I have always enjoyed games that allowed you to build things and compete with other players( either directly or by comparing finished games) by being more creative at that game rather than by being more bloodthirsty or by the simple fact that Player A has better reflexes than Player B.
Don't get me wrong, I've had many enjoyable hours playing wargames, simulators, RTS, FPS, etc, ect....
But since the first Sim City release and the original Caesar, I have always come back to city building games at various points in my cycle of gaming. I can't really explain it other than by saying that it satisfies my need(?) to have 'Action A' give me 'Result B' each and every time I take 'Action A'. A good example of that might be in Zeus. Lay down an Onion Farm and have it fully staffed for 12 months and it WILL give you 8 loads of onions to use each and every year without fail. It's comforting.
Does this whole topic really have a point? Not so you would notice much but I would like to ask Santa for a re-vamp of Pharaoh.
Don't get me wrong, I think Pharaoh was (actually still is) about the epitome of city building games. On a scale of 1-100 they got about 99% of it right by the time they finished and I wouldn't want to see the underlying strength of the game sacrificed simply to turn out a game that looks nice, but sucks to play (see Railroad Tycoon and Railroad Tycoon 2 then compare those to RR Tycoon 3 and Railroads! and you will see what I am talking about. The first two were brilliant in my opinion, the last two, not so much).
What brought this on was a binge of playing older games. Of the games I seem to go back to (city building-wise) The Caesar Series, Pharaoh, Children of the Nile and Zeus are what I generally play. But that is not exactly the truth. Zeus is generally what I end up playing even though, in my opinion, it is probably the weakest of the Impressions games (although by that, don't get the impression I think it's a sucky game. I enjoy the hell out of it).
The shining jewel in Impression's Crown is Pharaoh. But man, there are parts of it that just drive me nuts and after playing off and on since it's release, I'ma finally sound off and give my opinions on ways I wish it was built, even though there may be other threads on this and obviously many player's may not agree with me.
1. Get rid of the age scaling in Pharaoh. Granted, in real life, people do get too old to work and retire and there may not be enough young'uns to take up the slack but that doesn't belong in the game. Keep the available workers steady or tie it to something that the player has some hope influencing. Like wages or something.
2. Go Zeus in some things. Make the house tiles 2x2 as a default with the option of going to the higher levels as the player decides it's needed. I'd much rather use a small statue or a shrine to keep a house a 'worker house' instead of becoming an elite house than to have to my initial worker housing dotted with small statues or isolated road tiles in order to ensure that I don't have to destroy an apartment that formed where it wasn't supposed to when the scribe makes his first pass. Also, Zeus' idea of being able to access the labor pool by simply having the building next to a road was a good one. If that would make Pharaoh too 'easy' then create a building that 1)Takes labor to staff and/or 2)Make it a requirement that all roads be connected to the Palace (ex. Zeus' Towers) in order for buildings along a particular stretch road to get staffed. But please, make it possible to access the labor pool remotely without having to build a 'suburb' or more accurately, a 'slum' in order to access labor. I could even live with having to create housing on separate sides of a river if the only way to get across the river was by ferry. There being no land connection and the river being too wide to bridge.
3. Trade centers. I'm not taking about the dedicated trade buildings of Zeus and some versions of Caesar but rather the ability to designate a storage yard as a "Trade Only" yard. Nothing ever gets delivered out of them just put in or taken out. If I need say, 4 Storage Yards to handle all the incoming and outgoing freight then I can designate them as such. Leave it up to the city storage yards to come get what is imported and the Trade Yards themselves to go out and get what is to be exported. The point here is to get those imbecilic trade caravans in and out as quickly as possible and stop the cycle of them going to Yard A to get 3 copper and then to Yard B to get 4 more then back to Yard A because Yard A just glommed all the copper out of Yard B and it's now on it's way to Yard A. Plus trying to deliver the 800 units they carry to ridiculously separated yards because Yard A accepts 800 but is currently at 600 and Yard B also accepts 800 so we will imitate Homer and go on an Odyssey to deliver this beer.
4. Entertainment Venues (the bane of block building) don't change them really, I understand the underlying idea behind them but I'd really appreciate it if it were possible to put them on a 'L' intersection (I know there is no such thing, its really just a 90 degree bend in the road) rather than having to do it at a 'T' intersection (although, keeping that functionality would probably be good).
I wouldn't want to see Pharaoh made easier. I do like a challenge. Those are the main sticking points that make me reach for a game other than Pharaoh when it comes time to spend some hours building a city. I never did become the fan of Caesar many people I know did. Pharaoh has, without a doubt, always been my favorite in concept but Zeus usually wins out, not because it is easier to play, because its irritation factor is much less.
