WAY off topic from this forum normally discusses, but I saw in an earlier thread you guys mentioned civ games and were pretty knowledgable about them. Seeing as how you're some of the most insightful people I've ever read, I'd like to know your opinion of Civ5.
Myself, I hate it. It's a step backwards and I returned it. Everything is broken and the new "great" combat system is a joke.
I'm a big fan of Civ IV, although the political options are pretty much a joke and definitely do not hold up to Austrian analysis, it's still a fun and addictive game. The critiques of the some of the game options that I saw on the forums here were great, love the application of AE to games and pop culture. I got Civ V as a gift but have yet to play it due to lack of free time, my non-Austrian friends liked it but I wouldn't say it had the same addictive qualities of the previous game. I really wish Sid Meier would learn something about economics, his whole team seems oblivious to how economic systems actually function.
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I know what you mean, one of the random events in Civ4 is "creation of central bank" and causes 50% reduction in inflation. I laughed so hard. I think you have to accept it with a grain of salt though, because in order for the game to work there has to be government, so I don't worry about it.
You wanna tell me about why Civ4 is better than Civ5? I never tried any of the Civ games until part 5. I decided to play one long game on the "world" map, and it was fun and addictive. Until I got to the very end where there seemed like there was nothing left to upgrade...I felt that well...I didn't want to do that all over again.
Instead of Civilization, it should be called Regulation. Or maybe Dictatorship.
The Civ games are basically a monarchy simulation.
I love both Civ III and Civ IV. I never get very far though, cause I keep my people in a state of anarchy for ideological reasons, and apparently people stop working and starve...
One time I got very far though, and the research window popped up saying ''Communism - recommended (economy)''. I followed their advice, and guess what happened. The Aztecs invaded and killed everyone. So Civ can teach valuable lessons.
Civ IV wasn't as fun as Civ IV: Colonization. Civ V is funner than Civ IV, but not as fun as Civ IV: Colonization, which allowed me to pay the native americans for their land. Can't wait till Civ V: Colonization comes out.
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
I don't know, Daniel, Civilization IV has a wider range of mods and custom maps available simply by virtue of being an older game, while Civilization V just has an overly simplistic Genghis Khan scenario in the vanilla box and not much range of good mods released yet.
Mods are a big deal, because one wants to experiment much beyond the limited vanilla game quickly. Actually, there were some pretty good in-the-box vanilla mods in Civilization IV as it was, because it had the American Revolution and the North African theater of WWII. In the latter, I played the Lebanon/Syria as under French rule and then conquered Turkey, then Greece, then parts of Italy.
Caley McKibbin: The Civ games are basically a monarchy simulation.
Nah, you have to run the economy with an iron fist, whereas a monarch could opt for extensive privatization (which would lead one only with a tax and army command tab).
As for the topic I agree that Civ V was a step backward form IV. I still can’t believe that they did away with the terrific wonder vids form IV.
I find Sid Meier games very unmemorable. I guess they somehow appeal to the simple-minded en masse. The good sort of game like "Free Enterprise" went the way of the dodo. Obviously too much thinking required there. The entire game industry since the 1990's has been reskinned clones of Masters of Orion, Command and Conquer and Wolfenstein. Virtually no functional improvement has been made.
The forum is frequented by quite a few software developers - complain in details, and your wish may be granted. Are you complaining about some obvious functional improvements not being implemented, or about lack of imagination in game designers who just cannot come up with great ideas (but you have no specific suggestions yourself)?
I blame the demographic more than the devs. It's the same with everything. After anything becomes popular it gets dumbed down.
I don't think an austrian-flavored civilization-like game would be very fun to play. Can you imagine a tagline like "Sit back and watch your civilization self organize!"
Can you imagine a tagline like "Sit back and watch your civilization self organize!"
You could still subject the population to disasters when you get sick of their happiness. Here, take some tornado! No, better a cental bank!
Caley McKibbin: I find Sid Meier games very unmemorable. I guess they somehow appeal to the simple-minded en masse. The good sort of game like "Free Enterprise" went the way of the dodo. Obviously too much thinking required there. The entire game industry since the 1990's has been reskinned clones of Masters of Orion, Command and Conquer and Wolfenstein. Virtually no functional improvement has been made.
Really?
As far as 4X turn-based games go, have you looked at the improvements in the independent gaming scene?
As far as RTS games go, they were never a sophisticated genre, so it is like asking for functional improvement in smoking or pornography.
