Civilization 5 And Me: Why I’m Crazy And How Gandhi Isn’t Helping
If you’ve listened to the last few shows, I’ve rambled on about Civilization 5 and how it is so fundamentally
different than previous versions. The random aside that it plays more like a board game than Civ 4’s very videogame approach has proved more and more true as I continue playing it. The new city-state mechanic adding countless new wrinkles to foreign affairs and the subtly massive changes in combat have made a game that feels new and old at the same time, like Mint Oreos. I’m not going to really give a review of the game; I’ve talked about (and will continue to talk about) it on the show, and Mike has posted his thoughts on the game as well. What I’m going to talk about is how my relationship with the game has changed in small but meaningful ways.
It isn’t much of an exaggeration that of my gaming lifetime, Civ 4 has taken up the largest part of it. Multiple
hundreds of hours have been sunk into taking the great Indian people into the stars (Space Lord Gandhi, foo!). Entire days have been sunk into single games, or at least parts of games. I tend to like giant maps and excruciatingly long matches, and the Civ games have always accommodated. I mean, one should not be able to take a bunch of sun worshiping cavemen and mold them into millions of sun worshiping rocket scientists in just an afternoon. This isn’t Lisa and the Genesis Tub here. I’d go through phases: installing the game and playing like a madman for a few days before putting it away to go on to other games, only to come back a few months later and begin the process again. Civ 4 was a faithful hound, always waiting to go for runs and never being upset when you go and play with other dogs.
Civ 5 has been a different animal all together, and it has almost nothing to do with the gameplay itself. Much like the advent of touchscreens didn’t change the underlying mechanics of how a smart phone worked, but instead changed how people interact with and consume the product in very fundamental ways, the improvements to the user interface of Civilization 5 has dramatically altered how I play the game. A cascade of large icons tell me everything from which cities have grown, which of my Super Death Robots needs something to do, and who exactly is getting all up in Genoa’s grill. Furthermore, in the case of truly pressing matters like when London is done building the Pyramids so they need a new historically non-canonical monument to build (who wants to the visit the Hanging Gardens Of Hoboken?), it doesn’t let me move onto the next turn, leaving my British pyramid-makers to waste a turn presumably filling canopic jars with sheep guts and trying to boil them. It sits there like an assertive secretary, demanding signatures on forms so Montezuma Inc can continue pillaging barbarian encampments. It’s corporate upper management meets nation building, and each turn is a new work day. Each turn waiting on my desk is a stack of reports regarding crop yields and progress toward the great Aztec hydroelectric dams. Given that information, I can make a few decisions, sign a few forms, and then go golfing for the day, confident in the knowledge the crops will be harvested, Aztecs will sacrifice their enemies to the gods of Hydroelectricity, and despite many offers of Pacts Of Cooperation, Alexander is a score-cribbing cheating dick. And tomorrow, there will be a new day, with new reports and new reasons why Alexander is a dick.
Oddly enough, the second major shift is also UI related, but not specific to Civ 5 or even all that new. Civilization 5 is the first Triple-A non-browser game I play exclusively in a window. I’ve dabbled in windowing other games, sure, but never to the degree that I have with Civ 5. Now this might not sound like some sort of major revelation, but in the context of a turn-based game, the ability to move about and do other things can be a massive godsend. Especially when you are running it on a computer that takes the Chinese Menu approach toward minimum and recommended requirements (little from Column A, little from Column B). Remember I tend to be play on the largest maps with the slowest game time. My current game is on turn 937, with 7 remaining countries and about 8 more city-states. Turns can take 1-3 minutes to process sometimes, which doing some quick math means that I have spent between 15 and 40 hours in just this current game alone waiting to take another turn. Putting it in a window allows me to write blog posts, edit episodes, organize my office, finally get around to reading the first volume of The Walking Dead and clean the bathroom, all while running an empire currently at war with Japan.
Because of this, Civ 5 has become a constant if somewhat understated companion the last few days. The only time it has turned off was after one of the occasional crashes or a Windows-related computer reboot. My morning ritual has become do a turn -> start breakfast -> do a turn -> put on shirt -> do a turn -> find shoes -> do a turn etc. It’s on while I check my email when I get home from work. It is on while I look up directions to a restaurant. It has become as much a fixture on my desktop as the Recycle Bin. As a notorious multitasker, this appeals to me like a new spoon to a crack head and is more exciting than when I realized my new TV had Picture-In-Picture so I could watch The Simpsons while I play games. Xzibit is my hero for his blank-while-you-blank abilities, that’s what I’m saying here, and windows (small w) have allowed me to swim in the deep pool of my problems
None of this diminishes my enjoyment of the game or how much I put into it, mind you. I just play each game differently. Civ 4 I played like a video game; focused, with mind-slider set to full Enjoyment Acquisition mode to the exclusion of all outside stimuli. Civ 5 I play like a play-by-email wargame. Stretches of relative non-interaction punctuate by fevered bouts of activity, planning and scheming. I’m not sure if this says more about the game or myself or the world as a whole, but I don’t have time to think about that now. Today’s reports are in.