The Wacky Geopolitics of ‘Civilization: Beyond Earth’
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
What horrible reporting. I expect better from someone associated with the Washington Post.
The save file in question has been uploaded and shared with Reddit, and the community centered around it is https://www.reddit.com/r/theeternalwar .
As it happens, the thousand-year stalemate was the cause of the original player simply being bad at civ. He kept building tanks and trying to perform land invasions of his enemies, rather than crossing the oceans and attacking amphibiously.
By using a landing force comprised primarily of Howitzers, and landing in a well-developed area, a new player was able to prevent the Vikings from obliterating his army with nuclear weapons due to his presence deep inside their homeland. By constantly reinforcing the army across the ocean, you can defeat the Vikings and move on the the Americans, which have a strong air force but a weak ground military. Ground forces can eliminate American bases and cripple their air force.
The writeup is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/theeternalwar/comments/uzm4w/took_5...
This is literally on google, I can't believe the journalist was that lazy.
The story line in the game starts in 2064, so 50 years from now. In 1940 France and Germany were bitter enemies, by 1990, they were best buds. Not that crazy after all, especially when crises change the world order.
The article also goes into discussing the necessity of a world hegemon to keep trade open. I wonder if this is less necessary in an age where global economies are much more connected and so many more countries are liberal democracies.
And hey, at least the Siliciods aren't peacefully declaring war on you for your hyper-aggressive inaction on turn one (Master of Orion 3 shall always have the most broken politics).
Edit: double checking, the article notes the game starts hundreds of years in the future (and a couple other non-spoiler sites corroborate). Frankly, at that point from now, all bets are off. (A hundred years ago, power grids were just starting to be a pretty cool idea.)
'A "nuclear summer" is a hypothesized scenario in which, after a nuclear winter has abated, a greenhouse effect then occurs due to CO2 released by combustion and methane released from decay of dead organic matter.'
That's all it says about that particular thing, but it's worth a read for everything else.
"I sit in my cubicle, here on the motherworld. When I die, they will put my body in a box and dispose of it in the cold ground. And in all the million ages to come, I will never breathe, or laugh, or twitch again. So won't you run and play with me here among the teeming mass of humanity? The universe has spared us this moment." -- Anonymous, Datalinks
There are two kinds of scientific progress: the methodical experimentation and categorization which gradually extend the boundaries of knowledge, and the revolutionary leap of genius which redefines and transcends those boundaries. Acknowledging our debt to the former, we yearn, nonetheless, for the latter.
-Academician Prokhor Zakharov, "Address to the Faculty"
For more: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Alpha_Centauri
I wouldn't call it bad, but I wouldn't spend $50 on it if I knew what I know now.
Organic Superlube? Oh, it’s great stuff, great stuff. You really have to keep an eye on it, though—it’ll try and slide away from you the first chance it gets. -- T. M. Morgan-Reilly, Morgan Metagenics
Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded. Presented, of course, when you've successfully researched retroviral engineering.