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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com either and welcome to text Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickler. We are now going to conclude our

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Speaker 1: two part epic series on Sid Meyer, the man who

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Speaker 1: changed computer games forever, like by being one of the

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Speaker 1: people who made them first. He made them good. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he made them good. Or of course side Meyer's just

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Speaker 1: one name among many instrumental programmers who really helped define

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Speaker 1: what video games were all about in those early computer

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Speaker 1: game days to the point where you would you know,

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Speaker 1: one of the things that Meyer likes to talk about

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Speaker 1: if you ever listen to interviews or read an interview

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Speaker 1: with him, he he talks about these nostalgic early days

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Speaker 1: of computer programming, back before there were genres of computer

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Speaker 1: games right right, and and all of the constraints of

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Speaker 1: trying to make something that worked and worked well when

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Speaker 1: the equipment that you had and the amount of memory

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Speaker 1: that you had to play with were so limited limited. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and the fact that you know, back then you

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Speaker 1: could just make whatever you thought would make a good game.

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Speaker 1: And his philosophy was if it's fun, put it in,

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Speaker 1: and if it's not fun, take it out. And that

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Speaker 1: would find the fun. Yeah, that was I mean, you

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Speaker 1: see this phrase over and over and over again. Find

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Speaker 1: the fun, give the players interesting choices. Those were two

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Speaker 1: of the main things he would stress over and over again.

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Speaker 1: And uh and it worked really well for him. So

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Speaker 1: when we left off at the end of the last episode,

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Speaker 1: he had just left the company that he had co founded, Micropros. Right.

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Speaker 1: Um and and I we should mention as If two

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Speaker 1: came out that year as well, which had been designed

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Speaker 1: by Brian Reynolds, who who was a young programmer who

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Speaker 1: had started working with sid Meyer. Yep, so Civilization to uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, sid Meyer had input on Civilization too. Mainly

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Speaker 1: it was he was a playtester. He would play it

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Speaker 1: and give feedback to Brian Reynolds. In fact, that's really

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Speaker 1: how sid Meyer likes to design games as well. He

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Speaker 1: likes to build something he then we'll hand it off

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Speaker 1: to someone he really trusts to play it, get feedback

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Speaker 1: from that person, say what was fun, what wasn't fun?

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Speaker 1: Did you find anything confusing? And then tweak it based

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Speaker 1: on their feedback. Yeah, and then sometimes and then continue

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Speaker 1: that cycle. Sometimes this would take a course over like

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Speaker 1: a day. He would hand over a game a person

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Speaker 1: would play it, they'd hand it back at the end

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Speaker 1: of the day and say all right, well, here are

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Speaker 1: the things I have to tell you, and then sid

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Speaker 1: Meyer would go home, reprogram the game, and come back

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Speaker 1: the next morning and say here's the new version, and

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Speaker 1: it would start all over again. It's kind of crazy,

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Speaker 1: but that's sort of how Sidmyer likes to work. And

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Speaker 1: he doesn't tend to do things like draw up a

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Speaker 1: detailed plan of what a game is supposed to be

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Speaker 1: and then try and follow the blueprint. Instead, he builds, tests,

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Speaker 1: rebuilds right. And part of why he left Micropros was

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Speaker 1: that it was becoming that kind of corporate environment where

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Speaker 1: I think, you know, they were asking him to do

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Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, and he was like, that's not

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Speaker 1: how I work, not really. I do this because I

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Speaker 1: love to make games. I don't do it so then

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Speaker 1: I'm not trying to create franchises so much as I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to create compelling games. And the two are not

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Speaker 1: necessarily uh separate. But I don't want to be pigeoned

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Speaker 1: like I don't want to be I don't want to

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Speaker 1: be framed in this this context where I only create

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Speaker 1: civilization games from now on because Civilization one sold so well. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so Meyer, Brian Reynolds, and Jeff Briggs all leave Micropros

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Speaker 1: and um uh start up a new company called for

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Speaker 1: Access Games. Right, so for Access Games. That's um that

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Speaker 1: that company name comes from a fusion of two words, right,

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Speaker 1: fiery and access even like for Tree. Okay, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not gonna I'm not gonna argue that

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Speaker 1: they can do what they want. However, they like this

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Speaker 1: is still in the Baltimore area. Um, they occasionally like

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Speaker 1: to say, you know, we we like to think of

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Speaker 1: it as Silicon Valley East, or or we like to

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Speaker 1: think of Silicon Valleys, um Valley West. Nice, I like

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Speaker 1: to think of it as John Waters Computer Development. Anyway.

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Speaker 1: So so Sidmyer his his title at for Access is

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Speaker 1: director of Creative Development. You might ask, what does director

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Speaker 1: of creative development mean? What is what's his actual job responsibility?

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Speaker 1: And it's to do what Sidmyer does, to do what

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Speaker 1: he wants. Yeah. He he essentially has a job where

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Speaker 1: he gets to concentrate on the projects that interest and

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Speaker 1: excite him. Because, as it turns out, if Sid Meyer

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Speaker 1: is excited and interested in something, a lot of gamers

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Speaker 1: tend to be interested and excited about it too. So

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Speaker 1: it's kind of this philosophy of if you let the

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Speaker 1: game designer who is really looking at creating a fun

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Speaker 1: experience do his or her thing, you end up with

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Speaker 1: a very marketable product. This is not always the case, obviously,

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Speaker 1: if you're if your game designer is not really good

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Speaker 1: at judging what is fun, then clearly that's a very

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Speaker 1: poor decision. But in this particular case, uh and and

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Speaker 1: the company was really started out very small. It was

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Speaker 1: only ten to fifteen people. Um and uh Meyer said

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Speaker 1: of the company at the time, the convicts are running

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Speaker 1: the asylum. It's great fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and he knows.

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Speaker 1: Also that year awarded a US patent for a quote

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Speaker 1: system for real time music composition and synthesis end quote.

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Speaker 1: Al Right, that was that? That was that a CPU

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Speaker 1: bach that I mentioned in the previous episode. Yes, so

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Speaker 1: cpu Bok was a program that would allow you to

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Speaker 1: compose your own music, which I think is an amazing idea.

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Speaker 1: It did not do well. It wasn't a commercial success

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Speaker 1: at all, Um, but but it also um said, Meyer

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Speaker 1: is deeply interested in music. He Um has has gone

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Speaker 1: on record saying that he Guitar Hero is one of

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Speaker 1: the games that he just really wishes he had thought

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Speaker 1: of first, and that he's fascinated by its ability to

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Speaker 1: bring people who aren't familiar with music into that world. Right,

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Speaker 1: I've seen I've seen him say that he has two regrets.