"What are we going to do tomorrow Barak?"
"The same thing we do every day Joe....TRY AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD."
Don't get me wrong, I've had many enjoyable hours playing wargames, simulators, RTS, FPS, etc, ect....
But since the first Sim City release and the original Caesar, I have always come back to city building games at various points in my cycle of gaming. I can't really explain it other than by saying that it satisfies my need(?) to have 'Action A' give me 'Result B' each and every time I take 'Action A'. A good example of that might be in Zeus. Lay down an Onion Farm and have it fully staffed for 12 months and it WILL give you 8 loads of onions to use each and every year without fail. It's comforting.
Does this whole topic really have a point? Not so you would notice much but I would like to ask Santa for a re-vamp of Pharaoh.
Don't get me wrong, I think Pharaoh was (actually still is) about the epitome of city building games. On a scale of 1-100 they got about 99% of it right by the time they finished and I wouldn't want to see the underlying strength of the game sacrificed simply to turn out a game that looks nice, but sucks to play (see Railroad Tycoon and Railroad Tycoon 2 then compare those to RR Tycoon 3 and Railroads! and you will see what I am talking about. The first two were brilliant in my opinion, the last two, not so much).
What brought this on was a binge of playing older games. Of the games I seem to go back to (city building-wise) The Caesar Series, Pharaoh, Children of the Nile and Zeus are what I generally play. But that is not exactly the truth. Zeus is generally what I end up playing even though, in my opinion, it is probably the weakest of the Impressions games (although by that, don't get the impression I think it's a sucky game. I enjoy the hell out of it).
The shining jewel in Impression's Crown is Pharaoh. But man, there are parts of it that just drive me nuts and after playing off and on since it's release, I'ma finally sound off and give my opinions on ways I wish it was built, even though there may be other threads on this and obviously many player's may not agree with me
1. Get rid of the age scaling in Pharaoh. Granted, in real life, people do get too old to work and retire and there may not be enough young'uns to take up the slack but that doesn't belong in the game. Keep the available workers steady or tie it to something that the player has some hope influencing. Like wages or something.
2. Go Zeus in some things. Make the house tiles 2x2 as a default with the option of going to the higher levels as the player decides it's needed. I'd much rather use a small statue or a shrine to keep a house a 'worker house' instead of becoming an elite house than to have to my initial worker housing dotted with small statues or isolated road tiles in order to ensure that I don't have to destroy an apartment that formed where it wasn't supposed to when the scribe makes his first pass. Also, Zeus' idea of being able to access the labor pool by simply having the building next to a road was a good one. If that would make Pharaoh too 'easy' then create a building that 1)Takes labor to staff and/or 2)Make it a requirement that all roads be connected to the Palace (ex. Zeus' Towers) in order for buildings along a particular stretch road to get staffed. But please, make it possible to access the labor pool remotely without having to build a 'suburb' or more accurately, a 'slum' in order to access labor. I could even live with having to create housing on separate sides of a river if the only way to get across the river was by ferry. There being no land connection and the river being too wide to bridge.
3. Trade centers. I'm not taking about the dedicated trade buildings of Zeus and some versions of Caesar but rather the ability to designate a storage yard as a "Trade Only" yard. Nothing ever gets delivered out of them just put in or taken out. If I need say, 4 Storage Yards to handle all the incoming and outgoing freight then I can designate them as such. Leave it up to the city storage yards to come get what is imported and the Trade Yards themselves to go out and get what is to be exported. The point here is to get those imbecilic trade caravans in and out as quickly as possible and stop the cycle of them going to Yard A to get 3 copper and then to Yard B to get 4 more then back to Yard A because Yard A just glommed all the copper out of Yard B and it's now on it's way to Yard A. Plus trying to deliver the 800 units they carry to ridiculously separated yards because Yard A accepts 800 but is currently at 600 and Yard B also accepts 800 so we will imitate Homer and go on an Odyssey to deliver this beer.
4. Entertainment Venues (the bane of block building) don't change them really, I understand the underlying idea behind them but I'd really appreciate it if it were possible to put them on a 'L' intersection (I know there is no such thing, its really just a 90 degree bend in the road) rather than having to do it at a 'T' intersection (although, keeping that functionality would probably be good).
I wouldn't want to see Pharaoh made easier. I do like a challenge. Those are the main sticking points that make me reach for a game other than Pharaoh when it comes time to spend some hours building a city. I never did become the fan of Caesar many people I know did. Pharaoh has, without a doubt, always been my favorite in concept but Zeus usually wins out, not because it is easier to play, because its irritation factor is much less.
"What are we going to do tomorrow Barak?"
"The same thing we do every day Joe....TRY AND TAKE OVER THE WORLD."