Sid Meier's Civilization

[Rome's rightful successor]

"Ackshually", there's a Europe-focused WW2 scenario in Civ 2 where Hitler leads the Axis by default. And the player can play as the Axis (among a number of other factions).

But is there a one where you can play him in the main game? No? I did not think so.

 

[Foxxo]

I've heard that they're giving up on the new terrain generation for Civ 7 and letting you play Civ 6 worlds in it instead, which they're calling "Standard" worlds. They will allow Quick Restart for "Standard" worlds, since at least in Civ 6 worlds your start doesn't look identical in every single game.

 

[Sweeter and Savoury]

you wanna know what killed Civ 6 for me?

The archers

The archers are such...well faggots in the way they shoot. The arrow is slow, the twang is weak and cringe and it all feels well...faggy. I loved the Longbow men of Civ5 who allowed me to dominate in the medieval period with that extra hex of range and extra attack strength.

In Civ6...well the archers look and feel pathetic even if they function pretty much the same but once I saw it I could not unsee it and so the game was soured for me.

Weird what can set you off, such a small detail and yet it pretty much killed any desire I had to play the game going forward.

 

[Kane Lives]

I've heard that they're giving up on the new terrain generation for Civ 7 and letting you play Civ 6 worlds in it instead, which they're calling "Standard" worlds. They will allow Quick Restart for "Standard" worlds, since at least in Civ 6 worlds your start doesn't look identical in every single game.

Source? The whole reason they had the ass worldgen in 7 was to accomodate their shitty Age design. That assumption was baked into the entire game so to backpedal now would probably break the game for real.

 

[Computer God Autism]

Endless Legend II gameplay, Amplitude's keeping districts so I doubt that 7's disaster will really affect their design philosophy in the immediate future beyond, hopefully, what not to do.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Today, although hindered by severe government budget cuts, the exploration of space continues. Plans in the near future call for continued orbital exploration via the space shuttle program, and the eventual construction of the multi-national, manned space station "Freedom" in the early 21st century.​

- Civilopedia entry on Space Flight, Civilization II (1996)

So the ISS was originally going to be called "Freedom"?

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

you wanna know what killed Civ 6 for me?

The archers

The archers are such...well faggots in the way they shoot. The arrow is slow, the twang is weak and cringe and it all feels well...faggy. I loved the Longbow men of Civ5 who allowed me to dominate in the medieval period with that extra hex of range and extra attack strength.

In Civ6...well the archers look and feel pathetic even if they function pretty much the same but once I saw it I could not unsee it and so the game was soured for me.

I'd argue the bigger problem in Civ6 was that the City Walls strike was too powerful compared to the commensurate free-ranging Ranged units. And City Walls were way too overpowered themselves in terms of their own HP and the very few ways during short windows in the game that an attacking force could actually conquer them effectively.

Civ6 has a mechanic where the damage done by a City Walls strike upgrades every time you produce a new Ranged or Siege unit for the first time. This means that most City Wall strikes can kill any unit within its range in about 2 turns. They will also often one-shot weak Ranged and Siege Units from earlier eras.

With the City Walls tank-like immunity to most damage and bulletsponge HP, cities are almost impossible to conquer without massive unit or tech advantages. If not, you helplessly watch as they pick off your sieging units one-by-one. Since unupgraded Catapults, Trebuchets and Bombards also can't Shoot&Move on the same turn without either a Level 3 upgrade or a Great General nearby, your Siege Weapons often are too hurt to actually get a shot off without dying themselves.

It gets even more bullshit when an enemy city has a garrisoned Ranged unit and/or another Encampment providing more strikes per turn. AI cities become nigh impregnable even if you have wiped out their entire defense force.

This also compounded the AI problem that the way-too-OP City Walls mechanic meant that the AI's limp capacity to wage war on either human players or their AI neighbors became way worse as the AI was incapable of capturing a single city after Ancient Walls were unlocked and went up without insane levels of tech/military dominance allowing them to simply brute force their way passed the mechanic.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

you wanna know what killed Civ 6 for me?