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Speaker 1: That he's not the one who invented Tetris and he's

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Speaker 1: not the one who invented Guitar Hero. He also supposedly

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Speaker 1: um he's um very involved in one of his local

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Speaker 1: churches and writes, composes music for the choir, and plays

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Speaker 1: the organ. Yeah. Um. Speaking of his personal life, Fraxis

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Speaker 1: hired a woman named Susan Brickensum, who had previously worked

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Speaker 1: for the U. S. Navy in the Department of Defense,

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Speaker 1: UM to be the head of human resources. And this

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Speaker 1: would be important in a couple of years when she

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Speaker 1: and sid Meier got married and and and these days

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Speaker 1: she refers to her title as Master of Miscellaneous, Right,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure, I mean it was an important hire at

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Speaker 1: the time anyway, because she was a terrific she was

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Speaker 1: she was very good at personnel and very good with people,

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Speaker 1: and and still is is pretty instrumental in the company. Again,

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Speaker 1: when you talk about like interviews with sid Meyer, a

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Speaker 1: lot of them mentioned that she, Susan is hanging out

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Speaker 1: right and and she she serves as sort of an

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Speaker 1: additional memory for Meyer, who has done a lot, you know,

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Speaker 1: but Meyer tends to he's a very affable kind of guy,

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Speaker 1: and Susan wild chime in and say what he's really saying. Well, actually, yeah,

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Speaker 1: by the way, shout out to all you act Accutron

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Speaker 1: tweeter you see all are great. Yeah, I can't wait

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Speaker 1: to see the will Actually he's about this episode ven MicroProse.

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Speaker 1: You know, this is after Meyer has already left. But

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Speaker 1: Micropros publishes Magic the Gathering, which reportedly was the last

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Speaker 1: game title at Micropros that sid Meyer had personally worked

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Speaker 1: on in some capacity before he had left, So at

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Speaker 1: that point, moving forward, the Micropros games that would come

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Speaker 1: out did not have sid Meyer's involvement. Moving ahead, a

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Speaker 1: couple of years in, sid Meyer was inducted into the

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Speaker 1: Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame for

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Speaker 1: Lifetime Achievement. He was only the second person to ever

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Speaker 1: receive that award. The first one was she get a

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Speaker 1: Minamoto big which name who you might know from doing

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Speaker 1: like Mario and Donkey Kong and Legend of Zelda and

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Speaker 1: numerous other games. So Sidney or not not not bad,

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Speaker 1: you know, not bad to be number two when that's

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Speaker 1: number one. He also launched, not literally, I guess, sid

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Speaker 1: Meyer's Alpha Centauri game, which was was it kind of

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Speaker 1: spinoff of Civilization? Yeah, it's sort of like, well, you

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Speaker 1: know how at the end of Civilization, if you've if

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Speaker 1: you followed the future tech pathway to trying to win,

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Speaker 1: you launched that that face colony out to Alpha Centauri. Well,

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Speaker 1: now we're starting you in Alpha Centauri. Yeah. Interesting little

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Speaker 1: side note, did you know? Oh well, never mind, I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna leave that for the trivia at the end of

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Speaker 1: this podcast. There's there's a fun little side note about

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Speaker 1: Alpha Centauri, but we'll talk about that at the trivia section.

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Speaker 1: So in two thousand, sid Meyer proposes a dinosaur themed game.

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Speaker 1: I've seen this. I've seen this refer to as um

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Speaker 1: uh sid Meyer's version of the white Whale. Yes, it's his,

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Speaker 1: it's his albatross, it's his white whale. It's his metaphor

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Speaker 1: for the things that he wanted to do that he

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Speaker 1: never quite got right. Um and it's not that he

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Speaker 1: launched a game that did poorly. No, he never launched

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Speaker 1: a game. He started to really think that a diasaur

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Speaker 1: based game has the potential for being really fun, but

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Speaker 1: he tried different approaches and none of them seemed to

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Speaker 1: be quite fun enough to him to merit an actual game.

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Speaker 1: He tried a real time version, he tried to turn

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Speaker 1: based version more like Civilization, and even tried a card

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Speaker 1: based game something like Magic the Gathering, but he never

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Speaker 1: felt it was quite good enough. Yeah, he was. He

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Speaker 1: was kind of obsessed with that. He made UM Jake Solomon,

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Speaker 1: who was the third person from that Katako interview whose

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Speaker 1: name I had completely forgotten at the top of the

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Speaker 1: previous podcast, UM play a version of this during his interview,

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Speaker 1: Like like Jake was trying to interview and Meyer was like,

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Speaker 1: can you play this game? What did you think about

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Speaker 1: the game? And Solomon got very the idea that this

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Speaker 1: wasn't part of the interview because it was just Meyer

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Speaker 1: going like, I really want feedback. Yeah. He said that

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Speaker 1: maybe Meyer was looking at for personality traits based upon

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Speaker 1: my responses, but I think he really just wanted to

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Speaker 1: know what I thought about the game. Um, he thought

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Speaker 1: Solomon also reported related to to this, and and also

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Speaker 1: some other stuff that that Meyer once said playing games

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Speaker 1: is a series of interesting decisions, but making games is

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Speaker 1: a series of heartbreaking disappointments. Right. So, Meyer, sad that

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Speaker 1: he can't get this dinosaur game to work, goes home,

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Speaker 1: and he stays home for about two weeks and employees

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Speaker 1: wonder what the heck is up with Meyer. Meyer comes

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Speaker 1: back and they says, Okay, I've got a pro type

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Speaker 1: game to show you, guys. It's totally different. And they're like, what, Like,

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Speaker 1: you were gone for two weeks. We thought you were

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Speaker 1: all depressed. Like yeah, He's like, yeah, I made sim Golf.

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Speaker 1: So he showed off sim Golf, which was actually, you know,

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Speaker 1: it is a game that allows you to create your

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Speaker 1: own golf courses along the lines of railroad Tycoon again. Right,

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Speaker 1: So he he shows this off and uh and they say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we could sell this, this is a marketable game, and uh.

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Speaker 1: It kind of again shows that he creates games by

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Speaker 1: just diving in and building them rather than planning them

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Speaker 1: out in advance. It's not that he had planned on

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Speaker 1: making sim golf. He was still thinking about that dinosaur

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Speaker 1: game and then came up with a totally different approach

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Speaker 1: and uh so again that was just a pro type.

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Speaker 1: Obviously he would go in and refine it before it

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Speaker 1: would be marketed as sim Golf. But that's how it

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Speaker 1: was born. Now, in two thousand one a company from

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Speaker 1: France called Info Grams and I almost I always want

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Speaker 1: to drop the R out of it, constantly info Games.

