First off, I'm not sure I can commit to being a regular co-host, or even an irregular co-host
My RL schedule is in flux right now, as the school year heads towards its conclusion and my kids' activities crescendo.
I listened to the first podcast, and thought that it lacked something. While I appreciated the data on players and usage, it seemed that the hosts didn't quite have the depth of experience with the game that I expected. I just started playing, so some of these details were fresh in my mind. The game has tactics, but not much overall strategy.
Some thoughts for the next podcast:
1) Single player vs. multiplayer. Civ World is -- by design -- a multiplayer game. For those of us who enjoy playing the Civ franchise in single player, this is a change. To have any hope of winning, you must join (or found) a civilization and work together. Since there are achievements/throne room additions that span multiple games, there are also competing priorities: do I take steps that benefit me alone, or that benefit my tribe?
2) Tactics, a.k.a. micromanagement. Each player gets a city to work with. Given that many experienced Civ franchise players do micromanagement on their cities -- which citizens are working which tiles, in Civ3 and Civ4 -- this is not a foreign concept. However, there seems to be less overall *strategy* that spans multiple cities, or that spans multiple eras. The podcast could benefit from a discussion of tactics, as noted in an earlier post. Ideas include:
Build order. What buildings to build first? How quickly to grow your city? These challenges are analogous to the build order questions that new players ask when they start Civ3 or Civ4 (I don't have Civ5 yet, so it may be important there, too).
Hybrid economy vs. Specialist economy. One could build the specialized buildings for each job (market, library, granary, worker bldgs), and one of each = hybrid. Another option would be to build only one kind of building, say, production or markets, and then use the market to buy and sell resources as needed. Don't grow your own food, but buy it instead. Don't produce your own hammers, sell science to get it. How workable are these tactics?
3) Timing. A whole new dimension that has been added in Civ World which does not exist in the rest of the franchise is time-of-day, or frequency of playing. The trade route mini-game may not always be available for play. The "harvests" for collecting your resources accumulate over time; what's the best way to cash them in? Wars (esp barbarian invasions) tend to happen at certain times; is it prudent to plan for that, and time the buying of troops? What is the impact of resetting in the science maze mini-game, or the culture artwork mini-game?
On the other hand, if the overall strategy of this game is too diluted for most CivFanatics and Apolyton users, then there may never be a critical mass of us who really play CivWorld regularly. And the podcast may not have long-term success.
Check your inbox. Regular co-hosts Dustin "Methos" and Scott "AlphaShard" Dirk launch the first episode of SCivCast (SC) entitled "You Have Notifications"; now netcasting, it has a runtime of 17m00s. The summary of topics is as follows:
