D
Darth Tagnan
Guest
Yeah, it seems some people confuse simplicity with a lack of quality or challenge. I get that.
To me, Chess is a simple and elegant game - and the challenge is, as I said, about how far into the future you can keep track of possible moves. It's extremely taxing on the brain once you go beyond a few turns, and I suppose - to be fair - that's a complex operation. But the rules are simple.
But if you take Civilization and you try to predict more than a few turns once the game has started properly - then your head will explode. You can perhaps predict the overall strategy - but each invididual move with each individual unit - as well as each individual choice, given the wealth of options, makes it impossible for the human mind to accurately predict anything of the sort.
Which is why we've yet been able to create a sufficiently effective AI that will always best even an average human player.
Some people are so fond of certain games that they feel they must defend them against all comments that don't represent universal praise - and that's cool.
It's human to let your own emotional fondness of something cloud your judgment - and I don't hold that against anyone. That said, it won't help your case and will only make you appear irrationally attached to something, when you refute the irrefutable.
The point is that it's not so easy to determine what moves have an impact and what moves don't.
For instance, in Civilization the first moves with the very first unit will arguably have a much, much greater impact - because the sooner you establish your first city - and the sooner you build your first improvement - the better your growth will be, and such things tend to accumulate over time. So, in a way, the early game sets the tone and is more important.
It's a huge misconception to think that complex games are "easy" because you can easily defeat the AI. I mean, of course the singleplayer CHALLENGE is easy to overcome - because there's such complexity and creativity involved that no current AI stands a chance.
However, if you play against a human opponent - the level of creativity and the wealth of options available in a game like Civilization makes it much, much harder to predict - all things being equal.
Obviously, if one player establishes an exploit or has played ten times more- then the game will soon become stale and predictable - but the richer the system, the more exploits are available - and things become even less predictable.
So, from my point of view - a game of Civilization is infinitely more interesting between two evenly matched players.
But that's because I'm much, much more about the game and gameplay - and not about the competition.
The competition is separate from the gameplay. I mean, you can have an exciting competition about who can hold the most icrecream in their underwear.
That's the competition that makes it interesting, and not the icecream and the underwear.
So, I suspect that many people who enjoy Chess - or the challenge of Chess - are really mostly focused on the competitive aspect more than the actual gameplay of Chess as opposed to other games.
In fact, I would say that the simplicity and elegance of Chess is a reason it's such a great competitive game - because there are NO exploits, no random outcomes of any kind. Everything is down to pure math and the ability to keep your head aligned with the very, very simplistic ruleset.
Personally, I no longer find much joy in competition. My ego doesn't control that aspect of my personality anymore.
I used to love it, and I used to love competing in many games.
But, these days, I focus more on the experience of playing the game.
To me, Chess is a simple and elegant game - and the challenge is, as I said, about how far into the future you can keep track of possible moves. It's extremely taxing on the brain once you go beyond a few turns, and I suppose - to be fair - that's a complex operation. But the rules are simple.
But if you take Civilization and you try to predict more than a few turns once the game has started properly - then your head will explode. You can perhaps predict the overall strategy - but each invididual move with each individual unit - as well as each individual choice, given the wealth of options, makes it impossible for the human mind to accurately predict anything of the sort.
Which is why we've yet been able to create a sufficiently effective AI that will always best even an average human player.
Some people are so fond of certain games that they feel they must defend them against all comments that don't represent universal praise - and that's cool.
It's human to let your own emotional fondness of something cloud your judgment - and I don't hold that against anyone. That said, it won't help your case and will only make you appear irrationally attached to something, when you refute the irrefutable.
But how many of those moves in civilization are actually very similar and won't have a real impact on the result? Not all moves in chess are crucial either, but I think more so than civilization.
The point is that it's not so easy to determine what moves have an impact and what moves don't.
For instance, in Civilization the first moves with the very first unit will arguably have a much, much greater impact - because the sooner you establish your first city - and the sooner you build your first improvement - the better your growth will be, and such things tend to accumulate over time. So, in a way, the early game sets the tone and is more important.
It's a huge misconception to think that complex games are "easy" because you can easily defeat the AI. I mean, of course the singleplayer CHALLENGE is easy to overcome - because there's such complexity and creativity involved that no current AI stands a chance.
However, if you play against a human opponent - the level of creativity and the wealth of options available in a game like Civilization makes it much, much harder to predict - all things being equal.
Obviously, if one player establishes an exploit or has played ten times more- then the game will soon become stale and predictable - but the richer the system, the more exploits are available - and things become even less predictable.
So, from my point of view - a game of Civilization is infinitely more interesting between two evenly matched players.
But that's because I'm much, much more about the game and gameplay - and not about the competition.
The competition is separate from the gameplay. I mean, you can have an exciting competition about who can hold the most icrecream in their underwear.
That's the competition that makes it interesting, and not the icecream and the underwear.
So, I suspect that many people who enjoy Chess - or the challenge of Chess - are really mostly focused on the competitive aspect more than the actual gameplay of Chess as opposed to other games.
In fact, I would say that the simplicity and elegance of Chess is a reason it's such a great competitive game - because there are NO exploits, no random outcomes of any kind. Everything is down to pure math and the ability to keep your head aligned with the very, very simplistic ruleset.
Personally, I no longer find much joy in competition. My ego doesn't control that aspect of my personality anymore.
I used to love it, and I used to love competing in many games.
But, these days, I focus more on the experience of playing the game.