David Stark
This is now an incredibly cold take, but I finally wanted to write down my thoughts on Civilization: Beyond Earth (BE), and how it compares to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (SMAC), which is sort of its predecessor. It's probably not surprising that I find BE a disappointment, but I want to spell out...
David Stark
I've been thinking about the Civilization series of games again. It's weird that after so many iterations, their fundamental problem is still not fixed: the end-game is painfully slow. As the number of entities (cities, units) you control rises, and the number of options you have for each rises as...
David Stark
A quick idea I've just had about ideology trees in Civ V: So in the late-ish game, you pick between one of three ideologies, Freedom, Order and Autocracy. You then get a bunch of policies you can unlock in your chosen ideology, but you're locked out of the others unless you switch ideology...
David Stark
I've been playing Civ V again and thinking about alternate versions of the civilizations in the game. There's actually a whole lot to unpack about the Civilization series' idea of history, which is far more ideological than I think its creators realize. But for now, let's start with this: the game...
David Stark
A mod for Civilization V that introduces a bunch of religious elements inspired by HP Lovecraft. Right now, the mod simply adds some new pantheon beliefs which are powerful but have some drawback as well: The Black Goat of the Woods: +2 Faith from Forest tiles, 10% slower Growth Rate Elder...
David Stark
I may write more about Civ: Beyond Earth later, but suffice it to say for now that it's a bland and tedious thing not worth the asking price. One of the tacked-on victory conditions is the good old "the planet is quasi-sentient and we must merge our minds with it", just like in Sid Meier's Alpha...
David Stark
I've figured out some of the basics of Civ V modding, currently just how to add things to the XML game data. Still, on the basis of this, I'm starting to put together some sort of Lovecraftian mod. Right now, I have a bunch of Pantheon beliefs that have you worshipping various horrid beasties....
David Stark
As I mentioned before, as much as I like my Gods and Things concept for Civ V, it's really far too complex for me to attempt to build. So I've been thinking about a massively stripped down version that just introduces a bunch more beliefs, which are distinguished by having a downside as well as an...
David Stark
I've been thinking about my Gods & Things concept for Civ V again. I would dearly love to create it, or at least a simplified version, but as it stands, I don't have the time or the knowledge to do so. If anyone has experience with Civ V modding and would like to collaborate, hit me up....
David Stark
I confess that despite my mixed feelings, I've been playing Civ V again, and having more thoughts on how to improve it. In Civ games, you can build World Wonders, very expensive buildings with massive benefits that can only be built once. This generally leads to a race to build wonders, which is a...
David Stark
The other day I caved in and bought the expansion packs to Civ V. I've been having a fair bit of fun with it, and definitely enjoying the new religion and trade systems. Of course, it didn't take me very long to give my religion a very silly name, and from there a concept was spawned: Gods &...
David Stark
This is not exactly a review, but rather a collection of thoughts/complaints about Civ V from both a players' and game design/implementation perspective. First off, the endgame is still slow as molasses: a dozen cities clamour for your directions, dozens of units want to know where to go next....