Civ3 Musings

Man. The AI is so frustrating in it. I mean, I love heroic doomed stands as much as the next guy, but dudes? Declaring war on the country whose mass of modern armor is forming a literal fence between you and a more powerful enemy who'd love to stomp you? Not too bright. And none of them will surrender even after their army's been smushed and legions of tanks are sitting outside their capitol and I send somebody in to ask "Okay, are we done now? Can we stop this?" Of course not.

Man. It's like playing against a bunch of clones of George W. Bush. "Stay the course! Bring it on!" "Uh, sir, that's not working." "Stay the course!"

Criminy. And since the diplomacy system sucks, and all the leaders are immortal and unkillable, the only way to get them to stop trying to fight me is to utterly conquer them. I don't want to play empire! I want to ditz around and build my spaceship and have my people love me. Is that too much to ask?

Small Ways #Whatever

Ask for help when you need it.

Seriously. People, if you need help with something, ask somebody. Yeah, yeah, pride blah blah. Whatever. It's a lot MORE embarrassing to screw it up totally and break something. And it's a lot worse for everybody, instead of taking the time and asking for help to do it right. Asking for help makes things so much simpler.

The Marketplace of Ideas

Tuesday. That meant they were selling Revolutions. The usual suspects were out, hawking their utopias in catchy T-Shirts and ideals boiled down to fit on a pin. The market was its usual riot. Teenyboppers flocked like hummingbirds. Radicals hurled violent insults at their twins. Serious Men in tweed fought tiny verbal skirmishes in their turf wars. And around and through it all, agents of the Status Quo watched, waiting for something dangerous to cross an invisible line, whereupon they descended and co-opted it, Borg in business suits.

Don't worry, kid, we're unique. Not like the rest of them.