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.

Civ seems to have been slowly devoured by various malign strategy game trends - a tendency to define the possibility of failure as "unfun", scripted events with 2-3 choices, and the cancer that is "perks", even beyond the intrusion of wokist tendencies. So I don't hold on to much hope. I think Civ 6 had some decent ideas with districts, but ended up being too board gamey.

As a longtime civ fan, I feel like it's been devoured by the common pitfall of "gamers will optimize the fun out of everything." original civ was great because you were literally building a civilization from the ground up, and you could do anything you wanted. But then gamers figured out the "optimal" way to play (either spamming settlers or spamming chariots), and it lost all fun. They added new game mechanics, while still trying to keep the feel of the old, but there's just no way to keep that old magic of playing by yourself on a DOS machine, when you can watch a youtube tutorial from a pro gamer telling you exactly how to beat the game and why you suck if you can't grind your way to a high multiplayer rank.

It seems to me like that is a self-imposed problem though. I don't go looking up Civ strategies and I have a great time with it.

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