The archers

Urealistic how archers can fire a volley of arrows across the English Channel. Civ II Archers better.

 

[I_Lurk_Here]

Played some Old World today. Does anyone know if they've ever used AI to aid with art? I know the game is older than that but I specifically think for the new Civs it could have been used. Especially since they just coincidentally gave their game that "artstyle" years before AI took off.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Something I liked doing when younger was put Warcraft II CD in CD drive when playing Civ 2, so it'd be WC2 OST playing to Civ 2 gameplay. Only track 1 on both CDs is 'ware.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Spoiler: Boring autism

I've spent a lot of time (on walks) puzzling over what exactly the Old World laws are supposed to be. A big chunk of what I get out of mapgaming is basically interpreting the kind of abstract game into a full, rich story. And of course Old World doesn't really have the flexibility or detail to portray a lot of government forms. What I've come up with:

TYRANNY VS CONSTITUTION
The basic axis about the meta-rules about how political rules are made. This says nothing about whether there is a well-organized body of law itself, but is instead about the notion that there is law about how you make and interpret law. So a constitutional society can be completely despotic or republican, it can have a limited or a completely unlimited government, but either way it has clear procedures about how its own government is constituted. Tyranny is pure despotism.

DIVINE RULE VS LEGAL CODE
The underlying ideological rationale for the state, as opposed to its meta-rules or its actual laws. A Legal Code society roots its authority in the notion of an underlying (whether changeable or unchangeable) legal code. It may or may not have aspects of divine rule through its state religion, but the existence of that particular state is justified by it being the representative of a law code representative of that culture. Rome, for example, had pagan state religion (something that contradicts a legal code in the game rules), but the Roman identity was ultimately rooted more in its civil law than in its religious institutions.

Divine Rule, on the other hand, represents a society going higher than just a cultural identity/set of practices to claim direct authority based on some religious rationale. Not just that it is there, but that religion, not cultural tradition, is fundamental to the state. This is why a pagan religion can only be a state religion through Divine Rule: if you practice a religion that is peculiar to your culture, that does not make the sort of universal claims or the demands of intense and exclusive loyalty of a world religion, it is a weak foundation for power. Divine Rule could be represented in monarchical or republican fashion, it can be tyrannical or constitutional, but it does mean that the underlying ideological basis for the entire society is its choice of religion, not its own people.

World religion Divine Rule likewise takes on different flavors depending on whether you control the religious head/holy city or not. This can be God's Holy Governor like a Pope, a Caesar like the Byzantines, a Caliph, but it can also be like a feudal society where England and France and Spain are all distinct cultures and states but are merely subordinate to the religious head in their need for authority.

Combine these with other laws and you start to get a feeling/can tell a story. I do think the game could really use Polis as a third option in between Centralization and Vassalage, though. I usually roleplay Vassalage for Greek and Mesopotamian style city-state civilizations, but to me "Vassalage" really implies Persia (devolved government) and Carthage (vassal swarms).

MONOTHEISM VS POLYTHEISM
This really really should be a Doctrine for World Religions, not a law, and I hate its premise. What I see this as really representing is a distinction between centralization and decentralization in the religious institutions, since Polytheism is necessary to propagate shrines (organized folk religion) beyond a few sites. This got me thinking about how religions really spawned. I said I like this better than Civ VI's Mad Libs religions, and I do, but I do think there is something off in having Judaism spawn from Ranchers. Like, yeah, having a lot of shepherds is certainly very Jewish, but I'm not convinced that shepherds are the thing that caused Judaism to evolve...

To me, it looks like historically monotheism was developed generally as an attempt to streamline the religious institutions in order to better control them. (Really, to make them practical state religions.) Akhenaten was motivated by that; the Hebrews merged YHWH with El to create the Jewish God; Zoroastrianism did that with its Aryan paganism.

