Thursday 4 December 2003

Pic of the day: Civilization 3: Play the World! Or not.

Civ3 PtW hotseat

In theory, Civilization 3 is one of the greatest strategy games of all times. With the new culture aspect, it has an extra dimension and another level of realism. However, each game tends to last for days. And as the game drags out, a particular aspect of the game becomes irritating: The belligerent AI.

"The Germans are in awe of your culture" says my adviser. The Germans say: "We will give you our world map if you give us your world map and your latest civilization advance. You reject our generous offer? Prepare for war!" And then they attack.

I am not without experience with bullies, so in the next game I pour resources into the military. "Compared to these guys, we have a strong military" says my adviser. The Greeks say: "We will give you our world map if you give us your world map and a substantial fraction of all your gold. You reject our generous offer? Prepare for war!" And then they attack.

And not only that. But as the game goes on, more and more nations join the crusade against my civilization, including some I have had no contact with and others I have had a good relationship with from the start. They come from all over the globe to attack me, and somehow they know exactly what cities are least defended. Evidently they freely share all civilization advances among each other too, but not with me. (This becomes a drag once the Great Library expires.) I guess the game is made by and for Americans, and reflects their world view...

For me, it is kinda irritating. There are options for winning without world conquest, but this becomes kinda theoretical if you have a dozen nations going for your throat. It largely reduces Civ3 to a war game, negating this game's advances from the previous incarnations: Culture building, resources management, advanced trade & diplomacy.

***

Enter "Play the World", the first of two (so far) multiplayer expansion packs for Civ3. It is not new; I have had it lying around for a couple seasons at least. I mostly bought it for the new civilizations (most notably Scandinavia), and to support my favorite games developers, Firaxis. Only this week have I tried the multiplayer option. And then not to play a game over the Net, which quite frankly I don't have the time for. What I do is play in hotseat mode.

Hotseat is probably not much used these days, when even family members tend to have their own PC. But the idea is that each player sits down in front of the machine when his turn comes around. In the first part of the game, the seat would be very hot indeed; I don't see the point of sitting down at all for the first quarter of an hour or so. But as the turns grow longer, I guess it could be viable.

What I do is play all the human players myself. Enough that if needed, I can gang up on the AI if they try to pull that prank on me again. I haven't come that far yet, since I have other hobbies too. But it already lets me play in a more relaxed way, despite raging hordes of barbarians. I can finally spend more resources on culture, and I look forward to using the higher forms of government for a change.

I admit that the historic realism kinda suffers. In the real world, almost constant war was the order of the day. Although in the real world, the nations haven't ganged up all against one. (They're supposed to do that against Israel a way into the Apocalypse.) But history rolls around without my help. I just want to finish the game for once. "Play the World", ironically, seems set to make that possible. As long as you don't actually play the world.