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Speaker 1: But info Grams comes in and purchases from Hasbro a

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Speaker 1: a subsidiary, the Hasbro Interactive subsidiary. Why is this important

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Speaker 1: because that because Hasbro had purchased micro Prose a couple

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Speaker 1: of years previous. So um that was that was Sid

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Speaker 1: Meier's old company was micro Prose, and it had been

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Speaker 1: acquired by Hasbro. Hasbro could not really make their interactive

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Speaker 1: division work very well. This was I remember actually following

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Speaker 1: this news while it was happening and seeing that it

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Speaker 1: was really frustrating because it had Hasbro Interactive involved more

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Speaker 1: than just Micropros, that they had swept up a few companies,

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Speaker 1: and there was a lot of frustration that Hasbro had

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Speaker 1: bought up a lot of talent, or at least brands

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Speaker 1: that were very recognizable and didn't really manage to do

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Speaker 1: much with them. So anyway, Since Info Grames bought Hasbro Interactive,

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Speaker 1: it also meant that they got the rights to the

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Speaker 1: Civilization franchise and the name Micropros and the rights to

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Speaker 1: the Atari brand were also purchased in this acquisition. So

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Speaker 1: at this point Micropros as a distinct entity ceased to be.

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Speaker 1: It was just a name, just like Atari ceased to be.

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Speaker 1: It became just a name. So dark days for some people.

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Speaker 1: As as far as if you were to ask them

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Speaker 1: about what what do you feel about how do you

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Speaker 1: feel about this? I feel really sad because these these

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Speaker 1: were instrumental companies in the early days of video games

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Speaker 1: and computer games UM, and now they were just reduced

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Speaker 1: to a brand name. There was really no no identity

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Speaker 1: behind that. Uh. At two thousand two, Meyer got inducted

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Speaker 1: to another Hall of Fame, this time by the Computer Museum.

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Speaker 1: So so he's He's in several halls that are famous.

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Speaker 1: That was also in some golf was actually released UM

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Speaker 1: in a two thousand three Info Grames Info Grames, that's

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Speaker 1: my fault. I need a transposition error. It's info Grames.

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Speaker 1: I'm looking at the same notes that you're looking at,

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Speaker 1: and you said it the way I wrote it. So

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Speaker 1: I wrote it wrong. That's all excellent, Yes, C three

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Speaker 1: C three is the point of this sentence, right. So

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Speaker 1: Civilization three comes out from Info Grames, but the development

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Speaker 1: of CIV three came from for acxis. So the you know,

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Speaker 1: sid Meier of course founded for Access. So the company

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Speaker 1: that Sidmire helped found ended up developing Civilization three and

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Speaker 1: it was just published by Infogrames. Jeff Briggs was the

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Speaker 1: lead game designer for three. And that's when another video

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Speaker 1: game designer named Sarn Johnson began to work on this title,

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Speaker 1: on Civilization three, or or he had worked on it.

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Speaker 1: Now he had joined for Access back in two thousand.

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Speaker 1: Before he had joined for Access, he had worked for

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Speaker 1: Electronic Arts and uh, and he'll become important later to

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Speaker 1: two thousand four is when take two Interactive, which is

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Speaker 1: that might be a name that a lot of our

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Speaker 1: video game players are familiar with. It's a publishing company. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: They they own a rock star in two k UM,

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Speaker 1: which which I responsible for, like Grand Theft, Auto Grant.

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Speaker 1: The five comes out September sevent waits and like that

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Speaker 1: NBA two k and they they buy the rights to

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Speaker 1: the Civilization franchise from Info Grames. For twenty two point

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Speaker 1: three million dollars. In two thousand five, take to Interact

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Speaker 1: of then acquires for Access for twenty six point seven

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Speaker 1: million dollars. So once again you have all the components

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Speaker 1: that are associated with the Civilization computer game series together

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Speaker 1: under one roof. So it took some years that they

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Speaker 1: split off and did some crazy splintering stuff, but now

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Speaker 1: they're all part of the same company. And I believe

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Speaker 1: two thousand four, I'm sorry, two thousand five was also

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Speaker 1: the year that CE four was released, and uh, we're

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Speaker 1: up to five now as I recall, So two thousand

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Speaker 1: seven Civilization five is the current title, is what I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to at. But in two thousand seven, Soren Johnson,

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Speaker 1: the developer I was talking about earlier, he leaves for

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Speaker 1: Access to go back to e A, and he goes

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Speaker 1: to work with an old peer of Sid Meyers, Will Write,

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Speaker 1: who had made some city. Yeah, so Will Wright has

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Speaker 1: his own. We could do our another podcast just on

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Speaker 1: will Rap. I'd be great. Yeah, yeah sometime, Well, don't

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Speaker 1: worry people who aren't big into video games. Well we'll

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Speaker 1: let some time. Yeah, well because breathing room. But he

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Speaker 1: goes to work with Will Wright on a game called Spore,

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Speaker 1: which had crazy buzz, so much hype, so much hype. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the idea of this artificially intelligent, super advanced uh component

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Speaker 1: to this game, and that I was going to give

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Speaker 1: you unprecedented control over the evolution of creatures and you

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Speaker 1: could share them with each other and cross breed. And

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Speaker 1: the execution was what some would argue somewhat lacking compared

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Speaker 1: to the buzz that surrounded it in its early days.

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Speaker 1: It was one of those games that got delayed several

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Speaker 1: times and it just didn't seem to live up to

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Speaker 1: its potential. But that was its interesting that another person

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Speaker 1: who had worked with Sidmyer went on to go and

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Speaker 1: work with one of Meyer's early peers. Eventually, by the way,

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Speaker 1: Sore and Johnson would actually leave e A again. That

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Speaker 1: would be the second time he had left Electronic Arts. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That would be in and then he goes to join Zinga.

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Speaker 1: Oh of um all of the little apps, yeah, the

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Speaker 1: platform games, yeah, the apps and the mobile games uh

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Speaker 1: and uh and that company it struggled quite a bit recently, yes,

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Speaker 1: But in eleven that same year when Sare and Johnson

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Speaker 1: had left, that's when Sieve World comes out. Now, this

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Speaker 1: was a game that sid Meier was lead developer on.

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Speaker 1: Civil World was a flash based game that used Facebook

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Speaker 1: as the platform. So you know those games when you

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Speaker 1: go on to Facebook you get all those invites from

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Speaker 1: your friends who don't like you, who want you to play.

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Speaker 1: Was it candy Crush something I I've literally never played

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Speaker 1: a Facebook game, so I would not know. I did early, early,

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Speaker 1: early on in the days of Facebook, and then decided,

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Speaker 1: you know, this is the these these games don't really

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Speaker 1: appeal to me. Now, it may have been that I

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Speaker 1: was playing poorly developed games, right, But anyways, this was

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Speaker 1: sid Meier's approach to getting into this. So they launched

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Speaker 1: it inleven, but they shut it down in early It just,

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Speaker 1: I guess wasn't working properly. It just didn't align with

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Speaker 1: the rest of the company's vision. But anyway, that was

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Speaker 1: one of the latest titles that sid Meier had a

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Speaker 1: direct hand in developing. For Access was named the number

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Speaker 1: one developer of the year by Game Informer magazine. X

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Speaker 1: Com had come out that year, a sci fi strategy

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Speaker 1: game that hit a lot of critical and popular acclaim right,

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Speaker 1: and actually, if you if you look back at the

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Speaker 1: history of sid Meyer, you'll see that there's an earlier

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Speaker 1: game called X Calm. This was a sort of a

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Speaker 1: reimagination of that earlier game. And I know a lot

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Speaker 1: of people who are huge X com fans. I have

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Speaker 1: not played it, but all the people I know who

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Speaker 1: have played it, they just rent and rave and say

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Speaker 1: this is fantastic. Jake Solomon, who I was talking about earlier,

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Speaker 1: was the one who directed that one. Got you. So

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Speaker 1: that's when the the well, first of all, that's this

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Speaker 1: year when we're recording that hill, Welcome to the present.