What makes Judaism different from Zoroastrianism, though? You could certainly argue that Judaism may have been spurred on by the Zoroastrian example, and definitely that Christianity has an imprint of Zoroastrianism on it through its doctrine of a messiah. But I think you could also just as well argue that while we might be able to trace the idea, historically, it isn't necessary; you can have no Zoroastrianism in the world at all and still independently come up with Jesus, whereas you can't have a Jesus without having a Moses. Difference between being influenced by ideas and literally building upon ideas.

To me, I think what it comes down to is that Judaism's character is defined by being an ethnic sect in a highly competitive world. The Jews were in a deathmatch with other Phoenician cities - very decentralized - and developed their religion as an expression of cultural narcissism, an adaptation that helped them to survive. Chosen People. On the other hand, Zoroastrianism became a tool of universal monarchy since it spread with a culture that was quickly conquering others. Finally, Christianity as we know it is arguably as much about having other cultures, even another universal monarchy, interact with Judaism as it is the metaphysics. Christianity requiring a twelve-citizen empire isn't that bad, since it can kind of kill two birds with one stone by representing the role of the urban poor in propagating it and the fact that the realm is big enough to have that many urban poor (and hence a reasonable candidate for universal monarchy).

I don't know how exactly you represent these things, but I feel like it would involve choices of laws, neighbor interactions, whether or not you have diverse cities.


ROLEPLAYING
For example, as Egypt I recently had a game where I wound up being forced to convert to Zoroastrianism. I was on Highlands and Carthage forward settled me. I was blobbing fast, and I wound up in a war of choice through an event, but Carthage stomped me. Later THEY provoked another war and were screaming down on me, with a push would have overrun the whole empire. But I brokered a treaty in time, was subjected to Versailles-style reparations. Had to basically set everything else aside and run nothing but Treasury projects and Hamlet construction, massive economic growth, to stabilize, although it laid the foundations for a massive boom.

Normally I would roleplay switching to my homegrown religion (Judaism), but I couldn't do anything but try to realign diplomatically with Zoroastrian Carthage, and so I did. In time I outgrew them (they were boxed into a corner) and ultimately consolidated my victory (I was heading to win anyways) by overruning a very, very weak Greece that had already been broken by Assyria. My empire didn't totally span the map from west to east, but it nearly did, I had a huge frontage against the two Manichean Mesopotamian realms to the south, and had become the only empire to really punch into another nation's plateau.

So the way I ended up interpreting it was that my Egyptian state was a Chinese-style bureaucratic monarchy. It was Tyrannical with a Legal Code, maybe Elites (I think?) and Calligraphy (writing is highly valued socially). Judaism was a popular, indigenous faith of the masses, while Zoroastrian remained a lofty and elite religion of the nobility precisely because Judaism is ethnic in character (YHWH's covenant with Egypt) while Zoroastrianism's tendency towards universal monarchy encouraged the deepening of relations with Carthage, Rome and Persia and because its ceremonial character mixed well with court pomp.

As a divided society, Egypt practiced Tolerance and Polytheism, yet also had Volunteer Holy War crusader armies. As Egypt emerged onto a global stage, the equivalent of any two of its three coreligionists, the preeminent world power, centrally-located and along a major religious faultline, it began to develop a notion of Zoroastrianism as a sort of religion that was compatible with and could contain/tolerate other religious traditions while still being of severe importance in and of itself. Religion that doesn't have to kill other religions to spread itself, but does insist on itself. Carthage became the old civilization that controlled the clergy, but Egypt became the political-diplomatic-military face of it, much like France, Spain, Austria or Holy Rome as a Defender of the Faith even if the Papal States was the intellectual core of Catholicism.

Egypt was also a fairly free society (most of the "free" policies just look clearly better to me, like Colonies and Freedom and Vassalage if there's not a ton of marshes around).

 

[Shining Wit]

I'd argue the bigger problem in Civ6 was that the City Walls strike was too powerful compared to the commensurate free-ranging Ranged units. And City Walls were way too overpowered themselves in terms of their own HP and the very few ways during short windows in the game that an attacking force could actually conquer them effectively.

