On the Virtues of Civilization, Part IV

Pictured: best game ever.

 Or rather: Civilization III is the best game ever

I'm continuing this series, which I began over 2 years ago, from my previous blog. We last saw me in Part III enjoying the Activision spin-off Call to Power prior to the release of the "best game ever made."

I acquired Sid Meier's Civilization III around Christmas of 2001, shortly after its release. Thanks to this newfangled Internet that had made its way into my life, it was the first upcoming game that I had specifically followed pre-release. It was also my first limited edition purchase. Pretty exciting stuff for a 14-year-old budding gamer.

Incidentally I was on vacation in Texas when I bought it (with the help of some Christmas money) from the now-defunct Electronics Boutique at the Rivercenter Mall in San Antonio, and so I wasn't able to play it for a while. When I got back home the CD drive of the family computer had failed and I wasn't able to play it for a while longer. Needless to say, by the time I actually installed the thing I was giddy with excitement. Okay, maybe not giddy. But I was very eager to start playing this latest and greatest Civilization installment. As it turned out, I was not to be disappointed.

Civilization III, like Call to Power before it, brought an isometric map view and animations into the main series. (edit: Civ2 also used an isometric view, but its graphics were static and fairly simple) It also introduced civilization traits and unique units that made selecting your civilization a strategic rather than aesthetic decision. New concepts like tradeable resources, air missions, ranged bombardment, and Great Leaders added strategic depth to the war machine. Small wonders and expanding cultural borders enhanced the peaceful-builder side. While previous installments looked and played more like a board game, the world really started to come to life in Civ3. Its game mechanics were sophisticated but balanced. Empire management was more comprehensive, combat more strategic, and diplomacy more immersive.

Best of all, Civ3 featured a powerful and accessible scenario editor, which was vastly improved with the Conquests expansion- an add-on which was all about custom scenarios. If modding Civ3 was popular before Conquests, it really took off afterwards. The new features unlocked by the improved editor sparked a second "Golden Age" for Civ3 in 2004-2005, well beyond the typical shelf life of a game these days. Many veteran players to this day- I among them- insist that its well-balanced gameplay combined with its robust modding interface makes Conquests the greatest accomplishment of the series, if not all of strategy gaming. I'll talk more about modding in a later post. For now, suffice it to say that Civ3, and especially Conquests, got me into modding and kept me playing for the next decade. In fact it's the last game I played before writing this post, and the limited edition tin box is proudly on display on the bookshelf behind me. It is indeed the best game ever made.

Speaking of a decade, the "Civilization III Creation & Customization" (ie, modding) community at CivFanatics is hosting a modding awards competition in celebration of 10 years of Civ3 and in recognition of all the great contributions fans have made over the years. I'm actually in the running for "User Interface of the Decade" for a set of screen graphics I created for Lord of the Mods, which I'll cover later. If you've ever enjoyed user-made Civ3 content, come on over and join in the fun.

Next up, I'll talk more about CivFanatics and how I got hooked into the player community.

Repost: On the Virtues of Civilization, Part III

Reposted from WildWeazel

In Part II I described my introduction to the Civilization series. At this point, I've been playing Civ1 for a few years and have a serious case of "(Just) One More Turn Syndrome".

Since I didn't start playing Civ until around the time Civilization II was released, I missed the sequel. Instead, my next Civilization game was Civilization: Call to Power, a spin-off by Activision. In 7th grade I received CtP as a reward for making it to the oral rounds of the regional spelling bee. This time I got the whole product, including the large tech tree and statistics poster, and the official strategy guide, both of which were put to good use. CtP immediately became my new favorite game, and although I occasionally went back to Civ for the sake of nostalgia I enjoyed CtP much more.

Call to Power introduced many new concepts, especially to a Civ1 player. Public works improvements, unconventional warfare including slavery and propaganda, undersea and space cities and improvements, and combined arms combat all added depth to the game. A wide variety of civilizations, units, and buildings rounded out the options, ensuring that no two games could ever be the same.