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Speaker 1: I'm reading the notes and I just present when we

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Speaker 1: all got our jet packs and all food came in pilform.

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Speaker 1: That's actually the the The latest title that Sidmyer has

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Speaker 1: developed came out this year. It's called Ace Patrol and

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Speaker 1: it was in fact Sidmyer's first game specifically for mobile platforms,

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Speaker 1: meaning you know, smartphones, tablet second thing, and uh, the

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Speaker 1: way the game works, it's it's a World War One

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Speaker 1: airplane strategy game. So you're you're controlling pilots who are

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Speaker 1: flying various types of aircraft and you go into dog fights,

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Speaker 1: but you're not controlling the airplanes. It's turn based, so

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Speaker 1: you know, you try and have your pilot, takedown other pilots,

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Speaker 1: and as you progress through the game, you can upgrade

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Speaker 1: your pilot skills and the airplanes capabilities. Um and uh

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Speaker 1: so it plays a lot like other strategy games. Uh. Actually,

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Speaker 1: just two days before we were recording this, on August

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Speaker 1: Ace Patrol was released for PC on Steam. So you

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Speaker 1: can play it either on a mobile platform or you

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Speaker 1: can play it on on Steam. What it's interesting here

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Speaker 1: is it also gives us a little bit of an

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Speaker 1: insight into Myer's opinions about some of the ways that

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Speaker 1: games are being marketed these days. Um, like freemium games. Now,

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Speaker 1: these are the games that are free for you to download,

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Speaker 1: but if you want specific items or you want to

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Speaker 1: get access to certain levels, you have to pay. Right

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Speaker 1: and it's a frequent model for for mobile games. Right

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Speaker 1: e A is really big on this, for instance, and

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Speaker 1: you know it does a lot of thing it does too. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of different companies that are trying this.

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Speaker 1: And then you're seeing this not just on things like

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Speaker 1: mobile platforms, but also in consoles where you can get

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Speaker 1: consoles where you end up having the stuff that you

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Speaker 1: can pay extra for and get access to, or or

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Speaker 1: n PC games a lot of the MMOs and involve

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Speaker 1: elements like that. Now, some of these games also allow

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Speaker 1: you to eventually earn those items if you play long enough,

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Speaker 1: but they're trying to create an incentive for players to

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Speaker 1: spend the money to get earlier access to this stuff.

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Speaker 1: So Meyer was asked about his opinion on this, and

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Speaker 1: he said that building a game like that is about

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Speaker 1: designing unhappiness, which that's pretty tough. Yeah. He's essentially saying

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Speaker 1: that you your goal when you are designing a freemium

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Speaker 1: game where you're trying to give people the incentive to

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Speaker 1: buy more stuff, is that you have to design a

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Speaker 1: game so not fun that people will pay to make

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Speaker 1: it fun. He says that kind of goes against the

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Speaker 1: grain of game design. That's, uh, that's a kind of

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Speaker 1: harsh and b I think entirely true. Yeah. I mean,

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Speaker 1: when you think of it that way, you're like, that's

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Speaker 1: totally not the way the game developers are thinking about

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Speaker 1: when they're designing the game. But from a consumer standpoint, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can see that saying we won this game to

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Speaker 1: be engaging enough so that someone wants to download it,

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Speaker 1: but not so engaging that they feel that they fulfilled.

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Speaker 1: They have to pay to really get that fulfilling experience,

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Speaker 1: and that myers like I don't want to be part

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Speaker 1: of that. So with the iOS version of Ace Patrol,

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Speaker 1: you could pay five dollars and get the whole game.

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Speaker 1: You could try to play it for free, and you

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Speaker 1: get the first few levels, but then you would be

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Speaker 1: prompted to say, all right, if you enjoyed this, go

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Speaker 1: ahead and purchase it. If not, then thank you for

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Speaker 1: playing um. And if you only wanted to play one

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Speaker 1: of the nationalities in the game, you could pay a

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Speaker 1: dollar per nationality, so you could, you know, have had

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Speaker 1: a little bit of that freemium thing, but only in

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Speaker 1: the sense of kind of this is the trial version.

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Speaker 1: Now you can buy the full version, not so much

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Speaker 1: of Oh you want your playing to go faster, spend

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Speaker 1: a dollar now. Another interesting thing that I read is

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Speaker 1: that Meyer says he's no longer involved in Civilization titles,

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Speaker 1: but but that that he feels like they're in good hands.

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Speaker 1: And the last one, Civilization five, was designed by John Schaefer,

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Speaker 1: and uh, you know again, like they'll they'll come to

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Speaker 1: Sidmire for input, they'll ask him for his opinions. But

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Speaker 1: he says he's no longer actively part of those teams,

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Speaker 1: which he's fine with. He he wants to be able

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Speaker 1: to concentrate on whatever interests him. And again, he doesn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily want to get caught in this trappic like like

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Speaker 1: we want you to be a franchise generator. He doesn't

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Speaker 1: want that. So I've got some trivia. So here's some

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Speaker 1: Sidmyer trivia. And the first bit is that sid Meyer

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Speaker 1: appears as a character in the Alien Crossfire expansion pack

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Speaker 1: for sid Meier's Alpha Centauri game. So there's a a

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Speaker 1: secret hidden faction in the this expansion pack for Alpha Centauri,

427
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 1: and the secret faction is called the Faraxians. So, uh,

428
00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:36,840
Speaker 1: if you unlocked the Farraxians, you would unlock them either

429
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:40,520
Speaker 1: with sid Meyer as the leader or Brian Reynolds as

430
00:23:40,520 --> 00:23:42,119
Speaker 1: the leader, and that would appear as the leader for

431
00:23:42,160 --> 00:23:45,000
Speaker 1: the rest of the game. Uh. And then according to

432
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:48,280
Speaker 1: the two thousand eight Guinness Book of World Records, sid

433
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:53,439
Speaker 1: Meyer holds the record for most video game awards ever received. Um.

434
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:56,960
Speaker 1: He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Like we've said, we talked

435
00:23:56,960 --> 00:23:59,520
Speaker 1: about his wife and the fact that her her she

436
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:03,040
Speaker 1: consider is her new title Master of Miscellaneous that. By

437
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:05,040
Speaker 1: the way, it's not a formal title, it's not her

438
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:07,199
Speaker 1: official title. Now, that's just kind of what she's like.