Civ6 has a mechanic where the damage done by a City Walls strike upgrades every time you produce a new Ranged or Siege unit for the first time. This means that most City Wall strikes can kill any unit within its range in about 2 turns. They will also often one-shot weak Ranged and Siege Units from earlier eras.

With the City Walls tank-like immunity to most damage and bulletsponge HP, cities are almost impossible to conquer without massive unit or tech advantages. If not, you helplessly watch as they pick off your sieging units one-by-one. Since unupgraded Catapults, Trebuchets and Bombards also can't Shoot&Move on the same turn without either a Level 3 upgrade or a Great General nearby, your Siege Weapons often are too hurt to actually get a shot off without dying themselves.

It gets even more bullshit when an enemy city has a garrisoned Ranged unit and/or another Encampment providing more strikes per turn. AI cities become nigh impregnable even if you have wiped out their entire defense force.

This also compounded the AI problem that the way-too-OP City Walls mechanic meant that the AI's limp capacity to wage war on either human players or their AI neighbors became way worse as the AI was incapable of capturing a single city after Ancient Walls were unlocked and went up without insane levels of tech/military dominance allowing them to simply brute force their way passed the mechanic.

Siege units my man. Battering Rams are great for crippling city defences quick and Siege Towers are good if you've got enough units to swarm a city. Barely anyone builds Renaissance Walls (I find Steel and the modern city defences come too quick to bother with them, personally) so they work until you can get artillery and balloons to outrange city defences.

I do think they're quite powerful, but the idea is a siege is something that should require planning, reinforcements and a bit of a time commitment forces you into using the rest of the mechanics

A shame the AI cant figure it out but that applies to all of civ 6

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

Siege units my man. Battering Rams are great for crippling city defences quick and Siege Towers are good if you've got enough units to swarm a city. Barely anyone builds Renaissance Walls (I find Steel and the modern city defences come too quick to bother with them, personally) so they work until you can get artillery and balloons to outrange city defences.

I exclusively play PvE, so my experience may be different.

But the AI, particularly on max Deity difficulty will reliably build the strongest level of Walls unlocked in every city.

There are simply too many strategic deadzones wrt Sieging cities. Renaissance Walls have no counter but overwhelming brute force. Steel walls are even worse, effectively making all Modern Units obsolete except Bombers and Rocket Artillery. And Bombers are annoying because they come quite late in the tech tree (and aren't very fun because the AI doesn't build AA guns or their own planes as a counter. Bombers are also too OP).

Once the AI builds Renaissance Walls, it's very hard to conquer a city if you don't have a significant tech or military advantage, even if you've devastated their entire standing army.

The Battering Ram and Siege Tower mechanics are unique and fun for the earlier eras. But the design of the 3rd and 4th level Walls, combined with the BS City Strike mechanic, makes the second half Domination gameplay very tedious until you unlock Bombers. After which, the game switches to being boring for lack of challenge and opposition.

 

[Shining Wit]

I exclusively play PvE, so my experience may be different.

But the AI, particularly on max Deity difficulty will reliably build the strongest level of Walls unlocked in every city.

There are simply too many strategic deadzones wrt Sieging cities. Renaissance Walls have no counter but overwhelming brute force. Steel walls are even worse, effectively making all Modern Units obsolete except Bombers and Rocket Artillery. And Bombers are annoying because they come quite late in the tech tree (and aren't very fun because the AI doesn't build AA guns or their own planes as a counter. Bombers are also too OP).

Once the AI builds Renaissance Walls, it's very hard to conquer a city if you don't have a significant tech or military advantage, even if you've devastated their entire standing army.

The Battering Ram and Siege Tower mechanics are unique and fun for the earlier eras. But the design of the 3rd and 4th level Walls, combined with the BS City Strike mechanic, makes the second half Domination gameplay very tedious until you unlock Bombers. After which, the game switches to being boring for lack of challenge and opposition.

Just get artillery with balloons and you can whittle away at walls safely outside citystrike range.

