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Cardboard Throne
Much as with the base game before it, I believe I’m done with Beyond Earth for now.
This is not to suggest that I believe Beyond Earth to be a bad Civ game. There are quite a few issues – some imbalances, some questionable design philosophies, etc – as pointed out in various Reddit threads dedicated to the game. However, it absolutely captures that whole addictive “I pressed End Turn for six hours in a row” part of the Civ experience. Even now, I’m getting the urge to boot it back up.
What is stopping me is the realization that what I like about the game and what the game actually does are two separate things.
My favorite part of a Civ match is the beginning, when your strategy is largely formless, reactive, as you cast your eyes about an unknown and hostile world. “Okay, let’s scout out that island.” “Ooo, a city here would capture three strategic resources!” This feeling lasts maybe the first 100 turns, beyond which everything becomes a formality, a known, an inevitability. Yes, perhaps disaster strikes, perhaps you lose a city, perhaps an enemy Civ suddenly wins with a surprise victory condition. Nevertheless, you still know what you have to or should be doing at that point – it all just becomes the mechanical action of carrying it out.
All for what? The personal satisfaction of grinding the patience of a machine to dust? If Firaxis changed the Retire button to a No Longer Delay the Inevitable button, I would win the same amount of times with at least some in-game acknowledgment of the hours poured into the equivalent of a roguelike. Do I really need to conquer those last two capitals before the game is officially over? The game was arguably decided hours ago when I stopped exploring and building cities.
This sort of reminds me of when I used to be really into RTS games like Command & Conquer and Starcraft, up until I understood the concept of Actions Per Minute. Suddenly, the game I was hitherto playing was no longer. I could not unlearn how horribly inefficient my “build six Protoss Carriers” strategies were, nor how much better I could have been playing. The three aspects of gameplay were (still) entertaining – building bases, ordering units around, micromanaging one unit’s abilities specifically – but I both understood that I was incapable of engaging in more than one of them at a time, and not particularly motivated to try to get better. If you had time to turtle up to spam endgame units, you probably had time to win much earlier. Which means I was doing… what, exactly?
There is nothing necessarily wrong with enjoying a game outside of its intended purpose, but if the box brings more joy to the cat than the toy it contained, maybe you should just have bought a box instead. Or go find a better toy.
Like I said though, if Civ and Beyond Earth is your type of game, more power to you. I used to think it was mine. But now that I see myself sitting upon a virtual throne of cardboard boxes, I am not quite sure what to think. Other than maybe I should go play something else.
[Civ5] Starting to See
Aug 29
Posted by Azuriel
Okay, okay. I’m starting to see why everyone is all “one… more… turn” when it comes to Civ 5.
After I wrote the post on Wednesday, I sat down to what ended up being an unintentional marathon gaming session. On reflection though, I am not even entirely sure why. I mean, yeah, “one more turn.” But that was sort of because A) I did nothing of any meaning the last four turns, and B) something was actually occurring. I suddenly sat up in my chair, pointed at the screen, and said “No you fucking didn’t!”
He totally did.
Whoops, that’s actually a screenshot I took because I had no idea what was going on. Good on the Civ team for going the extra, multicultural mile there, but I’ve been playing against these computers for nearly 4000 years and I still couldn’t tell you who Harun al-Rashid or Haile Selassie are, where Addis Ababa is located, how a trade route even gets plundered, or why I should really care when I can make another Caravan in 2 turns.
It is sort of funny because I ended up in the same position I remember being in way back in Civ 2: running out of things to build and just clicking End Turn until the next technology is unlocked. Pretty early in the game my capital ended up being a Wonder Farm, pumping out colossus statues and Big Bens every 5 turns until that well went dry. Then I seemed to have missed the religion boat entirely, at least until the Missionaries started pouring in from the North, giving my cities ecclesiastical whiplash every few turns.
And then… goddamn Brazil ruined everything. Or more specifically my hopes of a cultural victory.
Fine.
There was blood.
It’s funny how a little unprovoked continental warfare suddenly increases your average Decisions-Per-Turn. I wasn’t able to muster enough forces to crush the last city – 107 Defense power, what? – but that’s fine. I got the time… until nukes.
Just a few more turns…
Posted in Commentary
2 Comments
Tags: Civilization 5, Few More Turns, Nuke, There Will be Blood