Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

I don't remember exactly what it was that I was looking for when I found myself over at the Civilization site (official).

Civilization has been one of the franchises that has always been one of my favorites.

I have played them all, except for the latest expansion packs.

So the expansion pack for Civilization IV that has caught my eye is the "Beyond the sword" one. IT incorporates a much longer game that apparently takes you further into the space age.

There was a similar type expansion for Civilization III, which was pretty fun.

The changes from Civilization II to Civ III was pretty dramatic. They changed up combat, introduced strategic resources, modified some of the rules with government. Also introduced the "Army" concept. They disposed of trade caravans.

Well the changes from Civ III to Civ IV were also significant. They completely overhauled the government system and replaced it with "Civics" they also introduced the concept of religion into the game. (Pretty sure that came in Civ IV and not in Civ III).

So one of the things that bugged me about the Civ games and particularly in Civ 4 where the trade was completely controlled by the state (for the most part), was that the modern concept of Corporations was lacking. I mean while Corporations are bound to the rules of the nations they operate in, they are can become a global force to be reckoned with, not necessarily in terms of military might but that of the economic kind. This concept has bugged me more and more since I have been reading economic related books.

So I was pleased to see that they have added Corporations into the Beyond the Sword expansion pack.

Now, from the corporations explanation it appears that they are state funded corporations much akin to the East Indian Trading Company which was a corporation that was basically created by the British empire. From what I have read it was "independent" but it was basically awarded a monopoly by the British crown, so basically protected by the government from competition from within the nation and outside the nation (ie foreign competitors by Britain's powerful navy).

Anyway, I am still trying to stick to my vow to not have video games on my desktop. I lapsed and installed MOOII, but I have since removed it again.

However, there is hope. It appears that there is a new game on the horizon, Civilization Revolution, which will be released for the XBOX 360. I am not sure how I will enjoy playing the whole game using the game pad.

It's John's birthday today and we are going to be watching Transformers at the Alamo at noon. So I better go and get ready. Before that though I need to load the DB schema for the weasel site.

Laterz

First of all, I have no idea how to pronounce Carcassonne . I am sure that I will learn.


I read about it briefly on Penny Arcade the yesterday.

Tycho mentioned that it was like Catan, which I have been playing on my Xbox-360 and really do enjoy. There are a few notable draw backs to Catan, like the fact that you cannot play a local multi-player game. Only a multi-player game with others folks over the Live network. Serious downside there Catan guys. Maybe they will patch Catan with a local multi-player option.

I bring up the local multi-player because it is fun to play games together with folks that are over. Like when Jeremy is visiting or just anytime your hanging out with the wife.

Gina and I played a few games last night. She likes the game, I don't think she likes playing with me. I tend to take to strategy games like a fish to water. Of course, we did have to stop the first game and go back and go through the tutorial as the rules are a little complex.

Now, Carcassonne in the X-box Live Arcade is a port, if you can call it a port, of a table top game to the X-box Live Arcade. I can see how the game can be fun, as it is a bit of a city/empire building type game. However, one thing is that without the game be computerized the manual scoring of everything on a table top version must be a pain. Not to mention that I'm sure you don't get the fun city building animations.

I am going to go and play some more Carcassonne now. Hopefully, Jeremy has bought it too so that we can play a couple of games today.

Laterz

I love the game Civilization. I got hooked on it back in High School with the original and have played every version since.

However, because of how busy the summer is going to be I need to remove Civ4 from my PC.

I find myself playing it whenever I am on my home pc.

It is the last remaining game on my PC.

After I get John's site built I am thinking that I will put Industry Giant or Capitalism 2 back on my home pc. However, that is not to say that I am giving up gaming I do have that shiny Xbox 360 that doesn't get used as much.

I will say this about console games they are easy to pick up and put down. While, my PC gaming interests have usually been strategy games, which can turn a quick few turns into a 3 hour game (or longer).

I finished up my last game of Civ4 tonight. I won out against the English and the Spanish.

Time for Bed.

Laterz

I was in Dallas the last two days for some meetings.

As it has become the norm, when I travel I tend to lose sight of things like blog posting and calling friends and family. I think it is something to do with being out of my normal routine.

I need to make a more conscious effort to keep in touch with people. I tend to gravitate towards being a loner, I think in high school my time spent with my anti-social friends ingrained in me the idea that I don't NEED to talk to people. I classify us as anti-social, in that we hung out with one another, rarely interacted with other groups and often excluded one another from time to time in activities.

I think that this coming year I will make some "New Year Resolutions" (a tradition for some, but not for me).

One of the things that I think is going to be a resolution is that my pc gaming habits are probably going to die off. My current rig is a fine PC, it plays BF2142 just fine along with World of Warcraft. However, I recently purchased Star Trek: Legacy and my PC can barely run the game in a playable fashion.

I think I might finally take the plunge into console gaming. I am going to use x-mas money to buy myself a XBOX-360. Jeremy has had his for about 4 months and really likes it. I miss playing against Jeremy and a few other friends online in co-op or deathmatch modes.

I have usually avoided console gaming in favor of pc gaming. Not sure of the exact reasons, but mostly because the types of games that I liked were usually only good on the PC. That isn't the case these days, for the most part the same types of games are better on consoles (not always though).

Regardless, I need to get out of the house more too. So I think getting away from my +8 hours long strategy games on the PC might be a good change. I have sworn off MMORPG, at least until I retire. They just eat up way too much time. If a really cool one comes out I might try it out, just so that I can comment on how it plays or what not. But I won't be planning to make it my life.

I think I will do a longer post about the other resolutions and changes I want to make.

Back to the grind.

Laterz.