I do agree that it does make Domination suffer a window between Renaissance and Atomic, but I like that the safety is a reward for committing resources to the walls. I think the angle is meant to be showing the change in war in the 20th century. Maybe the city defences with Steel should have been nerfed, like being based off of a garrisoned unit

The AI being shit is the central problem at all of this. I wonder how easy it is to fiddle with the files for it, i'd love to just add something that makes it focus on building units during wars

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

The AI being shit is the central problem at all of this. I wonder how easy it is to fiddle with the files for it, i'd love to just add something that makes it focus on building units during wars

Over on the CivFanatics.com forums, I've seen some of Civ6's harshest critics say that mods nerfing City Wall strength really does help the AI conquer both player and other AI cities more efficiently and makes warfare and borders in general more dynamic.

Though I have somewhat recently started to play modded Civ6, I haven't tried out such dramatic mod gameplay changes myself.

I could see it helping though, as the AI does waste tons of Melee & Cavalry units by slamming & suiciding them into City Walls while doing next-to-no damage.

 

[Shining Wit]

Over on the CivFanatics.com forums, I've seen some of Civ6's harshest critics say that mods nerfing City Wall strength really does help the AI conquer both player and other AI cities more efficiently and makes warfare and borders in general more dynamic.

Though I have somewhat recently started to play modded Civ6, I haven't tried out such dramatic mod gameplay changes myself.

I could see it helping though, as the AI does waste tons of Melee & Cavalry units by slamming & suiciding them into City Walls while doing next-to-no damage.

Main things i see the AI do that is insane are:

- Still trying to build a wonder for 80 turns even as their cities fall
- Not devoting resources to reinforcing their army during a war
- Not utilising support units
- Not moving intelligently (just sending a catapult with no-one to defend it)
- Not using raiding as a mean to build science and culture (and conversely, they often leave pillaged districts broken for ages after a war)
- Not keeping a standing army, even if small

Whilst I doubt we'll ever have an AI that can employ advanced strategy, it doesn't seem too far outside the pale to have a few checks for the AI to make to not fail to attempt to keep their empire alive

 

[Jesus Swept]

In non-civ copium news, Amplitude have started sending out beta invites for Endless Legend 2.

Humankind was a bit of a shitshow. I still sort of like it, but the changing civs dynamic just turns every game into a big indeterminate mulch. You can't tell who built a city, who your enemies are, what they're capable of, what their personality is meant to be. Every city basically has a random name, since you'll be a different civ every time you build one. The storytelling aspect and diplomacy is a huge part of civ games for me, but in Humankind it just isn't there. And even in terms of pure gameplay, I figured out the best set of civs within like 3 games and never really deviated from it.

Endless Legend goes hard in the other direction, and I love how weird the different races are. There's ones that don't use food, ones that don't use science, the Morgawr don't make their own armies and hire neutral units for everything, and can mind control barbarians from anywhere on the map and use them for shenanigans.

 

[whatever I feel like]

Today, although hindered by severe government budget cuts, the exploration of space continues. Plans in the near future call for continued orbital exploration via the space shuttle program, and the eventual construction of the multi-national, manned space station "Freedom" in the early 21st century.​

- Civilopedia entry on Space Flight, Civilization II (1996)

So the ISS was originally going to be called "Freedom"?

Yes, it was changed to ISS when the Soviet Union fell and they were allowed to join it as a group project (Freedom was going to be the US largely going it alone.) This switchup kind of cucked ISS though, they had to lower its orbit so Soyuz could reach it, though that proved very useful when the shuttles were retired early for being death-traps.

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

In non-civ copium news, Amplitude have started sending out beta invites for Endless Legend 2.

Humankind was a bit of a shitshow.

I know Amplitude split from Sega at the end of last year.

Humankind became super sus to me when I saw that this was the developer/social media lead that was demoing the game on stream back in 2020 during the alpha/beta phase pre-release.


Nitter - Looks like they've scrubbed their Twitter, likely to immigrate to BlueSky
Nitter archive from 4 months ago

 

[Rome's rightful successor]