439
00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:10,680
Speaker 1: That's what I consider myself. Uh. And according to his employees,

440
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:13,400
Speaker 1: like we said, he's a very personal friendly guy. He's

441
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:15,480
Speaker 1: got like an open door policy. Anyone can come in

442
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:18,880
Speaker 1: and talk to him. Apparently he's really dedicated to his work.

443
00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 1: If he's really interested in a project, you will find

444
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 1: him even working on weekends and working long hours if

445
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:27,399
Speaker 1: he's if he's really excited. It's kind of like the

446
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:31,120
Speaker 1: way that players play Civilization where they have to take

447
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: that next turn. They can't they can't quit yet, They're

448
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 1: just gonna do one more turn, just one more turn.

449
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 1: All right, So we're gonna have another part of this podcast.

450
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:44,320
Speaker 1: We're gonna really talk about Civilization and its development process

451
00:24:44,359 --> 00:24:46,880
Speaker 1: and it's impact on the industry. But before we get

452
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:51,399
Speaker 1: into that, let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Alright,

453
00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Civilization. This is, of course, the

454
00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:56,959
Speaker 1: biggest title I think you could you could argue that

455
00:24:56,960 --> 00:25:01,080
Speaker 1: Sidmyer has ever produced, while I would a that Pirates

456
00:25:01,080 --> 00:25:04,480
Speaker 1: remains my favorite. Uh. Do you can't deny the fact

457
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:08,479
Speaker 1: that Civilization has had a huge impact. So did you

458
00:25:08,600 --> 00:25:14,959
Speaker 1: know that the original Civilization was only three megabytes in size?

459
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 1: I didn't know that, but only because I read the

460
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:20,960
Speaker 1: same research that you did. Also, Yeah, that would that

461
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:23,760
Speaker 1: would help. Yeah, that but that's kind of that's kind

462
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 1: of eye opening. Now, like you a video game being

463
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 1: like multiple gigs and one of the most successful or

464
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 1: at least highest critical acclaimed video games ever made only

465
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:40,440
Speaker 1: free megabytes. Yeah, it was created for the IBM PC UM,

466
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 1: which at the time only had memory, right, Yeah, so

467
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 1: so you know you had those limited constraints that we

468
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:50,159
Speaker 1: talked about earlier. By the way, who was it that

469
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 1: handled almost all the programming on that first Civilization game?

470
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: Do you know? I do not know? It's Sid Meyer.

471
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: He did all the programming himself, pretty much. He said that,

472
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:02,880
Speaker 1: you know, essentially all the coding was due to him.

473
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:05,800
Speaker 1: He was the one who was coding everything for Civilization.

474
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:08,439
Speaker 1: He said that he did some of the art design

475
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:11,440
Speaker 1: as well, and a few of his art designs may

476
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:16,200
Speaker 1: have made it into the final game, but he's not sure. Um,

477
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:21,119
Speaker 1: he was working very closely with a specific person. Bruce

478
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:24,680
Speaker 1: Campbell Show Bruce Campbell, Shelley, thank you um and and

479
00:26:24,680 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 1: and that was that was they were called within the company,

480
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:31,640
Speaker 1: the A team supposedly and um and Like like Jonathan

481
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:34,440
Speaker 1: was talking about earlier, Shelley would play test, Meyer would

482
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 1: tweak the game and just rinse, repeat, Yeah. They would

483
00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:39,639
Speaker 1: just do this over and over again. Shelley would be like,

484
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: this game is great, but here's the stuff that I

485
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:44,360
Speaker 1: thought needed a little work. And Meyer would go back

486
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 1: and tweak it and bring it back the next morning

487
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 1: and say try it again. And they would just do

488
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:51,920
Speaker 1: this several times in order to kind of refine the game.

489
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:57,159
Speaker 1: Now here's some interesting background here. So Bruce Campbell Shelley

490
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:00,880
Speaker 1: came to micro Pros. This is back in the acroprose days.

491
00:27:01,440 --> 00:27:06,200
Speaker 1: He came to Micropros from another company called Avalon Hill. Right, yeah, okay,

492
00:27:06,320 --> 00:27:09,600
Speaker 1: now now Avalon Hill had um what was a board

493
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: game company. Yeah, they would publish board games. And one

494
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:16,080
Speaker 1: of the board games they published was originally published by

495
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 1: another company in England and designed by Francis Tresham. This

496
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 1: was called Civilization. Yeah, so Civilization the board game. Francis

497
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 1: Francis Tresham was the guy who designed it. Uh, and

498
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 1: it was published in written When it came over to America.

499
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:35,359
Speaker 1: Avalon Hill purchased the license to publish it in the

500
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,399
Speaker 1: United States. So Avalon Hills not the company that that

501
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 1: ultimately owned Civilization, They just had a license for it

502
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:45,879
Speaker 1: in the un right. So that's one connection between the

503
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: board game Civilization and the computer game Civilization. That would

504
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 1: be Shelley who he did not work on the board

505
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:54,200
Speaker 1: game conversion for Civilization, but he did work on another

506
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:58,120
Speaker 1: game that Tresham had developed called eighteen twenty nine that

507
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 1: was a real road designing game board game. Yeah, and

508
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:05,679
Speaker 1: they when they brought over to America, they changed the

509
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 1: title it was no longer but anyway, again it was

510
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:14,160
Speaker 1: a railroad. It was a railroad kind of a railroad

511
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:18,479
Speaker 1: empire game, all right, much like Railroad Tycoon, which Shelley

512
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:22,120
Speaker 1: also worked on, right, so they now Now, they did

513
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: say that things like these board games served as inspiration,

514
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: but when you look at the actual mechanics and the

515
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 1: way the actual games play out there, really the similarities

516
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 1: are mainly on a surface level. They don't go very

517
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 1: deeply like and once you get into game mechanics it

518
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 1: separates out quite a bit, right, right, Um, And you know,

519
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 1: like the board game Civilization for example, Um didn't really

520
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: go into anywhere near modern or futuristic technology. It stopped

521
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 1: and kind of the Middle Ages, ancient to Middle Ages.

522
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: That was pretty much the domain of the original board game.

