Shields Vs. Hammers

[SmartJock2112]

Ok, call me a purest, or a traditionalist, or just insane, but why did they have to get rid of shields? I guess a hammer does make more sense if your building something, and using shields to represent production is kind of silly. But I still am going to miss production units being called shields.

Okay, it's silly, but I'm bored; so I did this, could be interesting

 

[ThePersian]

Sounds good, logical.

 

[RegentMan]

They'll always be shields to me. I'll just have to be sure not to let that slip in a future Civ IV thread. "The British declared war on me, so in order to save shields..."

 

[rschissler]

So what was the idea behind choosing "shields" anyway?

 

[greekguy]

i don't really care what they call them, it's still the same: resources and such for producing stuff.

 

[Chieftess]

I'll still call them spt.

SLEDGEhammers per turn!

 

[Trade-peror]

Hammers are used to build things, but they shouldn't actually be consumed (or everything in Civ is made of hammers!), so the Civ4 use of "hammers" really makes no sense. Sure "shields" don't make sense, but neither do hammers, so I don't know why they chose to change the tradition.

 

[mitsho]

They are but names, so I don't care whatever it is, however googlefight tends heavily towards shields...

shields: 8,820,000 results
hammers: 1,860,000 results

so, I think we should stay with shields ... The Great Oracle has spoken...

mitsho

 

[Sullla]

I've been playing Civ games for over ten years now. They will always be shields to me.

Why are they called shields? In the original Civilization, the correct name for the production unit was actually "resources" (this would have caused all kinds of confusion if that name were still being used!) But since the term "resources" was fairly awkward to use, the word "shields" (since the icon displayed little shields) came into common usage instead.

EDIT: Here's what the City Screen looked like in the original Civilization for you young'uns (and it was much more primitive in the DOS version!)

 

[apatheist]

Shields are dumb. For me, it goes back to the fundamental issue that production doesn't come out of the ground. Production comes from labor. Yes, production consumes resources, but you're almost always limited more by labor than raw materials. Hammers are a better fit for that than some abstract resource.

 

[rschissler]

Production comes from labor.

Maybe instead of "shields" or "hammers" they should use "beads of sweat".

 

[Lockesdonkey]

Actually, since my first exposure to Sid's games was through SMAC, I tend to use "minerals" half the time. So it doesn't really matter.

 

[Sub]

Shields ftw!

I've been playing to long to call them Hammers.

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

Hammers makes more sense than shields, so they should be called hammers.

 

[TruePurple]

I'd like production to come from pop specialists dedicated to working on what ever project. We should call it work and use hammers to demonstrate it visually.

 

[North King]

We should replace it with another system altogether!

But I doubt I'll even notice the change, and still call them shields in my rare technical discussions.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Ok, call me a purest, or a traditionalist, or just insane, but why did they have to get rid of shields? I guess a hammer does make more sense if your building something, and using shields to represent production is kind of silly. But I still am going to miss production units being called shields.

Okay, it's silly, but I'm bored; so I did this, could be interesting

Actually, there is another Sid Meier's game using hammers to represent production. And that game is named : COLONIZATION.

In that game, hammers were designating the wooden-made production, and tools were designating metal-made production. For instance, we needed hammers to build a fence around the colony, however we needed also tools to build a mill.

So, traditionally speaking, it's not a revolution to talk about hammer in a Sid Meier game. We are just making birth again something coming from an old game which I enjoyed a lot when I was younger.

However, I tend to believe that, if the idea is to represent production, using the symbol of a tool would be even better than the one of a hammer. After all, a tool can be anything...

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Man, those two screenshots really bring back some memories-memories of whole weeks spent with less than 2 hours sleep a night . Either that, or the drugs I'm on are starting to cause FLASHBACKS!!! .
Anyway, I admit that hammers is still not technically correct, but it is a step up from shields-which never really made sense to me-and, yes, a complete overhaul of the relationship between raw materials and final output-via labour-would have been great to see!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.

 

[SmartJock2112]

Actually, there is another Sid Meier's game using hammers to represent production. And that game is named : COLONIZATION.

That's true, I have played Colonization and I think it's a great game as well, I forgot about that. Wow, I never expected to get these nostalgic responses, those sceenshorts sure do bring back some memories

 

[REX GRACCHVS]

yes, looking at those makes me thnk back on the good old years, so ok, i havent been playing civ for 10 yrs, only about 5, but still...