Forum Overview :: Gamerasutra :: Re: I tried making a top 10 list like 8 times

[quote name="Bananadine"][quote name="Zsenitan"]MoM - why is this not on everyone's list.[/quote] I made myself play through a whole game of this finally and now I can properly answer the question. Of course yes it is awesome after all. It's Civilization with, instead of a technology tree that everybody shares, a universe of powers broad enough to let you build a nation of Civilization-level complexity and elegance without ever even being able to reach more than a small fraction of them. That is awesome. Still, for me, the non-modded version of it is outdated in the way the first one and a half iterations of Civilization are: There's no multiplayer capability, and the AI isn't very good. The computer-controlled nations are smart enough to challenge weak players, and they're smart enough to provide resistance to stronger players who are trying to give themselves specific challenges--like winning with some awesomely weird new strategy that might only fail ridiculously, or winning at all in Deity mode even though the AI is cheating heavily. But they aren't smart enough to consistently generate drama. When the difficulty level is set so that the AI doesn't cheat at all, a skilled player can just roll over it; when the AI is allowed to cheat, it pours out a stupid flood of stupid foes, forcing the player into a long, slogging victory or a long, slogging defeat. In that case, the victory, if it comes, may come only with difficulty and after deep strategic thought, which could be fun. But I play for drama! I want to analyze my opponent's expectations and then subvert them. And I want to be surprised. The AI expects nothing and generally doesn't surprise. I used to be unskilled enough at these games to have great fun with them anyway, because I was still learning how to play; the learning was the fun part. Now I'm skilled enough to need a tougher opponent, but I don't seem to be able to graduate to the puzzle of winning against a cheating AI. I mean, when I try doing that, I usually lose pretty badly; yet I'm not excited by the challenge because each attempt at meeting it takes so fricking long, and mostly takes the shape of the aforementioned slog. Still, there's no escaping the elegance of the Civilization formula. Even with a clonky DOS interface and the least fun opponents possible, these games are beautiful. That is, as long as you're doing Civilization-type stuff: making one big, powerful, quick choice after another. In Master of Magic, you very often have to step out of your nation-running seat so that you can micromanage some little battle. I didn't see a way to skip the battles... and if there is one, you wouldn't want to use it against the AI anyway, because then your troops would become just as stupid as the enemy troops. You can run the battles automatically, but you still have to sit and watch them. Some important battles are fun to play, and some are fun to watch. But most battles are mechanical and predictable. For me, this kills the game. I cavalierly mentioned Dominions 3 because I was playing it, and because it did seem kinda like Master of Magic--I hardly know anything about any complicated war games other than the ones mentioned in this post; that just happened to be the only one other than Civilization that ever hooked me. Maybe there are various other games that could be thought of as successors to Master of Magic? But whether it's coincidence or not, Dominions 3 does seem to be the ideal version of the MoM idea, for me at least. It's basically the same awesome game... only with even more crazily varied elements. And it has the same kind of crappy AI, but there's a strong multiplayer community so that doesn't matter. And it has the same entertainingly detailed battles... but you don't have to play them. In fact you can't play them--you just lightly program your troops during your turn, and then the computer micromanages the actual fighting, which it fricking ought to because that is what computers are good at! And you get to watch the result, which is sometimes awesome and fun, or skip it, fast-forward it, whatever. Computers! It appears that something similar is true for a properly modded Civilization IV--except for the part about watching cool battles, because in Civilization battles are so quick that there's nothing to watch (which is almost as good). I would have played Fall from Heaven II with FABIO if I hadn't been too busy with Dominions! I've noticed one other difference between those two games, though, that tilts me away from Civilization: In Dominions, you usually don't have to wait more than one turn for a major action to complete. You can recruit a small army or cast a big spell in one turn, and it's often possible to bring a strong army to any part of your nation within a few turns. In order to surprise people, I need to be able to improvise, and this is very good for me. My choice of games is clear! Special FABIO disclaimer: Dominions 3 does have flaws, and although I don't mind them, FABIO probably would.[/quote]