523
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 1: And you know, Meyer has said that he was certainly

524
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 1: aware of the board game, that he had a copy

525
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:00,480
Speaker 1: that he had looked through, but it that he hadn't

526
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: actually played it until after he finished building Civilization. Shelley

527
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 1: says that he had played the board game, obviously having

528
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 1: worked for Avalon Hill, but that that Meyer. He also says,

529
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 1: you know, Meyer hadn't played it until after he had

530
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:18,440
Speaker 1: finished the development of the actual Civilization video game. But

531
00:29:18,520 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: this is where, you know, one of the things we

532
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 1: can talk about, along with the developmental issues of trying

533
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 1: to get this game actually to to publish in the

534
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 1: environment that was micropros at that time, is the issues

535
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:34,240
Speaker 1: with this game. Now. They didn't want to encounter any

536
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 1: legal problems with this this computer game once they decided

537
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 1: they were going to call it Civilization, so they licensed

538
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 1: the name Civilization from Avalon Hill, which again was the

539
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: u S publisher for the game. Right So um the

540
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 1: the by the way, the British company that published it

541
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 1: originally was called Heartland trefoil, and I'm sure I'm saying

542
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 1: trefoil wrong because the way the UK works, they'd say,

543
00:29:57,520 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 1: oh it's spelled tref oil, but it's now throat wobbler mangrove. So, um,

544
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: I apologize, that's a money Python reference. I apologize if

545
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: I am, you know, if if all the UK fans

546
00:30:11,280 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 1: out there are just wincing every time I try and

547
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: say this. So getting back into the actual development of Civilization,

548
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 1: this was not a smooth process. We mentioned it in

549
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: the previous podcast that they were experiencing some reluctance on

550
00:30:24,760 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 1: the part of Micropros because Steely, who was the president

551
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: of Micropros, he was really focused on those combat signulations

552
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 1: and he reportedly just didn't get Civilization. He just didn't

553
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 1: see where the appeal was. He didn't think it was

554
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: going to be successful. Also, because Meyer had moved away

555
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:45,959
Speaker 1: from being a direct employee of Micropros, he was no

556
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 1: longer head of development. The new VP of Development did

557
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: not have any incentive to promote Sidmyer games because he

558
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 1: did not receive any sort of bonus from those games.

559
00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: He would receive bonuses from any games developed internally by

560
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 1: micro a Prose employees, so he would focus on those

561
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 1: and push those out ahead of anything else. So, uh,

562
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: while Siedmyer would get a budget from Micropros to work

563
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: on games, he would get an upfront budget, he didn't

564
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:16,240
Speaker 1: get a lot of other support. And he and Shelly

565
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 1: have both said that that meant the development for Civilization

566
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 1: stretched out longer than it was supposed to, and in fact,

567
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:27,160
Speaker 1: the game ended up slipping its its original ship date.

568
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 1: And this is a real kicker. Apparently that meant that

569
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 1: their own personal bonuses were affected. Meyer and Shelly their

570
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 1: bonuses were and and their team. There was more than

571
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 1: just the two of them working on this. They had

572
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 1: a team of people, right, I think it was about

573
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: about ten eight to ten depending upon the source you read.

574
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 1: So I have about ten people working on this game,

575
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 1: and their bonuses are affected by the fact that the

576
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: game did not ship on time. However, Shelly points out

577
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 1: in interviews, he says, look, the reason why our game

578
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 1: didn't ship on time is because Micropros was dragging their

579
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:06,680
Speaker 1: feet and that it was a man They kept putting

580
00:32:06,760 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 1: us on other projects and therefore we couldn't There was

581
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:11,960
Speaker 1: no way for us to ship on time because they

582
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 1: would pull us off of the work we needed to

583
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: do to get the game finished. So, in other words,

584
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 1: management would make decisions that affected our work and then

585
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: punish us when the work wasn't being done. And so

586
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,320
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, it's a terrible catch twenty two

587
00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:27,200
Speaker 1: to share, and it's kind of easy to see after

588
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 1: after this process, why a lot of these people started ditching, yes, sorry,

589
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 1: to leave the company and go somewhere else, and why

590
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 1: ultimately Meyer and two of his fellow designers would leave

591
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: and found for Access. So they eventually, despite all odds

592
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 1: against them, finished Civilization, and it of course publishes in

593
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 1: ninety one, I believe, and it ends up not getting

594
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 1: a whole lot of support from micropros. The marketing department

595
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 1: doesn't spend a lot of money, so they have to

596
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: rely upon gamers who purchased is the game to go

597
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 1: out and tell all their gaming buddies, Hey, you guys

598
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 1: have got to try this. This game is amazing, which

599
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 1: fortunately they did. Yeah and uh, and this game was

600
00:33:11,000 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: a huge leap from those early games sid Meuyer made

601
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: back in the day when sid Meyer made a game

602
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:21,920
Speaker 1: that was in a ziploc bag with a Zerox piece

603
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 1: of paper that had the game art on one side

604
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: and the instructions on the other. Civilization shipped with a

605
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:31,440
Speaker 1: manual that was probably around two hundred pages in length.

606
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 1: I remember that. I remember that one of the things

607
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 1: that that Shelley did. Sid Meyer says the most important

608
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 1: thing that Shelley did was play the game. He says

609
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 1: that was the most important thing that Shelley did because

610
00:33:43,400 --> 00:33:45,680
Speaker 1: he played the game and would tell sid Meyer which

611
00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 1: things were working in which weren't. But if he had

612
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 1: to say what the second most important thing was, Shelley

613
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 1: took it upon himself to do two things. He helped

614
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:58,800
Speaker 1: write the manual and he wrote the civil Opedia, now

615
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: the civil Opedia for any one who has not played Civilization.

616
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: The Civilipedia is an in game reference that gives you

617
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:09,160
Speaker 1: more information about everything in the game, every single unit,

618
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:12,239
Speaker 1: every military unit. It tells you more about them, gives

619
00:34:12,239 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 1: you a historical context. It tells you about all the

620
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 1: different buildings you can build. Uh. There are wonders of

621
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 1: the world that you can design in Civilization, and they

622
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,800
Speaker 1: are based off the actual amazing things that humans have created,

623
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 1: things like the pyramids and you know, the hanging gardens

624
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:29,839
Speaker 1: of babble on that kind of thing. Ah, so he

625
00:34:30,120 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 1: rode up entries for all of the stuff. I get that,

626
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: I've gotten the feeling that Chili is a tiny bit

627
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,399
Speaker 1: of a history. Nerd um And and Sidmyer too. Yeah,

628
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:41,240
Speaker 1: although they both said that they didn't do a whole

629
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:43,839
Speaker 1: lot of research when they first started working on Civilization.

630
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 1: They just wanted it to be a fun game, right,

631
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 1: and so so that most of the you know, knowledge

632
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 1: that's in there is kind of elementary level. Although I

633
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: have seen reports about three in particular being used in

634
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 1: classroom settings, and I can imagine that. I mean, and

635
00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 1: when you look at the actual game mechanics, because we've

636
00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 1: talked a lot about thing is like you know, developing

637
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 1: your your your social abilities, or developing the wonders of

638
00:35:06,120 --> 00:35:08,880
Speaker 1: the world or future technology or trying to conquer it

639
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:11,359
Speaker 1: gets so much more complex than that, right. You've got

640
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:15,239
Speaker 1: the different nationalities, each of which have their own abilities

641
00:35:15,560 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 1: or you know pros and cons when you first start off,

642
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 1: like I remember when I would play Sief two and

643
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 1: I would play as the Germans. For some reason, I

644
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: would end up with two settlers instead of one, which

645
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:28,359
Speaker 1: gave me an amazing advantage because I could use one

646
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,920
Speaker 1: set of settlers to build a city, and the second

647
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:33,680
Speaker 1: set of settlers could irrigate around the city and make

648
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: it a more viable location. Other nations might start with

649
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:42,319
Speaker 1: only one settler, but they get more technology bonuses at

650
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 1: the very beginning of the game. Then you would have

651
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 1: things like what sort of government your civilization used, like

652
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 1: is it a despotic system, is it capitalism, is it communism, socialism?

