Gaius Octavius
Deity
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2006
- Messages
- 4,016
For those who are enthralled by Civilization 4 (I include myself in that category), how would you feel if I told you that there was a game available as far back as 1996 that was the same format as Civilization, and included such novelties as city health systems, fully implemented religions, 3-D graphics, customized start by era, and more? Sound like Civ 4, anyone? It was called Destiny, the game of world domination from stone age to space age.
Recently, I was looking around the forum for posts related to Empire Earth when I came across an interesting post from 2001 comparing Empire Earth to Civ 3:
My immediate thought was theyve already made a game that combines these two! It was the same Destiny, published by Interactive Magic back in 1996. Destiny was the very first game of its kind (involving world domination, civilization building, etc.) that I played. In fact, it was a search for an updated similar game that led me to Civilization 3 and beyond, and its the reason I am a Civ fan today.
I am very curious to see if any Civvers out there remember this game, or have played it. It did not survive very long due to its many bugs and other faults (and the fact that it had to compete with Civ 2 probably didnt help
).
In a lot of ways, at the time Destiny was superior to Civilization--and in some ways it still is. Among its strengths were a fully implemented religion system (something Civ didnt pick up until #4), quantitative resources (Im still waiting for this, Sid!), full 3-D graphics (which werent good, but the principle was sound), and a staggering logical, sophisticated interrelation between every city building, resource, and army unit and discovery in the game, which wasnt fully attempted until Civ 4. This last aspect really made the game: it was far more complex than any of the Civ incarnations. The resource system was also pretty unique. For example: mines produce iron ore, workshops refine iron ore to make iron, factories use iron and coal to make steel, steel is required to build tanks. Veterans of Sid games will see parallels to Colonization.
It also had about four or five times the number of technological discoveries of Civ 3, spanned the time period of 7000 BC to roughly 2000 AD, and like Civ 2 had space and conquest victories. Interestingly, it was a sort of hybrid between RTS and turn-based games: you had the option of playing in either real-time format or turns, and you could even change your mind in the middle of the game if you so desired. And it had a detailed battle aspect but also the strategic layer of Civ: you could set the computer to calculate the battle results whenever your forces encountered the enemy (based on attack and defense like in Civ), or you had the option to manually fight it out in a campaign battle map whenever you felt like it. This was interesting as it assimilated both the tactical and strategic levels, something I have seen in only a few other games, such as Rome: Total War.
Destiny was developed by Wild Bill Stealy, a longtime associate of Sid Meier, hence the similarities to Civilization. In some places where Civ really shined, Destiny fell far, FAR short of the mark. (There were no Wonders of the World, for example or barbarians or a concept of culture and compared to Civ 3 and 4, the civilizations, called tribes in Destiny, seem rather general, with no unique units or buildings. They did have unique graphics, though.)
But in other places, where Civ left off, Destiny broke new ground with ideas that were ahead of their time: religion, concepts of city health and a civilization-wide educational level (which has never had a counterpart in Civ), completely tradable quantitative resources that were often produced/refined with buildings and not just acquired out of terrain, cities that could have multiple buildings or units under construction simultaneously, and a huge--and I mean huge--workable city radius. The governments were also more specific than just Despotism/Republic/Monarchy, etc, and included things like Dictator, People Rule, One Party State and Land-Owning Aristocracy. The game was even hailed as Civilization on Steroids by one computer magazine. I have made several Civ 3 mods for my own use based on Destiny, but they always fall short because its hard to implement many of the really great aspects of it, such as the quantitative resource system. (Im working on it for Civ 4, though.
)
A list of all the features (keep in mind this is way back in 1996!) :
So does anybody remember this game, and if so do you still have it and/or play it? I dont these days, because Civs taken over, but I am always looking to make a mod of it and I will release one for Civ 4 just as soon as I get BtS.
The only other person I have ever seen mention this game is Harrier, here. Looks like a very few do still remember. Ah, the good old days...
Recently, I was looking around the forum for posts related to Empire Earth when I came across an interesting post from 2001 comparing Empire Earth to Civ 3:
My immediate thought was theyve already made a game that combines these two! It was the same Destiny, published by Interactive Magic back in 1996. Destiny was the very first game of its kind (involving world domination, civilization building, etc.) that I played. In fact, it was a search for an updated similar game that led me to Civilization 3 and beyond, and its the reason I am a Civ fan today.
I am very curious to see if any Civvers out there remember this game, or have played it. It did not survive very long due to its many bugs and other faults (and the fact that it had to compete with Civ 2 probably didnt help
).In a lot of ways, at the time Destiny was superior to Civilization--and in some ways it still is. Among its strengths were a fully implemented religion system (something Civ didnt pick up until #4), quantitative resources (Im still waiting for this, Sid!), full 3-D graphics (which werent good, but the principle was sound), and a staggering logical, sophisticated interrelation between every city building, resource, and army unit and discovery in the game, which wasnt fully attempted until Civ 4. This last aspect really made the game: it was far more complex than any of the Civ incarnations. The resource system was also pretty unique. For example: mines produce iron ore, workshops refine iron ore to make iron, factories use iron and coal to make steel, steel is required to build tanks. Veterans of Sid games will see parallels to Colonization.
It also had about four or five times the number of technological discoveries of Civ 3, spanned the time period of 7000 BC to roughly 2000 AD, and like Civ 2 had space and conquest victories. Interestingly, it was a sort of hybrid between RTS and turn-based games: you had the option of playing in either real-time format or turns, and you could even change your mind in the middle of the game if you so desired. And it had a detailed battle aspect but also the strategic layer of Civ: you could set the computer to calculate the battle results whenever your forces encountered the enemy (based on attack and defense like in Civ), or you had the option to manually fight it out in a campaign battle map whenever you felt like it. This was interesting as it assimilated both the tactical and strategic levels, something I have seen in only a few other games, such as Rome: Total War.
Destiny was developed by Wild Bill Stealy, a longtime associate of Sid Meier, hence the similarities to Civilization. In some places where Civ really shined, Destiny fell far, FAR short of the mark. (There were no Wonders of the World, for example or barbarians or a concept of culture and compared to Civ 3 and 4, the civilizations, called tribes in Destiny, seem rather general, with no unique units or buildings. They did have unique graphics, though.)
But in other places, where Civ left off, Destiny broke new ground with ideas that were ahead of their time: religion, concepts of city health and a civilization-wide educational level (which has never had a counterpart in Civ), completely tradable quantitative resources that were often produced/refined with buildings and not just acquired out of terrain, cities that could have multiple buildings or units under construction simultaneously, and a huge--and I mean huge--workable city radius. The governments were also more specific than just Despotism/Republic/Monarchy, etc, and included things like Dictator, People Rule, One Party State and Land-Owning Aristocracy. The game was even hailed as Civilization on Steroids by one computer magazine. I have made several Civ 3 mods for my own use based on Destiny, but they always fall short because its hard to implement many of the really great aspects of it, such as the quantitative resource system. (Im working on it for Civ 4, though.
)A list of all the features (keep in mind this is way back in 1996!) :
Spoiler :
So does anybody remember this game, and if so do you still have it and/or play it? I dont these days, because Civs taken over, but I am always looking to make a mod of it and I will release one for Civ 4 just as soon as I get BtS.
The only other person I have ever seen mention this game is Harrier, here. Looks like a very few do still remember. Ah, the good old days...
