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eris
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I prefer not to send email from my private account. So I'll post a reply.
Try something like this. (This is a challange I have tried to meet before in describing to non-gaming why I am addicted to this strange map-looking thing on my computer.)
Civilization is a game that gives the "feel" of guiding a culture from its earliest start as a tribe of settlers up to modern times. It is NOT an exact simulation of history. It has its antecedents in pre-computer military stategy games where tiles representing military units of various strengths were moved across maps representing historical or imaginary battlegrounds. Civilization adds an additional factor to that military strategy by allowing the player control of various economic and cultural aspects of their empire. This is done through the concept of a collection of "cities" that make up an "empire". Each city has a surrounding area of geography that affects its capabilities and production.
The player then makes a series of decisions regarding the cities and the improvements made to the surrounding geography. For example, an area might be "irrigated" to increase food production which increases population in the city. An area might be "mined" to increase the production capability of that city. "Roads" can be built to increase mobility of units and the commerce of the city. The production and commerce go to create and support military units, such as ancient age spearmen and archers or modern age tanks and infantry as those become available. The production can also go to improvements in the city, these improvements can increase the happiness of the citizens, the military defense of the city, or the production capacity of the city. Each decision involves a trade-off of factors that can sometimes be quite subtle and intriguing.
All of this is overlaid with considerations of concepts such as Diplomacy, Scientific Research and Culture impact, each concept affecting all other aspects of the game
The overall balance of decisions leads to the acheivement of various "Victory" goals. The standard victory, going back to the military strategy antecedents, is a military one. If you conquer and eliminate all other civilizations, you have won. Other victory conditions involve Diplomacy, Scientific achievements, or Cultural dominance. The choices allow for different playing styles and different outcomes from one game to another.
The game starts with a large selection of historically based Civilizations: England, Carthage, China, Egypt, and many others. The Civilizations each have initial characteristics and starting advantages that add to their having individual "personalities". Some are militarily aggressive, some are oriented towards scientific research, some are oriented towards cultural dominance. On top of these starting personalities, the player adds an individual personality based on the accumulation of decisions made, pushing towards a commercial empire, making a giant military, or whatever style of play the player chooses.
This wide variety of decisions represents a complexity that can daunt the beginning player, but the complexities have been reduced to a relatively few set of controls and menus that allow the player to choose what level of control they wish to exert over their Civilization. Some players will want to "micromanage" the tiniest details. Some players will allow the citizens and workers to make many of the decisions themselves. Everyone can find the level of play that is satisfying to them.
The end result is an immersive "experience" of being in an epic story starting at 4000 BC and moving to 2050 AD (unless you win earlier!), of being a guiding light for your people and achieving superiority over the world despite many obstacles, unexpected events, and of course, all those other Civilizations that are trying to do the same thing.
Civilization III PTW changes the experience by elevating from player vs computer Civilizations, to player vs player. As complex as the computer players may be, they are still not as complex and devious as another human. Many people have found that this option adds a whole new set of challenges to a game with many levels of challenge already built in.
So, what would you do if you were Cleopatra, leading your people towards their rightful destiny? Would you make war? Would you build a commercial empire that no one else could ever match? What compromises would you be forced to make along the way? Try Civilization III and you might find out.
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eris
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quote:
Originally posted by benstandby
Wow, well said.
All of this said, I didn't mean I need somebody to actually write the description for me, but yours includes elements that mine lacked which was why I posted here. Thank you. Let me know if I can quote you.
Thanks
Gotta love the threads |
All that I put up on the forums is presented to the comunity as a gift. I do not have the strategic analysis skills that others exhibit, but I do have some skill with words and an occasionally unique viewpoint. We all give what we can. Your original post talked about the Civ community. This-giving-what-you-can is, in my mind, at the heart and the backbone of that community. And I do appreciate the kind words in folks' responses to my description. The responses and their tone are part of the community, too.
Use what you find of value with all my blessings. (Just so long as you don't share these secrets with the Babylonians, who are my main irritant (read "target") at the moment.)(he I have to consider the Americans, the Vikings and the mongols, who are setting up a hitory of cooperation among themselves and could become sort of alliance. That would be inconvenient, possibly painfully so.)
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04-09-2003 11:18
, why dont you talk to some of the newseditors or owners , ......... 
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