowing the mind of the enemy" is unimportant in gaming is also untrue: as game AI is limited, a good player will learn the mind of their enemy, and will be able to predict and second-guess them after a while. As he blames the game designers for forcing him to play a game a certain way, he also seems to be forcing Sun-Tzu's philosophies to conform to his opinions by cherry picking the teachings that relate to the type of gameplay mechanic that he finds interesting.

I think where he really went off into la-la land was with this statement: "...the kind of game whereby understanding the personality of the General leading the opposing force was more important than knowing which unit to build..." Knowing which unit to build can be a direct result of understanding the personality of the General leading the opposing force. His further lament about diplomacy and spies also ring hollow, as espionage can and is a great tool in the Civ player's toolbox. (I'll give him diplomacy to a point, but not as a developer choice, more as a programming limitation).

Jazhuis

@unfathomablej: I think that's definitely a sound point, insofar as you have a tech tree that contains 'Polytheism', 'Monotheism', 'Literature', 'Alphabet', and 'Aesthetics' (to pick a few) among the more straightforward scientific categories. Ultimately, though, you still are constrained by real-world religions and aesthetic/cultural ideas- as it might have to be, so that the game doesn't stray too far from its implied niche as a 'historical' simulation of sorts.

Still, I do agree with you about the nonlinear cultural dynamics you can get with the Civics system (switching back and forth, to whatever works best for the situation at hand). It's a pity he couldn't have been bothered to play the game to find out.

@Jazhuis: What I'm really interested in is seeing what innovative ideas he'd have to implement his game. How exactly would you get 'inside the head' of an enemy general, for example? It seems that ultimately you're either going to have some sort of list of characteristics with random weights which lends itself to the sort of costs-rewards optimizing gameplay which he so hates, or you're going to need to develop heavily scripted characters which aren't really that much fun to play against the second time around.

UERD

@Jazhuis: I couldn't help but hear the Soldier from TF2 start speaking when he started to draw on Sunzi. :)

unfathomablej

Well, sure, but so what?

Henrickson's point, as I read it, is that he doesn't like design choices in the Civ series. Honestly, speaking from a scholarly perspective, the "materialist master narrative" of the tech tree annoys me. What it doesn't do, however, is prevent me from enjoying the game.

Look, any game has certain concessions to reality. That's why it's a game. A game readapts elements of form. You can't blow up walls with a rocket launcher in an FPS. Why? Because that's the way it works. That's the way it had to work, for the game to work.

I don't think that it's right to begrudge Civ for its choices, or even for other gamers because they like it's choices.

Hendrickson is trying to paint himself into a corner, trying to make it so he's unique for not liking things that everyone else likes. But this attempt at Pitchforking is weak. The truth is there's no reason to suggest that the mass of gamers wouldn't also like a more open and creatively designed civ sim, as he suggests. It's just not what's for sale now, and not what's on the shelves now.

Slatz_Grobnik

No, he's not the audience for CIVILIZATION. If he's been playing games all his life, then he's clearly the audience for at least one kind of game.

Placentasaurus

"what i've learned by not reading this thread"

that i am a prick.

Mr.Garcia

@Aname: But Civilization isn't the only strategy-simulation game Sid Meier helped develop. Remember Alpha Centauri, Railroad Tycoon, Pirates, etc.? He may not always be the lead designer, but one of the unique things about Meier is that even after all of his success, he still contributes to the ground-work programming and design. And honestly, you can argue that Populous had a significant impact on the genre, but Firaxis nurtured it from infancy. Molyneux is more of a footnote at this point.

jettokisora

True. The audience of gaming is huge and diverse. Every person wants something different in a game, and the goal of designers is to figure out which elements popular games share in order to sell the best. That doesn't mean every game will be the same as details can change between each game.

Ryodestined