Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Manifesto: Eternity Lies Ahead Of Us, And Behind

Have you drunk your fill?

A vote for dbdougla is a vote for a dynasty themed on Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.  As Planetary Governor, I promise that the mind worms shall be kept at bay, there will be a hologram theater in every home, and quality goods from Morgan Industries shall be available to all Faction Leaders at reasonable prices.

Comments

spikebrennan:

27-04-2010 12:17:47 UTC

I used to always either play Morgan or the pirate guys from the expansion pack, and Chairman Yang was always my strongest opponent.

We must dissent.

flurie:

27-04-2010 13:29:40 UTC

Please don’t go. The drones need you. They look up to you.

Josh: he/they

27-04-2010 13:46:05 UTC

I always preferred the Gaians myself.

ais523:

27-04-2010 13:53:02 UTC

Ooh, wb flurie, didn’t realise you were still reading…

spikebrennan:

27-04-2010 14:30:11 UTC

Apart from old-timers like me, though, how many people are really familiar with a game that’s what, about 13 years old?

spikebrennan:

27-04-2010 14:42:31 UTC

Put:

27-04-2010 15:32:43 UTC

“Apart from old-timers like me, though, how many people are really familiar with a game that’s what, about 13 years old? “

Me. Though not specifically *this* game, mind you, just generally old games. <_<

Kevan: he/him

27-04-2010 16:00:20 UTC

Afraid I never got into this one, I’m more of a Civilization I old-timer. Although generic space colonisation seems like a perfectly good theme, if you’re happy with off-theme suggestions from players who don’t know any better.

dbdougla:

27-04-2010 16:02:21 UTC

I don’t know about everyone else, but I still play it fairly regularly.  It’s still one of the highest-acclaimed games of all time.

Josh: he/they

27-04-2010 16:04:11 UTC

Play it? I still have an active PbEM chain of Alpha Centauri going. Admittedly that’s partly because a PbEM game of SMAC takes a good year to complete.

Rodlen:

27-04-2010 17:23:50 UTC

This game was AWESOME.

Ornithopter:

27-04-2010 19:28:06 UTC

I played a demo one time. Does that help?

redtara: they/them

28-04-2010 01:08:45 UTC

I may just start playing this again. Wow.

Klisz:

28-04-2010 01:18:10 UTC

I agree with Kevan (though I’ve never played Civilization I; I started with II).

Purplebeard:

28-04-2010 07:49:12 UTC

Awesome. I always preferred Colonization and Alpha Centauri to the Civ games myself. Video games were so much better in those days, when pixels were noses and phalangites could defeat modern battleships in one-on-one combat.

Josh: he/they

28-04-2010 09:28:11 UTC

The one thing that stops me from voting for this is that it’s a great theme but gives me no indication of what kind of mechanic you’d be going for. What would the gameplay look like in a space colonisation dynasty?

dbdougla:

30-04-2010 08:15:59 UTC

I’ve decided to withdraw my manifesto and support Ienpw III for now.  What I would have gone for was allowing players to pick a faction and their social engineering choices, and then let the overall mechanic for military/diplomatic/economic warfare develop, eventually having the victory conditions be the same as in SMAC: military dominance, economic dominance, diplomatic dominance, or transcendence.  But I realized we’d basically be creating “Alpha Centauri, the text based version” and constraining ideas to fit within the framework of the existing video game, rather than creating a new and wonderful original game.  So let’s go with a “blank nomic”, in my opinion.