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memphisroots's Civilizations Revolution (360)
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| [April 4, 2013 09:01:05 PM]
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Sid Meyers: Civilizations Revolution====April 4,2013
==Players==
This game allows for up to 4 human players (connected via Xbox Live) and two more computer civilizations on the map at one time. In single player, the player will be put up against 5 other AI civilizations. The players are given a choice at the beginning of the game to choose the civilization with which they wish to play the game.
The Civilizations and their respective perks in the game are :
Spain(Money)
Rome(Government/ Culture)
China(Population / Production)
America(Money / Better Troops)
Russia
Mongolia(Expansion)
Zulu(Advanced troops early in game)
French(Culture)
India (Culture)
Japan(Technology)
England(Government perk, early sea navigation)
==Board==
The game board in the game (we will call it the world) is randomly generated in almost every case. The world will have strategic resources that the player will need for different aspects of the game. These resources will enable the player to have advances in : population, production, culture, science, and gold. The player will have a limited choice in where they wish to start the pieces on the map. The world will have different terrain that will help or hinder troops as they attack/defend on the map. The player gets to add permanent positions on the board called cities. There are also special places on the map that will give the player a boost to one portion of their civilization depending on the place.
-Level Critique-
The level is open world sandbox in the sense that the player can move to
almost any place on the map in any way that choose. There is a bit of
luck involved inherently in the board(world) as the randomness of the
resources can help or hinder the player. However, there is a lot of
strategy in utilizing the board later into the game. There are also
affordances built into the map in the form of the special map locations
(Knights Templar, Lost City of Atlantis, City of Gold,ect).
==Game Pieces==
The player will have a few different pieces to control in the world. The settlers piece is what is given to the player at the start of the game. This piece can move two spaces in one turn, and is used to build a new city for the player. The city could be considered a piece that will need to be expanded upon to increase the amount of different resources in the game. The way that a city is improved will usually lean toward to style a person is using to win. We will discuss win states later.
The next piece to be discussed are the troop units. These units are used for battle against other civilizations. There movements will be dictated by their type, and the terrain around them. These pieces will have an attack strength, and a defensive strength associated with them. As a civilization improves their technology, the troops will also improve in all aspects (movement, attack, and defense).
Another piece is called the spy. This unit is not necessarilly an attacking unit, and can be captured by another civilizations piece moving into the same space occupied by a lone spy.It can move a total of two spaces per turn. The spy is used directly against another player's cities. They are used to steal gold, to steal great people (discussed further down), and to disrupt production in cities. Other players can defend against these spies by having a spy of their own in their cities.
There is a peice reserved for gold. This is called the caravan, and is used to tranport gold between peaceful civiliations. It can move a whopping 4 spaces. Much like the spy, it can be captured if another player moves a unit into the same space as an unprotected caravan.
The last pieces to be discussed are great people. These are used to help build large improvements in a player's city. There is one for every resource aspect of the game (Production, Culture,Gold, Science). To use these pieces, the player must make a short term vs long term trade off.
Using all of these pieces in conjunction with one another, the player will attempt to win the game. The strategy comes in the form of piece utitlization, and placement on the map.
==Win States==
There are a few win states, and a game exhaustion state. The win states are : Technological Victory, Economical Victory, Cultural Victory, and Domination. As there is a temporal separation in the level/game that comes in the form of turns, the turns have a finite amount. The game exhaustion comes after that finite turn limit is reached resulting in a player chosen by score to "win".
Now to explain Win States.
=Economic Victory : This win state is accomplished if the player has met all
of the "economic milestones" and build the World Bank wonder. The
milestones are reached as the player gains more and more gold resource
throughout the game.
=Domination Vicotry: This win state is reached when a player has
successfully captured all of the other civilization's capital cities in the
game. These can be captured by the attacker exhausting all of the troops
the defender has in his/her city.
=Cultural Victory : This win state is the hardest to achieve, and will
require careful city planning on the players part. Like the economic
victory, cultural victory needs the player to achieve all cultural
milestones in the game, and to build the United Nations wonder.
=Technological Victory : This win state is almost as difficult as the
cultural, but depends more on the players ability to acquire science and
production resources. This state is reached when a player has gained enough
technology in the game to build space craft. They player must then build a
spaceship that is capable of reaching Alpha Centauri before any other
player can reach another win state.
==Gameplay==
The gameplay is very open, and the decisions the player makes at every step of the game will affect there potential to reach a win state. Much like chess there are strategies for "start game", "middle game", and "end game". I started with the Japanese(Tech advantage). This allowed me to make large technilogical advances early in the game. The players can choose if they wish to expand their civilization quickly, or they can form smaller empires. I chose the smaller empire as I was going for the Technological Victory. This allows me to defend my cities easily, and to improve my cities technology resources / production resources. The other civilizations are apt to perfom diplomacy with you. This is a very integral part of the game. This diplomacy will determine how often you will be attacked, and how you will be able to move around hostile civ's units while traversing the world. I tried to be as civil as I could in the diplomacy, however, I was continually attacked by the French. The technological advantage I had obtained helped me in defending myself, while improving my defensive units as they won battles. The real concern in this game was not so much about another civilization taking a Domination Victory as much as it was a race against the Spanish. The Spanish were trying to win an Economic victory. Their race to the end forced me to take military action against them so that they had to spend gold on troop production instead of hoarding it to gain milestones. I was able to obtain a nuclear missile later in the game. This allowed me to remove the Spanish chance at victory by destroying their largest gold producing city. The other civilizations in the game seemed to have no clear goal other than fighting. Their attempts were futile at best, and comical at worst. I was able to build the spaceship and send it to Alpha Centauri for the Technological Victory.
==Cultural Influences and Realism==
There is both a cultural influence on the game, and the players playing it. The game uses cultural relevance as a point for realism as well. The civilizations in the game are loosely representative of their real world counterparts. Each one try to be historically accurate throughout the play of the game.
The cultural influence on the player is actually shown by this game's existance. The Sid Meyers Civilizations series has been a large success. This success on the PC platform had the players wanting to expand the audience of players to test wits against. This cultural influence on the audience was enough to cause a market to open for the Xbox 360 platform. Thus
leading to the creation and play of this excellent
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memphisroots's Civilizations Revolution (360)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Thursday 4 April, 2013
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