S T R A T E G Y G A M E S
Strategy
| Civilization
(Microprose)
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| Boundary-Pushing: High |
Civilization didn't push any technology envelopes. But it was the
first game to bring "conquer-the-world" strategy gaming to the
masses. Previously this genre had been limited to mainframe games
such as Empire; the only similar games for consumer machines were
wargames. But as these appealed primarily to those who were
familiar with rules-laden miniatures gaming, they never caught on
with the public. Civilization changed that by simplifying the
combat rules and adding exploration and "research" of new and more
powerful technologies. The result was a game that singlehandedly
expanded a genre into profitability.
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| Addictiveness: High |
The simplicity of control in Civilization was key to its very high
addictiveness. As a strategic game, long-term planning was
important, so there was always an impulse to play one's plans
through to determine their outcome. But what made that so
tempting was how simple it was to do so. A turn generally
consisted of moving a few units around on the map, and possibly
changing a tax/science/luxuries rate or choosing a new technology
to research. With very little to do in most turns, it was easy to
say, "Well, I'll just make this one move." Then the game would
react to the player's moves, and the player would think, "Hmm, I'd
better deal with that threat before I sleep and forget my
strategy... OK, just one more move...." The next thing the player
would see was the sun peeking through an east-facing window.
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| Replayability: High |
Civilization came with several pre-built scenarios that recreated
various historical conflicts. This led to some replaying, but
more effective was Civilization's random map builder. This
allowed the player to generate different kinds of maps: ones which
traded off good farmlands for lots of metals, or which tended to
produce a few giant continents or many isolated islands. This
dramatically enhanced Civilization's replayability. Every game
would require different tactical choices, while still allowing a
grand strategy to be formulated and tested.
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| General |
Although a sequel to Civilization was released, in many ways it
merely improved the graphics and tweaked a few unit values. The
original game, years later, is still highly playable... and given
the speeds of modern processors, the long waits while the moves of
computer players were processed are over!
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| Master of Orion
(Microprose)
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| Boundary-Pushing: Medium |
"Conquer-the-galaxy" games had been around for a while when Master
of Orion was introduced. MOO (as it quickly became known) merely
used the latest video technology to display star system
information. Where MOO deviated from what had gone before was in
its merger of the old galaxy-conquering themes with the approach
taken in Microprose's hit game, Civilization: explore, defend
territory, and improve technology so as to gain better defenses
and weapons. (This model has now become known as "4E"--Explore,
Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate.) Like Jedi Knight, MOO didn't
do any one new thing; it simply took a number of related old
things, combined them in a consistent way, and did them all well.
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| Addictiveness: High |
One feature MOO shared with its sibling product Civilization was
employing a simple user interface to control game units possessing
varying tactical strengths and weaknesses. This format ensured
the necessary basis of addictiveness: high interactivity with
unpredictable results. Each unit was simple to move, but doing
so might cause new information to be obtained or a battle to be
joined. This is highly interactive in that many small things need
to be done, and doing each one results in rapid feedback of an
unexpected nature. In other words, the player is always doing
something, and the results of that action tend to be surprising;
this motivates the player to keep finding out what will happen
next.
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| Replayability: High |
Again, like Civilization MOO could generate random fields of play;
this allowed consistent strategies to be tested. In addition, MOO
included the notion of player races, each with different strengths
and weaknesses. This permitted the development of new strategies
in different games, since what worked with one set of advantages
and disadvantages might not work under other conditions.
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| General |
Like Civilization once more, a sequel to Master of Orion was
released. But while it included more thoughtful improvements than
those of Civ 2, it still did the same things as the original
MOO. Because the original was such a strongly addictive and
replayable game, it still holds up well even when compared to its
flashier remake.
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