As far as FPS games go, a German/Hungarian developer, Crytek, has pushed the boundaries with Crysis - a game in which trees can be fired on in order to have them fall on enemies and in which explosives can be planted on vehicles that you drive, jump out of, and detonate as you fall of in order to kill the enemies into whom you drive.
I few of the problems I have with Civ5 are
-The terrible new diplomacy. You can't build long lasting friendships and the AI is very schizophrenic and you don't know why they're doing what they're doing. They're now also programmed to gang up on you if you start winning, effectively making diplomacy worthless. Why bother if you're trying to win and they're going to turn on you?
-The AI can't fight, at all. First game I played I think I had a 1 to 37 kill ratio. Absolutely horrible.
-Roads cost money. The designers only did this because they didn't like the way past games looked with roads every where.
-Buildings, once again, cost money.
-Each game has a way to slow down your growth, in civ 1 and 2 it was corruption. In 4, it was the money you were charged to maintain cities. Civ4 was really the only effective system because if you expanded too quickly your economy was sunk and you would fall behind. In civ5 they do empire unhappiness which is similar to corruption. It's always better to make a city and expand because it increases your production even if it makes your empire slightly more unhappy.
I'll write more as I think of them.
I'm going to have to beat civ 2 on deity. It's something I promised myself I'd do back in 1997. After that, AC, then the newer civs, all on the hardest difficulty.
Fun games.
The economic system of this game just confuses the hell out of me:
-Socialism makes building maintenance go down.
-Communism gives +5 production.
-Planned Economy reduces unhappiness caused by the number of cities by 50%.
It just makes no sense to me. It seems like they just wanted to have a bunch of random bonuses and perks you could get for your civ and then just assigned the names of random economic systems to them. The funny thing is that the Civilopedia entries for some of these aren't that bad. For the Planned Economy, they even say it's often "laughably inefficient" in practice.
Overall Civ V was a mized bag for me.
I actually liked the combat system in Civ V. It actually forces you to *gasp* use strategy. In CIv IV I used to just stack up a dozen or so units and march right through my enemy's cities. Now thanks to no-stacking and self-defending cities(which I'v long throught should have been in the game), I cant do that. I do wish they'd do something about the crappy AI though.
However I didnt like how they 'dumbed down' most of the domestic stuff. Although the policy tree has some potental. Also why the hell did they get rid of religion.
And yea, the economics of the series is a joke. But the whole point of the series is that you are playing as a giant, immortal, nearly omnipotent central planner. If the game used real economic analys, you'd do best but not doing anything. Which would seem to take all the fun out of it.
Civ V was a good game, just not as good as it's predecessor. If you really want a long and less simplified game of Civ IV, download this mod http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=9301
You mean open source? The only good 4x game IMO is Anacreon 2.
They were never sophisticated because they have all been C&C clones, with the exception of Men of War and Theatre of War.
My cpu is far too old for games like Crysis. Crytek's Far Cry is the only FPS game that actually improved something, namely the group AI.
Aside from the rare exception everything is ye olde reskinned clones of 90's games. The few economic games that still get put out are universally dumbed down to nothing. With a few modifications Tropico or Patrician III could have been made into something like David Friedman said he was working on. Instead they reskinned and dumbed down. Not even worth playing for free. There is Startopia, which is great except for the minor detail that they published it before making employees cost wages and then the company folded. It seems like the progressive design always goes belly up while the junk somehow gets pumped out year after year.
I have lots of ideas. I think the problem is that consumers don't want them. All of my favourite developers folded. Btw, I found this graph on Phil Steinmeyer's (PopTop Software) site showing sales declining after the 90's.
As for Civ/Colonization games, I'd say everything went downhill after Alpha Centauri. AC also had the economic policy system that made the most sense- not much, but more than Civ.
As far as RTS games go, they were never a sophisticated genre, so it is like asking for functional improvement in smoking or pornography. They were never sophisticated because they have all been C&C clones, with the exception of Men of War and Theatre of War.
What about Achron? They added time travel to the rts genre, increasing its sophistication. Unfortunately, its in beta.
Schools are labour camps.
How about Freelancer? It has a helluva lotta features, and if you get the Crossfire mod it becomes absurdly detailed (Despite being made in 2003)
If you want to talk realism, i played the game Capitalism II for PC many years ago. It is a terrible game, but sim city-like.
Sim Ant is probably a more fun game. And that game sucks.
I loved Civilization II for playstation, though. I haven't played the others in the series.
Theme Park and Theme Hospital were kind of cool games along these lines, too. Probably better if you like running things and seeing how they work out. Though I don't know if they have aged well. Maybe not.