653
00:35:54,480 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 1: And that would affect gameplay from that point forward. So

654
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 1: it was the game and can when you would start off,

655
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: would be very simple, This is pure sid Meier approach,

656
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:07,799
Speaker 1: very simple, and you would add levels of complexity as

657
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 1: the game would go on until you get to a

658
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 1: point where if you were to jump into that game

659
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:15,720
Speaker 1: maybe two turns in and that's how the game started,

660
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 1: you think there's no way I can play this. This

661
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,600
Speaker 1: is way too complicated, right right you you learned with

662
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 1: the game and UM and that was something That's two

663
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,120
Speaker 1: really built on as well. They started adding a lot

664
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: of the concepts they had wanted to incorporate and to

665
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 1: save one but UM but just felt like they were

666
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:35,640
Speaker 1: over complicating things right now. In the earliest days of civilization,

667
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: when they were developing it. I meant to mention this earlier,

668
00:36:38,560 --> 00:36:41,840
Speaker 1: but I I definitely think it's important. It's it's interesting

669
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:44,239
Speaker 1: that it was not a turn based game when they

670
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:46,920
Speaker 1: first started developing it, right, it was. It was originally

671
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 1: um like sim City, which Sidmire has has referenced as

672
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 1: being one of the big influences of the game. The

673
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:55,600
Speaker 1: three big ones are sim City, Risk and Railroad Tycoon.

674
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:59,279
Speaker 1: Right right, um uh, but yes, he was saying that

675
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 1: it was it was real time, right, everything was passing

676
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 1: and so and so things, things were happening, um, you know,

677
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:09,120
Speaker 1: as you would kind of build something and let your

678
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: settlers do their thing, and and he found that this

679
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 1: was very dull and reduced the player to a viewer. Yeah,

680
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 1: you became it was a more passive experience. You weren't

681
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 1: taking an active role. And that's when he made the decision.

682
00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 1: And this this was he was well into the development

683
00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 1: of the game, and he said that, you know, if

684
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 1: you figure out six months into the development of a

685
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 1: game that's not working, you have to have to change

686
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:32,600
Speaker 1: change it. And so he went from real time to

687
00:37:32,760 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 1: turn based, and by turn based, it meant that you

688
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 1: could control the passage of time. Because it wasn't until

689
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:41,719
Speaker 1: you ended a turn that the clock would move forward, right,

690
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 1: that that the you know, whatever you have implemented would

691
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 1: go into effect, right right, and or that even that

692
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:50,240
Speaker 1: you would be able to take another turn. So uh,

693
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:52,960
Speaker 1: you know, civilization is based on whatever year it is,

694
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 1: so uh, in early stages of the game, time passes

695
00:37:56,760 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 1: much more quickly. I think I can't remember if it's

696
00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 1: by decade or even by century when you first start off,

697
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 1: but by the time you get toward the end game,

698
00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:08,080
Speaker 1: it's going year by year. So the the idea being

699
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 1: that progress is much more rapid later on in the game,

700
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: so you have to divide up the time into smaller

701
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 1: increments for that to be reflected. So uh, those are

702
00:38:18,640 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 1: big changes. Yeah. Yeah, and this this would wind up

703
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 1: being um really really integral to to what the game

704
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 1: was like. Um it's it's a lot of people talk

705
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: about about being addictive, and and even even Meyer himself

706
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 1: has said that he's been late to meetings because he

707
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:36,520
Speaker 1: was playing the game totally forgot he fell victim to

708
00:38:36,600 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 1: his own trap. Yeah. No, I knew a lot of

709
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: people who, especially in college. I knew a lot of

710
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 1: kids in college who who were a little bleary eyed

711
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 1: because they had been playing Civilization the night before and

712
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 1: it just was one of those things where they're like,

713
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:56,120
Speaker 1: I totally missed. Yeah, I got to bed at four

714
00:38:56,120 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: am and got up at seven. Let's be serious, they

715
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 1: got up at like two minutes before the class started.

716
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:06,840
Speaker 1: But anyway, uh yeah, So getting into more of the

717
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 1: difficulty with Civilization, some of it, some of the really

718
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 1: messy stuff happened after sid Meyer had left micropros um.

719
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:20,399
Speaker 1: But one of the interesting things is that in Avalon Hill,

720
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 1: the company the publisher for the Civilization board game, actually

721
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 1: published Advanced Civilization, which was a computer version of the

722
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 1: board game Civilization. So this if you were a fan

723
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:36,920
Speaker 1: of the old Civilization board game, you could buy this

724
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 1: one and that would be the official one. Also, it

725
00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:43,360
Speaker 1: should be noted that sid Meier's Civilization is now a

726
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 1: board game too, so that even more complicated. Yeah. I

727
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:52,120
Speaker 1: edited the House to Works article about this, so I

728
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: learned way too much about it. It was done by

729
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 1: Kevin Wilson, who also did Arkham Horror, which is which

730
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:01,799
Speaker 1: is pretty popular title it's in was published by Fantasy Flight,

731
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 1: which is uh, you know, the kids who do a

732
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:08,799
Speaker 1: other video game board games like World Warcraft and StarCraft.

733
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:14,040
Speaker 1: And they're also the current publishers of Talisman. Oh man, yeah,

734
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 1: I have. I haven't thought of that in years. Oh

735
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:19,400
Speaker 1: I've I've I play it basically every year. That's one

736
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 1: of one of my group favorites. I think it might

737
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,479
Speaker 1: have been the nineties when I last played Talisman. Well,

738
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 1: speaking of the nineties, in ven, that's when the proverbial

739
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: crep hits, the proverbial rotating oscillating thing. Yeah, so we've

740
00:40:33,200 --> 00:40:38,840
Speaker 1: got an That's when Activision gets involved. So Activision purchases

741
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:42,839
Speaker 1: the rights to the Civilization name from Avalon Hill. Now

742
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:45,360
Speaker 1: remember Avalon Hill is the publishing company that had the

743
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: rights to publish the Civilization board game in the United States. Meanwhile, uh,

744
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: Activision then creates a computer game called Civilization Call to Power.

745
00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:59,160
Speaker 1: This was in no way connected to this admirer franchise games, right,

746
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:02,319
Speaker 1: So it's it's really just it's got the name Civilization,

747
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:04,879
Speaker 1: but other than that, and it is a it's an

748
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:07,880
Speaker 1: empire building type game, but other than that, it is

749
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:12,560
Speaker 1: not a it's not an entry into the Civilization franchise.

