NOTE: This is The Column, a regular feature on Apolyton where anyone can write about anything to do with Civilization or the gaming industry as a whole. If you feel like writing, please visit the article submission page.

PREVIOUS ARTICLES

184# GAMES I'VE GOT BUT HAVE YET TO "GET" Sometimes things dont turn out good when you buy a game... 183# CIV2'S HEGELIAN TECH TREE Civ2 is not just another game, and LotM shows it's historical side 182# FEAR AND LOATHING IN BACH'S CATHEDRAL Bugs visits a world of wonders 181# CHARACTERS / GRAPHICS 2 articles, 1 subject: civ3... 180# ULTIMATE MODS: MAKING GAMES OBSOLETE Mods and first person shooters... COLUMN ARCHIVE

Welcome to my first column, everybody! I hope I won´t get too many death threats for what I am going to say.

What I am going to do is a little comparison between what is officially known about the closest competitors for our (TBS-dedicated) time and money over the next 12 months or so. I am a hardcore strategy gamer who has played Sidgames since 'Silent Service' and 'Conflict in Vietnam', so, on the one hand, I know what I am talking about, on the other hand some of what I say might not be relevant for beginners.

First, a note about the respective sites: While MOO is far from Beta, their site gives so much information You can literally spend hours there. If nothing else, that says something about their confidence. CIV will ship in two months, and they are still as secretive as the Men in Black. Frankly, I find that annoying. >>>WARNING: SARCASM INCOMING.<<< The reason might be that they think if they tell us more and 'let the cat out of the bag', so to speak, no one will buy their game.

With all the MOO information put together, it is clear they have one over-arching goal: They try to reinvent the TBS. Which means they will either fail heroically, or succeed stunningly. Even if something goes horribly wrong and the game turns out to be 'Plan Nine from Outer Space: The TBS Conversion', I will still salute to a valiant effort. If they succeed, however, MOO3 will be the best TBS in this galaxy for a long, long time (which, in this market, means: a few years).

Take CIV3, on the other hand: Never have so many people spent so much time on a TBS with so few innovations. Better graphics: So, what? Improved interface: Interface, shminterface. But where are the truly exciting improvements where they matter: in gameplay and historicity? Alpha Centauri had the unit workshop, philosophical factions and social engineering; but what will CIV have? You will say: Culture. But there is a problem with this: Culture has been implemented so superficially it hurts. You collect culture points like one collects discount tickets in the supermarket. No offense meant, but it is very American to think that culture can be quantified: "Say, what is the difference between French and British culture?"-"30 points." Another American concept: The simple EXISTENCE of libraries gives You culture. Imagine an idiot carrying a large load of books: He has culture!

OK, You get my drift: With only the tiniest innovations, and even those done questionably, CIV3 will either fail ignominiously, or half-succeed boringly. Even in the best case, I am afraid it is going to make me yawn.

---------
About the author: When I started to play strategy games, designer creativity was limited by computer power; now, computer power is limited by designer creativity

A key factor in making a more realistic Civ game has to be that of an integrated resource and supply structure for both the cities and the armies. One of the key problems in call to power and the other civ platforms that I have played is that there is no automatic sharing of basic resources between cities. Food is a prime example I would have thought that there would be an automatic internal market that would be able to distribute the food from all cities on a demand basis. This could also be done with other natural resources to make an integrated economy matching the needs with the supplies available where ever in the empire and with special consideration to trading resources with other empires. This happens in the real world and I think it should be integrated into the next civ.

More importantly though is the supply of military units. I am constantly annoyed by foreign nations who send a lone unit deep into my territory and leave it there for the next thousand years. How on earth are the buggers being fed, reequipped and supplied? As the game stands in CTP2 I can take an army half way around the world and leave it there with no tangible route of communication between it and me. I think this leads to a completely unrealistic scenario.

The answer is to make all military units subject to re supply routes using the nearest city, subject to a maximum number of squares and degraded the closer to the limit it gets. This could also be substituted by supply dump improvements to act as conduits, I also think that there should be a limit on the amount a city and dump can effectively supply. The main result of this would be an end to unrealistic incursions by lone units, a more realistic development of empire structures.

The game, militarily, would centre on, as it does in the real world, protection of supplies. It would become possible for a player to encircle and so cut off a whole army and that armies fighting ability would diminish (the speed dictated by the amount of action it was engaged in and the lack of supplies coming in). This would make the fighting more tactical and not just a contest between who could hammer the other faster. Small armies could out fight bigger ones with fast long distance units like tanks playing a more accurate historic role.

So to conclude lets put a emphasis on the whole supplies system within the empire as a whole and the military in particular.