Baba Yetu
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2016
- Messages
- 19
OBS: This text got big and I have work to do, so I won't review it. Expect even more English mistakes than the usual, I am certain that I've quartered the English Language at this one and I apologize for that. 
I've always thought of civilization as a simulator so I never felt any need for the concept of victory in this game. Look at my current game for example. I am playing with Gilgamesh, at Prince/Continents/Huge World Size/Temperate Climate/Medium Sea Level/Ancient Starting Era/Marathon Game Speed. After waiting too much for creating new cities, I had my way to the north closed by some recently built Spanish cities. Which was a big problem, because to the South I had only bad terrain (tundra and snow). Add to it that I wanted to play peacefully, so forcing a way to the north through a war against the Spain wasn't an option. As a result, the development of my civilization got heavily harmed and I spend most of the game so far with only 7/8 cities (in a huge map, that is so little) and I knew that I had no winning chance. But, still, I had a lot of fun simply trying to develop a strategy for survival. I've become allied of my immediate neighbours (most of them stronger than I, but we are still a lot weaker than the civilizations from the other continents) and build massive set of frigates. It worked. When Genghis Khan (which had one of the biggest armies in the world) declared war, I had enough navy power to destroy their forces way before they could reach my shores and it wasn't hard to convince Genghis Khan that it would be easier for him to direct his army for his neighbours.
But size matters in civilization. So almost at 1900, my old Ally, the Spanish, got really a good advantage in techs and their expansion through South (i.e., though MY territory) became an interesting idea for them. I noticed that, but I didn't want to compromise my future advances in science, so I kept building custom houses/universities/etc (I was using the civic "organized religion") and instead of fully preparing for war, only made a defensive pact with Charles Magne, hoping that the Spanish would want to mess with both of us at once (wars in two fronts are hard). But to my despair, the Spanish attacked me anyway. So I had to face an enemy with infantry/artilery/airships using rifleman/cannons/machine guns, so I wasn't sure if I would be able to even survive the first strikes. And even if I managed to survive the first strike, the Spanish had a bigger empire. So he could probably build more military units/round than I could and it would defeat me easily. So, I've decided to make a high bet: I sacrificed 4 round of production (that could easily made the difference between surviving the first strike or not) to switch my civics to police state/nationhood/theocracy, which could balance production a little bit (Spanish weren't using typical warmonger civics). So, it was really exciting to see all my soldiers dying/getting_heavily_injured in defense of my city and, in the end, it was my old pikeman (with the anarchy, I didn't have money to upgrade him) who made the difference, by defeating the last cavalry in the Spanish SoD. Of course, I had a bad time trying to hold on my cities. Other attacking waves came, I had to draft a lot (which is suicidal in the long run), but as I've survived so far and Spanish doesn't seem to have so many strong units left, I don't think that they will be able to take my city.
So, basically, my game is still lost. Even more lost than before. But still, it is fun to play it, even if my only objective right now is survival.
I know that most of you plays to win (and there is nothing wrong with that). But haven't you ever had amazing fun trying to deal with a completely lost situation in which simply survival was enough of an objective for you?
I've always thought of civilization as a simulator so I never felt any need for the concept of victory in this game. Look at my current game for example. I am playing with Gilgamesh, at Prince/Continents/Huge World Size/Temperate Climate/Medium Sea Level/Ancient Starting Era/Marathon Game Speed. After waiting too much for creating new cities, I had my way to the north closed by some recently built Spanish cities. Which was a big problem, because to the South I had only bad terrain (tundra and snow). Add to it that I wanted to play peacefully, so forcing a way to the north through a war against the Spain wasn't an option. As a result, the development of my civilization got heavily harmed and I spend most of the game so far with only 7/8 cities (in a huge map, that is so little) and I knew that I had no winning chance. But, still, I had a lot of fun simply trying to develop a strategy for survival. I've become allied of my immediate neighbours (most of them stronger than I, but we are still a lot weaker than the civilizations from the other continents) and build massive set of frigates. It worked. When Genghis Khan (which had one of the biggest armies in the world) declared war, I had enough navy power to destroy their forces way before they could reach my shores and it wasn't hard to convince Genghis Khan that it would be easier for him to direct his army for his neighbours.
But size matters in civilization. So almost at 1900, my old Ally, the Spanish, got really a good advantage in techs and their expansion through South (i.e., though MY territory) became an interesting idea for them. I noticed that, but I didn't want to compromise my future advances in science, so I kept building custom houses/universities/etc (I was using the civic "organized religion") and instead of fully preparing for war, only made a defensive pact with Charles Magne, hoping that the Spanish would want to mess with both of us at once (wars in two fronts are hard). But to my despair, the Spanish attacked me anyway. So I had to face an enemy with infantry/artilery/airships using rifleman/cannons/machine guns, so I wasn't sure if I would be able to even survive the first strikes. And even if I managed to survive the first strike, the Spanish had a bigger empire. So he could probably build more military units/round than I could and it would defeat me easily. So, I've decided to make a high bet: I sacrificed 4 round of production (that could easily made the difference between surviving the first strike or not) to switch my civics to police state/nationhood/theocracy, which could balance production a little bit (Spanish weren't using typical warmonger civics). So, it was really exciting to see all my soldiers dying/getting_heavily_injured in defense of my city and, in the end, it was my old pikeman (with the anarchy, I didn't have money to upgrade him) who made the difference, by defeating the last cavalry in the Spanish SoD. Of course, I had a bad time trying to hold on my cities. Other attacking waves came, I had to draft a lot (which is suicidal in the long run), but as I've survived so far and Spanish doesn't seem to have so many strong units left, I don't think that they will be able to take my city.
So, basically, my game is still lost. Even more lost than before. But still, it is fun to play it, even if my only objective right now is survival.
I know that most of you plays to win (and there is nothing wrong with that). But haven't you ever had amazing fun trying to deal with a completely lost situation in which simply survival was enough of an objective for you?