Capitalism II is far too easy and also dumbed down in a way from the first. I found it rather funny that in that game it tells you exactly what demand is for everything you sell. Multiplayer would probably be good as real competition (unlike AI) would bring the selling prices down to a sensible level. Never knew anyone with the game, though.
Here are my 3 top picks for solo economic/financial games:
1. Patrician III
2. Tropico
3. Free Enterprise
I’d add SimCity-like series. Those are as close as it gets to a not-too-statist, complex non-boring game. All you have to do is imagine that you own all that land and are renting apartment to folk, hence you can do whatever you like with it.
Am I the only person who feels delightfully devious when they step into the role of Rosseau's "Great Legislator" and gets to develop a whole society? I just had a thought. Does anyone remember Deus Ex the original game? They are coming out with a second one but the first one was really great. Anyways I'm wondering if you can go through the whole first game without killing anyone. Just use the tranq gun.
'Men do not change, they unmask themselves' - Germaine de Stael
I know this will shock you, Andrew, but there has already been a second one. This is the third one.
But yes, we all like to forget that the second one happened.
I'v never tried it in Deus Ex, I know its possible to do 'no-kill' playthroughs of the Metal Gear games(except for hte first one which didnt have a tranq gun). Although the bosses can be a bit tricky to kill using non-lethal weaponry(Raging Raven is particularly painful).
Caley McKibbin: Capitalism II is far too easy and also dumbed down in a way from the first. I found it rather funny that in that game it tells you exactly what demand is for everything you sell. Multiplayer would probably be good as real competition (unlike AI) would bring the selling prices down to a sensible level. Never knew anyone with the game, though. Here are my 3 top picks for solo economic/financial games: 1. Patrician III 2. Tropico 3. Free Enterprise
I've got question about Patrician. Is "Patrician III: The Rise of Hanse" addon to original Patrician III or it is sequel?
I've never played economic strategies and Rise of Hanse is likely to be my first (as soon as I download it) because of the title. I've recently made a report in my german class about Hanse and I really absorbed in this topic.
Dinosaurs and Libertarianism: Civilization mod
Freedom has always been the only route to progress.
I read an interview with the designers of the new game, Deux Ex: Human Revolution, that confirmed that you will be able to go through the entire game without killing anyone, which is a big plus for me because I love gaming but I'm pretty terrible at combat.
"Patrician III: Rise of the Hanse" is the English version of the German expansion of Patrician II.
I’d add SimCity-like series.
I played SimCity 4 for a while. It is no more a simulation of cities than chess is a simulation of war. The way the game is designed rewards innefficient planning and makes cities comically over-industrialized. An airport is the size of a soccer field. Everything is just ridiculously out of proportion. You may as well play Tropico instead, which is basically the same except much deeper and more challenging, not just a graphically glorified plop-fest.
You can't build long lasting friendships and the AI is very schizophrenic and you don't know why they're doing what they're doing. They're now also programmed to gang up on you if you start winning, effectively making diplomacy worthless. Why bother if you're trying to win and they're going to turn on you?
You mean the real world doesn't seem like this to you?
Anyway, my turn-based strategy game of choice is Total War. It's honest about what the state is for. My only realism gripe is that temples, churches, mosques etc increase public order. :p
Anyway, my turn-based strategy game of choice is Total War. It's honest about what the state is for.
Have you played Jagged Alliance 2 1.13? You play as a mercenary army taking over a country. It essentially demonstrates a "PDA".
Agree the game felt like a step backwards, it was the first civ game where I felt that I wasted my money on it.
The tactical battles of civ 5 were a fatal mistake, archers cannot shoot at cities from hundreds of kilometers away, the tactical hex battles remind me of ww2 battle games. The sound track was not as good as civ4. They took away religion from the game, whether one likes it or not, religion was key to past civilzations so should have been left there. They had less civilizations to pick from than civ4. The AI was weak. The game slowed down very badly on large maps, much worse than anything ever on civ 4.
I was tempted to get Civ 5(as I was with Civ 4), but I heard it's a nightmare automating workers, a feature that worked pretty well in Civ 3. Central planning's not as fun with micromanagement of everything.
"When the King is far the people are happy." Chinese proverb
For Alexander Zinoviev and the free market there is a shared delight:
"Where there are problems there is life."
I'm pretty sure Civ V had as many civilizations as Civ IV proper(although the expansions to IV added quite a few), and none of the Civ games have had very good AI. .
I just remembered a game called Space Empires V that comes from the MoO family. That game is infinitely better than Civ, especially with some mods.