I only vividly remember one game, playing as Germany on a large and populated map. I had built Berlin into the greatest city in the world, probably to the detriment of the rest of my nation. I owned a large portion of a major continent, but was locked into a stalemate with Canada on a peninsula to my southeast. For some reason I never rebuilt a major invasion force after my initial land grab, but resorted to extended stealth-bombing and ground skirmishes. Meanwhile, Brazil owned most or all of another continent in the north, and after establishing itself as a world power had continued to strengthen until none dared oppose it. It seemed content to peacefully enjoy an exponential increase in power, until I finally got frustrated at the near-impossibility of actually winning the game and decided to attack. I built several nukes and launched them adjacent to several Brazilian cities (to avoid being intercepted by the overpowered War Walkers who automatically shot down incoming air units), only to be put into my place a few turns later as hordes of Hovertanks skimmed across the ocean onto my lawn.

Speaking of War Walkers and Hovertanks, CtP had some crazy mixed in with its ingenuity. I was all for the extended future eras and expanded gameplay, but units like Eco Rangers and Televangelists were a bit on the eccentric side, and the deep-future technologies felt tack-ed on just for the cool value. Overall though, it was a well-designed and attractive product. It easily kept me entertained and addicted for the next year and a half, until the best game ever made was released.

Continued in Part IV

Repost: On the Virtues of Civilization, Part II

Reposted from WildWeazel

In Part I I explained the reason for this topic and briefly described the Civilization franchise. Let's continue.

I started playing computer games not long after my family got our first computer, when I was about 6 or 7. First it was the simple Windows 3.1 games like Mosaic and Minesweeper, then commercial games. SimTower was the first game I (and by "I", I mean "my parents, on my behalf") bought, and I quickly became a fan of Will Wright's games.

When I bought SimCity a few years later, which by then had already been around for a while, it came packaged with another game, just a CD case laminated on the front of the box, which I had never heard of. I set this one aside, eager to play the venerable SimCity. To my dismay, I could not get the game to run despite my best efforts at playing around with different system and game settings (my hacking started early), so I reluctantly turned to this free copy of "Civilization" (Civ1 DOS, for those interested) to ease my frustration.

It worked, and I spent much of the following months forgetting that I ever wanted to play Sim City. I don't remember the details of my first game, but I have plenty of memories of learning how to play- deciding that I should build additional cities before being surrounded by rivals; experimenting with diplomacy, which was then done via Diplomat units; discovering that a Trireme is a boat, and that I could now explore other landmasses; my first victory as Russia on the Earth map in which I city-spammed my way to dominance and then conquered the world; and saving all of my progress on a growing stack of floppy disks. To this day, the (now extremely rare) sound of a floppy disk writing makes me think of Civilization.

And so it came to pass that I developed a serious case of what we civvers affectionately call "One More Turn Syndrome" at such a young age. The arrival of Civilization: Call to Power did little to ease my affliction.

Continued in Part III

Book Review: Everyday Greatness

A couple of years ago I started reviewing books for Thomas Nelson Book Review Bloggers (now the awkwardly named BookSneeze), the grassroots marketing arm of the Christian publishing giant. The program sends free copies of their new books to bloggers in exchange for an honest review published to both a personal website and a retail product page. I posted a few reviews to my previous blog before going off to grad school and denouncing all non-required reading, leaving me a with a couple of books that never got read and reviewed. More than a year and a half later, I'm finally catching up.

Everyday Greatness: Inspiration for the Meaningful Life
by Stephen R. Covey and David K. Hatch

My rating: 2/5. Meh.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this book, which seemed to promise inspiration to achieve greatness in everyday life. In reality, it is basically a compilation of short stories and quotations from Reader's Digest grouped into topical chapters. The book makes no central thesis or theme, but presents several categories of thought, each further divided into three principles for better living. Each principle includes a few short stories followed by some reflective questions, and a set of inspirational quotations from such various sources as celebrities, journalists, politicians, and ancient proverbs.

The content is nothing special really. It is full of happy endings and anecdotes with no real morals or lessons beyond the individual stories. Many of the quotations are so vague or lacking in context that it would be hard to analyze them, much less disagree with them.  I found it most disappointing that this book on living a "meaningful life" would carry no explicitly Christian meaning-rather, it is the sort of bland, feel-good philosophy that you would expect from a generic, secular self-help book. There are references to God and quotes from spiritual leaders, but the book as a whole seems to be devoid of any ultimate meaning. Everyday greatness, it seems, is just an everyday sort of thing.

The book is perfectly adequate for what it is- a coffee table artifact for those days when you may need an uplifting word and don't really care where it comes from as long as it is positive. But it is really nothing more than that. I can't say I would recommend this book for anyone seriously hoping to improving their life in any tangible way. If you're looking for greatness, pick up a Bible instead.