BLITZEN'S PROFILE

I saw we started to talk about this in another topic.

Civilization is a cool game. Personally I like playing Civ3, because I haven't had the wherewithal to get up and buy Civ4, but from what I've heard its more like PTW anyways and I didn't like the "all players go at once" thing. I like playing Civ3 on small maps to make the gam shorter and less cities so its easier to micro-manage. I always try to build libraries early for that extra culture boost that could come in ahndy later, but those are mainly for border cities so I can try to convert neighbours. I usually use a pretty tight grid, leaving little space for cities to grow unless thier border cities or on the coast. Truth is they won't get past population 12 by the time the game is almost done, and this way I can fit more cities and thus get more production out of the tiny map. Spacing too far apart is also bad for defense.

I hate it when i delineate an area for my territory and the computer starts to settle inside it. I usually have to culture-push or war them outta there. I use the Monarchy-> Communism system mostly because of the unit support and I like to have big armies, even though I don't go to war all that often except for resources or to consolidate a territory. Most of the time I try and get that cultural victory, but its hard when you don't build any of the ancient wonders. I don't want to waste valuable early turns on those things, but I can usually squeeze out a Great Lighthouse or a Hanging Gardens if I'm ahead of the pack on techs and have a city outside of the core that has good production. I usually forget to build workers, and thats what hurts my early game most.

What about you? How do you play Civilization?

That's why I play smaller maps in Civ 3, because you have less cities to manage and the game is easier to play as a result. I can micro-manage the economy on any scale I want. I want to feel like I'm conquering the world but I don't want to spend 20+ hours on one game. What I don't like about most Civ mods though, is that they add TOO MANY extra features. My mod only has two (pirates and spies), to allow some extra strategy concerning neglected parts of the original gameplay balance (ie middle age amphibious units and manageable espionage). But having too many unique units per civ, more techs, more different kinds of improvements, throws the original game off balance and requires way too much management.

There should be something to be said for diversity. While I want the core of any game I play to be the same and not thrown off by extra mechanics, its always cool if every time I play a game it looks and feels different. That enhances replay value, and is one of the reasons why I really like Civ 3. The aforementioned mod I an working on, I am trying to flavour all the different civs, so that the workers and warriors for all the civs match thier culture, but still have the same base values as not to confuse the gameplay.

If you want to know what the poem is about click the spoiler. Otherwise I'd like to hear your own interpretations.

(PEANUTS ICE THE METRIC SYSTEM)
I am thinking a puzzle game, where ice blocks fall and you have to melt them before the gameboard fills up. There are two polar bears at the bottom of the screen doing the dirty work for you with a blow torch, the ice blocks fall melted to various degrees so some will take longer to melt than others, some will melt nearly instantly. If you can get peanuts that fall to the bottom of the screen then the polar bears eat them and get an EXTRA BOOST of something. The end of the level is determined when you have melted so many litres of water, and the jug that the polar bears need filled is filled. From level to level this jug gets bigger and bigger. The title? Global Warming.

(SOUND WAVES SKATEBOARD GLUE GUN)

Does the Power Patch include all the features of the Hyper Patcher? I haven't tried them out yet but I just thought I'd ask.