Hello there. My name is Miro and I’m a Civilization addict. Well, that’s not really true. I can go six months without playing a single game, but when I do fire up Civ II or Civ III or – as is the case most recently – Civ IV, I get stuck all day. I have had dreams of Civilization. I have sat at work, yearning for when I can get home to play some more. I have skipped school to play Civilization. (Well, the last bit isn’t particularly impressive. I’ve skipped school to do laundry or to do my dishes as well. Oh, how I long for those care-free days of yore, when I was in school and could skip, skip and skip some more!)

The tragic thing in all of this is that I’m not very good at it. I really don’t like warfare in Civilization, and except for the occasional rush at the beginning of the game, I detest having to build an army at all. I want to expand my culture, and boost my science to the fullest! But on the more difficult settings there’s always a meddlesome neighbour setting spokes in my wheels. I try telling him to not rub my circles, but he comes in and chops me down nevertheless.

In the same way, I had a quite ambivalent relationship with Medieval: Total War. I loved the game to some extent, but the constant battles made me give up on it. One interesting part of the game is the underlying layer of politics that can be noticed; noticed, but not really investigated further. For example, in the game you have daughters whom you’re supposed to marry off to various people to strengthen your bonds with them. I found that part of the game intriguing but worthless; I really didn’t see that the gain was worth the micro-management it demanded.

Thinking more along those lines inevitably made me think of a different type of strategy game: a game where you only control events in an abstract manner. No micro-management at all, and you always have sub-commanders and subordinates to give orders to instead of performing things yourself. In a game like this, relationships would matter, and marrying off your daughter would have a great impact on the whole civilized world. Some day I would like to attempt making a game like that.

In the meantime, I have Civilization. And now to the revolting part of this topic: I’m sure that I can’t be the only one who chuckles when I play as the Vikings, and a city goes into anarchy…

The Vikings are revolting!

Thanks a lot, game. I’m trying to play a serious game, and you start commenting on my troops’ hygiene. I know it’s true, but can’t you be nice for once?!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 at 11:11 am and is filed under Games, Indie Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.