Technology is not inherently good or bad, it can pose problems, as well as solve them. This seemed to be the case for me during my first attempt to play Sid Meier's "Civilization IV." As soon as I opened the application I was greeted by a friendly note saying, "Your hardware is not configured to support this file." Though I could not persuade the game to activate its tutorial, I did manage to initiate a basic game. I began my first game armed only with a previous, general knowledge of strategy video games; considering the game was on the most novice setting I managed to fare well-enough.
I began as the Aztec empire led by Montezuma. Foreseeing an early attack or some sort of tribal warfare, I immediately began committing my resources towards fortifying my militant strength. I created a massive amount of archers, as my technology increased I began to build Jaguars, and after I met the necessary requirements began to build spear-men and axe-men as well. Needless to say, my initial paranoia led me to dedicate a majority of my research and development towards military augmentation. Though I did not finish the game, I believe I picked the wrong strategy.
Since so much of my empire's resources were spent on a powerful military, I lacked sufficient infrastructure to keep up with competing nations. Not only did the move cost me valuable time (or a head start as Jared Diamond would say), but the technology I had developed did not increase my productivity or allow for my empire to thrive. My attempts at producing enough workers to satisfy the needs of the growing empire, and then coordinating them to build efficiently fell short and left me sprawling for development.
The crowning humiliation came after my first few encounters with adjoining empires. They seemed very amicable and non-hawkish at these early-to-middle stages of the game; I was in no desperate need of a powerful army in the year 1000B.C. I was also quite surprised to see that my opponent's military units were usually on par or even a bit more potent than my own. No doubt a result of proper allocation of research and development technology.
It seems that my entire devotion to Military Technology was worthless, or at least far less efficient than a balanced technological growth. Lesson learned: the next game will not be lost by futile, yet enticing, military gambit.
4 comments:
buck dude this was seriously just like so enlightenign. gimmme some mo!
Colonel Buck, you are absolutely correct. I also attempted to have the most dominate military by spending all my resources on warriors; I neglected to advance my other technologies. You must advance all your technology to remain competitive. I played as the American empire, and one of my Navy SEALS is capable of taking out several older enemy units. It is important to make sure you are expanding your empire, roads and eventually railroads between cities help enormously with transporting units.
Upon reading both of your blogs I did not see much difference in strategy but only in success. It seems like your concentration in the second game was also mainly militaristic and that you continue to proceed in this manner. however, upon attempting to conquer the entire world there is a good chance that you will fail and lose all hope of ever again obtaining a successful empire. No historical emperor has ever managed to conquer the entire world despite the valiant efforts of men like Napoleon and the emperors of Rome. Because this game usually reacts to situations in a manner incredibly similar to historical events, I feel that attempting to conquer the entire earth is not the best course of action that you can take and will ultimately lead to your untimely demise.
This is great info to know.
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