With my overpopulated cities, dwindling resources, unhappy citizens, and expensive crumbling infrastructure, I feel like I’m Harold Crick from Stranger Than Fiction, only my narrator is Harry fucking Harrison. I’m just waiting for the narrator voice to come over my speakers and say something ominous like “Little did she know, the Eldsters would be her ultimate downfall.” Then me and effing Dustin Hoffman would have to determine if I’m in the book or movie version so I can figure out if the Modern Era will have the option to research soylent green.
Well, there’s no better way to get that high energy plankton than by turning my expensive military units into cannon fodder by sending them headlong into battle, General Grant style.
“Go forth, my Zerglings!” I shout, as I wait for
Assyria,
and
Korea,
and
Siam,
and
Sweden,
and
Greece,
and
Venice,
and
Portugal,
and
City States,
and
the filthy Barbarians
TO TAKE THEIR BLOODY TURNS. Talk about anti-climactic! See, this is where RTS games are far superior. Whether you win, lose, or draw while playing and RTS, there's tons of entertainment value simply in watching the action between units. Half the fun is producing a metric fuckton of units and absolutely destroying someone’s base with them as they cry and whine about Night Elves being OP because their Undead units aren't shit until late game. It’s a lot more realistic in that sense, too. War doesn’t take turns anymore. You fight to win, not to unlock the Bullet Conservationist achievement and take home the award for Most Rules Followed. If real attacks happened the way they do in this game, we would either be in the 243rd year of the Revolutionary War and singing God Save the Queen before all of our national Rugby games or the most pacifistic society to ever exist. Who would want to go to war when over half of your time is spent not even doing anything? Though, it reminds me of part of bit by Jim Jefferies about gun control. (Full bit here, if you’re interested. Some of the funniest shit I’ve seen.) If given enough time to either cool off or talk about an issue as opposed to killing eachother over it, perhaps more could be achieved through less bloodshed?
You know what? No. Nevermind any of that. Nothing more would’ve been achieved and no less bloodshed would have occurred. The extra time would’ve just been seen as a built-in opportunity to move units into more strategic positions for the next attack. Time between turns would have simply been a factor of war to consider, not a defeating constraint that would force diplomacy. Countries that didn’t participate in the imperialistic rush of the mid and late 19th century were seen as weak, so how much worse would they have looked if they caved under the inconvenience of structured war turns? Besides that, I fear the international prestige of having colonies or the economic or militaristic advantage of owning strategic tracts of land were strong enough drivers to overcome any threat of logical thinking on the part of expansionists. There was simply too much to be gained. What a country couldn’t get through one war, they could get through another, and if that didn’t pan out, there were handful of imperialistic strategies to pick from to achieve a similar end. Money money, ya’ll. It be the root of all evil.
That, and petroleum, uranium, gold, diamonds, iron ore....
Anyway, while Ashurbanipal of Assyria is busy taking over the friggin’ world, and I’m just getting my guys into the water, I grow a set and go after one of his least defended cities.
Then I realize THEY WERE PILLAGING. THAT’S WHY MY SHIT WAS ON FIRE. When I first tried to do it, I thought maybe just by occupying an enemy tile would automatically start to burn it the next turn around or something.
Noooope.
As soon as Ashurbanipal gets onto my lands, they’re always immediately on fire. Turns out he’s pillaging my land as soon as he gets to it because he’s a better asshole than I am. So, apparently I just need to learn how to be a better asshole.
Now that I’m pillaging and working my way toward his city, I start to realize that whatever I’m going to do, it’s not going to go well. I feel like I’m poking a very large, hungry bear with a meat stick.
And that stick is my arm.
And boy, is he pissed.
Even the music knows I’m fucked. It’s gone from the charm and beauty of Debussy:
To the crushing anxiety of Talgorn:
Though, I have to say, the music in general is beautiful in this game. I’m used to original scores for games, so the recognizable songs took me by surprise, but I suppose having both preexisting compositions and new music creates an auditory parallel to the duality of the realism in the game’s mechanics. The somewhat accurate representation in the game of how history progressed, with its research tree, base-building mechanics, and other historical associations are represented by the classics and the folk songs featured in the soundtrack. Then, building on the tenets of classical music, the original score creates an entirely new world of music that sounds and feels like the classics, much like the fantasy world a player builds upon the historical foundation of the game’s realism. And apparently, all of the music in the game was performed by the Prague FILMharmonic Orchestra. Oh! Side note, they apparently also recorded the soundtrack for Elder Scrolls Online! Bad ass!
Anyway, back to my counter-colonialism. My first risky attempt at taking a city is ultimately victorious (that other city I burned to the ground wasn’t heavily defended like this one), but I sure took heavy losses. Guess I was channeling Ulysses S Grant after all. His successes in the Civil War’s Overland Campaign came at a pretty hefty loss with about the same kind of troop difference. He had twice as many military units as Robert E. Lee and lost almost twice as many units, much like I did. Between Lee bein’ all sneaky sneaky and Grant’s overestimation of the effectiveness of his counterattacks and strategies, much of their fights came down to sheer numbers. Also like Grant, sure I took the city, but at what cost?
Not only did I lose almost my entire army, I was labeled a major warmonger after trying to stand up to Ashurbanipasshole! He had overtaken a dozen or so cities before I tried to strike back on behalf of THE REST OF THE WORLD, somehow that’s unacceptable. It seems the game could use a bit more depth in that area. Like, for real, there wouldn’t have been one leader that would’ve said, “Oh, you’re going after Ashur? Good! I fucking hate that guy.” Maybe there’s a game mechanic I’m missing that would allow for it, I just haven’t figured it out yet.
I did do that when Ashurbanipal proposed a peace treaty, though. He proposed **I** pay **him** in every resource I have for the next howevermany turns in exchange for peace. So I told him to pound salt. The nerve of that guy! I wasn’t about to sign a War Guilt Clause like 20th century Germany, though my signing wouldn’t have been because *I* started a war, it would be because I was attempting to end it.
Ultimately, I ended up giving the city back to whoever Ashurbanipal attacked in the first place. I’m not sure if that gains me any kind of true Brownie Points on the world stage, but I find myself being more true to who I actually am as a person with some of my responses in-game. If put in that kind of position in real life, I would absolutely give the city back to its rightful owner, though that is completely contradictory to how I am in video games normally. I typically take on playing styles that are antithetical to who I am as a person. First person shooters? I’m ruthless. Maniacal. Aggressive. RPGs? I’m sneaky. A thief. A killer. But in turn-based strategy? Most of what I do is pretty much what I would do if I was really put in that position. State religion? “No thanks.” But then all my people get converted to someone else’s religion. Social policy? “RATIONALISM!” But then my troops aren't as strong. Technology? “Future Tech FTW!” But my troops can’t get into the water because Sailing won’t be researched for another 144 turns on account of Nuclear Fusion, Nanotechnology, and Stealth being researched before that particular branch gets researched. I keep learning about all the little nuances of the game and I’m adjusting as I go, so maybe permitting my inner asshole to direct my actions will yield a more successful domination campaign going forward…
