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#58 WAR AND CIVILIZATION David Emery is looking to strike a chord between reality and simplicity in gaming. #59 A BUBBA'S EYE RATES SMAC (Part I) Roger Oepkes writes about the successes of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri COLUMN ARCHIVE

I've quit Civving. This time for real. No, seriously. I've pretty much quit all computer games except for an occasional quick deathmatch in Quake. Why? Too many things to do. Programming, role-playing Vampire: the Masquerade with friends, school, CX debate, Magic: the Gathering. And it'll only get worse; college is only 3 years away. I was never that addicted to Civ. The worst case that I had with it was once when I played Civ1 on the Super Nintendo all day without doing homework or eating. I bought CTP and SMAC. Even MGE. I never finished a single multiplayer game in any of those three. I'll still do programming for the Civ community, but I'm moving off of electronic games to the more tangible ones: Magic and Vampire. If only because it's far easier to play multiplayer.

That brings me to my topic. Civ game needs to be better at multi-player. Well, duh. Any idiot could've told you that. And this particular idiot has been trying to tell you guys for a couple of years now :). A lot of the Civ games already are good at multi-player. But all of them are still centered around single-player while multi-player is merely an afterthought. How about designing a game that's centered around multi-player and having single-player as an afterthought? Quake III: Arena is designed using this concept.

True, most people buy games for single-player (just hang around your local EB and pay attention to what the customers are saying). But why is Q3Arena going to sell well (no denying it, it WILL sell well)? Brand recognition. Every literate action gamer has heard of Quake. And every literate strategy gamer has heard of Civ. Quake I and II were single-player first and multi-player second. So were Civ I and II. Quake III is multi-player first. Though I don't expect Civ III to also be multi-player first, maybe Civ IV? The key is to establish on the well known Civ brand. Then we'll hook and more and more people into playing multi-player Civ. Good for you, good for CivLeague, good for Apolyton, and especially good for the company that can capitalize on it.

Let me throw you guys a bone you can gnaw on (did you know "gnaw" is backwards for my last name?). I'd really like options for both quick games and long games. I play Magic or Quake for a quick thrill and Vampire for a long-term month/year-spanning experience.

Now, I'm no marketing consultant or a game programmer, so I'd love to hear feedback from either or both. Or just a regular Joe Schmoe.

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