I understand that this game is a 20-year-old game and many many players have attempted many many different approaches. In the early days, it was indeed fun to explore the possibilities and try out different things, but at this time, many of us seem to believe that nearly every possibilities have been explored. So now, we tell ourselves and new players to ignore religion all in the interest of "
strong" and "
optimal" play, despite the fact that religion, clearly, is a big part of gameplay. I see wonders, buildings, techs, civics, great people, and leader traits all tailor made for that, and yet, here we are, mostly ignoring many of them just because it doesn't help us win at the highest level as fast and easy as possible. All I can say to that is PFFT. And yes, Obsolete, back in the early days, would have said the same too.
If founding a religion or two, even converting to one early, running Priests and settling them, and building religious wonders are all considered somehow
bad play, so be it. I'd consider it as nerfing myself to make the ongoing map a bit more challenging, I suppose? Why is it that I am telling myself that almost 90% of the time, I should ignore all other specialists other than Scientists... I can't speak for others, but that
defines limitation which takes away
variety, which CAN lead to burnouts. I know it
HAS, and
WILL, for me; hence why I have taken long breaks away from this game. I am not saying that the game completely lacks
any kind of
variety at its current state, but this kind of thinking certainly
DOES eliminate large part of it. If I choose to defy all this and somehow make myself look like a bad player because I am not using
"strong" or
"optimal" gameplay, so be it,
as long as I am having fun playing a "video game." And no, I don't restrict fun in a video game to
just winning at the highest level at all cost as fast as possible.
I fondly remember people posting games like
"roleplay challenges" back in the early days.... placing certain limitations or forcing us with certain rules of engagement. Those were the fun games where it encouraged us to try something funky.
Gameplay that punishes you for making bad choices? If I were stuck in a way of thinking that utilizing a gameplay element that was clearly designed as a large part of the game is considered as "making a bad choice," I would either end up rinse-repeating similar type of games at the macro level over and over where certain gameplay elements are encouraged to be completely ignored like as if it is a written textbook rule, choose to defy this and try different variety, or quit... because at that point, the game is no longer considered a good game for me to play. It is like playing a shooting game with bunch of different weapon types, only to see that people completely ignore certain types of weapons because they
suck at beating the game at the highest difficulty level.
Not sure what happened to Lain, but I am pretty sure that it had nothing to do with
@Henrik75 regularly posting his videos. If anything, we could use more people streaming to bring more interest back into this game.