I began playing Railroad Tycoon when I was four years old and since then I've played almost every Microprose game. In all of these games, the big challenge has always been to improve my game and develop secret strategies that I use to get a better score than my friends.
Since Civ II, almost every game has been modded in some way. I admit that I've played the WWII Mod in Civ II a couple of times for a change and I've tried a couple of the Civ IV Mods as well.
But... I would never change the rules in a standard game. However, there are now a lot of different settings in the game and upon that, the entire community seems to scream "Mod this, Mod that"... It seems impossible to compare my game with others now. In the old games, this was much easier to understand: High difficulty settings -> Better score. This doesn't work anymore, with adjustable victory conditions, ability to chose the opponents and ability to set aggressive levels.
I would like a "Play a standard game" option, with fixed rules that can't be changed by anyone but Firaxis, so that when we know what we're talking about when we discuss new strategies. Then of course there should be a "custom game" option as well for those who enjoy messing around.
My feeling is that Colonization II and even the new Civilization games have become like Spore. People like to change the graphics, adjust the rules etc. but somewhere on the way a bit of the challenge is lost. Or like in Sims, where most people seem to use cheat codes to get unlimited amounts of money so that they can buy whatever they want. When I first tried Sims back in 2000, I thought it was pretty fun to go from being poor to rich by advancing in my career, but much of the fun was ruined when I learned that most people used cheat codes to build their dream houses.
A appreciate all the work that the modders have done, but I want an official patch. I want to learn how to play a game the way it supposed to be played and not enter some sandbox mode where I can set up my own rules. However, it feels as I'm in a minority here so I thought that it would be interesting with a poll.
Since Civ II, almost every game has been modded in some way. I admit that I've played the WWII Mod in Civ II a couple of times for a change and I've tried a couple of the Civ IV Mods as well.
But... I would never change the rules in a standard game. However, there are now a lot of different settings in the game and upon that, the entire community seems to scream "Mod this, Mod that"... It seems impossible to compare my game with others now. In the old games, this was much easier to understand: High difficulty settings -> Better score. This doesn't work anymore, with adjustable victory conditions, ability to chose the opponents and ability to set aggressive levels.
I would like a "Play a standard game" option, with fixed rules that can't be changed by anyone but Firaxis, so that when we know what we're talking about when we discuss new strategies. Then of course there should be a "custom game" option as well for those who enjoy messing around.
My feeling is that Colonization II and even the new Civilization games have become like Spore. People like to change the graphics, adjust the rules etc. but somewhere on the way a bit of the challenge is lost. Or like in Sims, where most people seem to use cheat codes to get unlimited amounts of money so that they can buy whatever they want. When I first tried Sims back in 2000, I thought it was pretty fun to go from being poor to rich by advancing in my career, but much of the fun was ruined when I learned that most people used cheat codes to build their dream houses.
A appreciate all the work that the modders have done, but I want an official patch. I want to learn how to play a game the way it supposed to be played and not enter some sandbox mode where I can set up my own rules. However, it feels as I'm in a minority here so I thought that it would be interesting with a poll.