site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2375 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 16, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

3 was the first I played. Loved everything about it except the Global Warming system which would get in the way of me playing a game indefinitely (I never particularly cared about the win conditions or if I nominally lost a match). Couldn't figure out any way to turn it off at the time. I also found the corruption mechanic chafing when it cut down on my sprawling empire and aggressive expansion, I can never really get myself to play tall.

Ck 2 and maybe 3 had an amazing mod that let you play out battles in Total War and then imported the results. Ah, what I'd give for that to be the case for Civ too, with Warhammer 3 you can even pull off the attack helicopters going up against barbarians!

Another thing I wish Civ embraced was more in depth diplomacy. In many regards I wish it was more simulationist instead of the glorified tabletop strategy game it is right now, but I know purists would scream.

The global warming mechanic violates literally every principle of fun game design; it punishes rather than rewards, it's random so you never know when you will get hit, and it's based on global pollution rather than national pollution so that you can still lose tiles even if you go completely green.

It's clearly the result of ideological bias rather than an attempt to make a good game and the only reason it is bearable is because it comes so late in the game.

Same thing with nuclear power plants. Extremely safe IRL, in Civ they go off like firecrackers on New Year's Eve.

ironically, pretty much everything in civ punishes you for building an advanced civilization. The best way to win is to "deathstack" a lot of cheap, early game, chariots, and just nonstop war until you conquer everything. Almost every building is just "for fun, if you feel like it. it won't help you win the game."

I love Civ 3, my only axe to grind is the cheating AI. I know that all AIs cheat, they have to in order to match a human player. But the AI cheating in Civ 3 is so bad that the AI nations are basically not even playing the same game as the human player.

Loved everything about it except the Global Warming system

This reminds me that by some standards I have been a global warming denier longer than most people. My best friend and I used to play and laugh at how comically overwrought it was to just have whole tiles going underwater. Like, sure, we can talk about just how much sea levels are or aren't rising, but the notion that during the modern era they're going to just dunk New York City under water always seemed very stupid to me.

Tell me about it. The designers of Civilization, with Ed Beach coming to mind, have specifically said that they refuse to have any in-game solutions to the effects of climate change because it's apparently far too complex a problem in reality for "easy solutions".

A load of horseshit that is, and you're right that anywhere remotely important such as NYC would have a sea-wall put around it posthaste. That's assuming more general geoengineering doesn't work to boot.

SMAC let you geoengineer global cooling and global warming and invest into pressure hulls so that your cities survive while everyone else drowns. It's a pity the balance in the game was so out of whack that ICS with forests was the winning strategy most of the time.

A load of horseshit that is, and you're right that anywhere remotely important such as NYC would have a sea-wall put around it posthaste.

I mean... to be fair that is exactly what happens in Civ 6. Global warming submerging your tiles is never a real threat unless you're quite far behind in tech. And in that case, you have bigger problems than submerged tiles.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats