Civilization critique and gaming

[Janos Biro]

dactylopus, miguel and Babar,

About gaming, I understand what all of you are saying. I agree with you: there is a market for almost any game, I want more and more games too, times are changing and the game industry works with ups and downs just like any other capitalist industry. If there is nothing wrong with the capitalist world view, then there is nothing to worry about. But don't you have the slightest doubt about it? Never? You seem to be so certain. I envy your conviction.

To be honest, I have more than doubts, but I don't want to discuss this here. So all I will say is: I seriously doubt it.

About civilization, no stress at all. I've seen this argument many times. Again,  all I can say is that I agree: You can surely look at it as a pendulum. But is civilization really as simple as a pendulum? Or it is like trying to mess with a very complex system without the proper knowledge, in which the tendency is that the more you interfere and try to "correct", more problems are created? We can create a lot of metaphors, but what really counts are the facts. And we don't have them.

Civilization doesn't need to be fundamentally against nature to be fundamentally unbalanced. Many things in nature can become unbalanced. Things will eventually come back to balance, usually after being destroyed. The problem is not the destruction of nature as a whole, I know this is impossible. The problem is that we can destroy our balanced relation with other living things, and then be excluded from the community of life. Again, if capitalist environmentalism is right, no problem! But I seriously doubt, and admit this is not the right place to discuss my viewpoint.

[nickherc]

Civilization definitely deserves to be among top 10 games of all time. I loved the first one, there's just something at growing your empire. Everyone seems to love numero 2, but I don't like it really just because the lack of borders. You have your country all build up and modern and then the enemy parks his tanks in front of your city deep into your territory. And you can't do anything about it, because of the 2 spaces distance rule. ARGH! I loved the 3rd one. 4th one was also okay, but never played the fifth one. I know there is a different battle system..?