750
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 1: But then Activision goes on to sue Micropros over trademark

751
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 1: infringement because now they own the name Civilization because they

752
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:24,600
Speaker 1: licensed it from Avalon Hill. Right. Meanwhile, Micropros had bought

753
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:28,879
Speaker 1: Heartland Trefoil, which was the original publisher before Avalon Hill

754
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:31,800
Speaker 1: of the Civilization board game. Right, this was the company

755
00:41:31,840 --> 00:41:35,960
Speaker 1: that was founded by the guy who created the Civilization

756
00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:38,799
Speaker 1: board game. So essentially what here's here's all this works out.

757
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:43,080
Speaker 1: Activision goes out and buys the buys the rights to

758
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 1: use Civilization according to the US publisher of this board game,

759
00:41:47,440 --> 00:41:50,760
Speaker 1: sus Micropros. Micropros goes out and buys the original company

760
00:41:50,800 --> 00:41:53,839
Speaker 1: to make the board game, and then sues Activision and says,

761
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 1: you can't sue us for trademark infringement. We own the

762
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:58,880
Speaker 1: company that made the thing that you were claiming you

763
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 1: were suing you. Yeah, so we're suing you instead in

764
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:04,680
Speaker 1: your face. I think that might have actually been in

765
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 1: the deposition. Uh So, Yeah, we've got this crazy lawsuit

766
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:11,279
Speaker 1: going on. Not keep in mind sid Meyer's not a

767
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:13,560
Speaker 1: part of this. He's just off on his own making

768
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:17,359
Speaker 1: his games, probably lulls a tiny man, probably thinking it's

769
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:20,400
Speaker 1: a little amusing. Yeah, the company has wound up settling

770
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:22,719
Speaker 1: all of this out of court. But that's the point

771
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:26,520
Speaker 1: when Hasbro comes in and buys Avalon Hill and then

772
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 1: buys Micropros. So now Avalon Hill and Micropros are both

773
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: under the same umbrella now there, which is hence why

774
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 1: they probably settled it. Yeah now now that now it

775
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 1: doesn't even matter anymore because both parties in this trademark

776
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:45,399
Speaker 1: infringement spat are belonging to the same company. But as

777
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 1: we learned, Hasbro Interactive did not last that long. They

778
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:54,239
Speaker 1: ended up selling that off to Infogrames and uh and

779
00:42:54,320 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: that is the end of the the massive Civilization crazy story.

780
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 1: Worry when it comes to just the name of the game.

781
00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:06,239
Speaker 1: I just I love the idea that you can go

782
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:10,479
Speaker 1: out and buy a company that made a product, uh

783
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: and you know, years and years ago, and then someone

784
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 1: else had made a product also years ago that had

785
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 1: the same name and retroactively say I own that I'm

786
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 1: suing you for trademark infringement for this thing that you

787
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 1: made before I bought this company. That's our legal system, folks.

788
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:28,839
Speaker 1: It makes my nose bleed, yes, um, but so yeah,

789
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:32,920
Speaker 1: so Civilization um kind of kind of big. Yeah. I

790
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:36,040
Speaker 1: would say that it really created a true genre now

791
00:43:36,400 --> 00:43:39,720
Speaker 1: itself is often referred to as one of the God games,

792
00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:43,399
Speaker 1: which became popular right around that time that Civilization came out.

793
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:47,439
Speaker 1: Other games like Populus or SimCity are are similar games

794
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:50,279
Speaker 1: where you are given the ability to create these massive things.

795
00:43:50,320 --> 00:43:53,200
Speaker 1: It's not you taking on the role of a single character,

796
00:43:53,600 --> 00:43:58,240
Speaker 1: but rather being the guiding force behind the creation of something.

797
00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 1: And I think that that creation element is what's really

798
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:03,839
Speaker 1: key to all of this, and you know, it's it's

799
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:08,279
Speaker 1: it's interesting to me that's admire Um is so bent

800
00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:12,640
Speaker 1: on these creative games and was less interested in the

801
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:17,920
Speaker 1: destructive elements of of the of the more violent military

802
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:21,680
Speaker 1: simulation he He admits that there is a component of

803
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: violence in many of his games, but it tends to

804
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: be violence in the abstract, right, So like there's there's

805
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 1: never any gore or blood. Right. If you have two

806
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: units in Civilization fighting one another, it's essentially two tiles

807
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 1: and one of the you know, they do a little

808
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:39,439
Speaker 1: statistical analysis and some randomization to figure out which tile

809
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 1: wins and the other toile goes away, and that's the

810
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:46,320
Speaker 1: extent of your violence. So he feels that the violent

811
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 1: parts are not necessary to make a fun, compelling game.

812
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 1: He doesn't find that appealing to personally, so that that's

813
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:54,759
Speaker 1: not part of what he does when he makes his games. Right,

814
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 1: there has been some some criticism um lobbied against Civilization

815
00:44:59,600 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 1: due to um like like, for example, they they left

816
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 1: out slavery from the games, and that's a pretty big

817
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:10,919
Speaker 1: historical emission from multiple eras. Oh sure, sure, and and

818
00:45:10,960 --> 00:45:14,280
Speaker 1: you know said sid Meier kind of said, like, well,

819
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 1: it's not really pleasant. I don't really want to think

820
00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:20,440
Speaker 1: about it. That's not really fun. Yeah, exactly. A game.

821
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:24,360
Speaker 1: In my view, a game's primary function is to be fun.

822
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:28,440
Speaker 1: So it's not that I'm setting out to make the definitive,

823
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 1: historically accurate empire building game. I'm out there to make

824
00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 1: something that is fun and challenging so that players have

825
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 1: a good time when they're sitting down to play this

826
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,799
Speaker 1: title and see that. It's another interesting thing because not

827
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:44,480
Speaker 1: all video game developers have this same philosophy. There's some

828
00:45:44,560 --> 00:45:50,440
Speaker 1: who want to make a very compelling experience fun, right,

829
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:52,760
Speaker 1: or some who want to tell a very particular story,

830
00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 1: like like something like BioShock, which I think is a

831
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:57,920
Speaker 1: terrific story. Um but um, but it's not like you

832
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 1: have a lot of a hand in it right. So

833
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:04,720
Speaker 1: it's obviously there are different philosophies. It's just it's very

834
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:07,920
Speaker 1: it's kind of refreshing to talk about someone who his

835
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:12,240
Speaker 1: whole focus was just let's make the most fun game

836
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:16,279
Speaker 1: we can. That's that's the only real thing that we

837
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 1: have to keep in mind. It doesn't need to, uh,

838
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:22,719
Speaker 1: you know, be genre defining. It doesn't have to be

839
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:24,759
Speaker 1: the start of a franchise. We just want to make

840
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 1: something that when people loaded up, they're gonna have a

841
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 1: good time. When they play, they're gonna want to keep

842
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:31,680
Speaker 1: playing it. Yeah. Um and he he did. Um. He

843
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:34,600
Speaker 1: and the rest of the Civilization development team did address

844
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 1: some of the other concerns that people had a Um,

845
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 1: in future games, you could play as many other different societies. Um,

846
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 1: it was pretty Western centric the first one. Yeah, he

847
00:46:45,200 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 1: actually says, yeah, Yeah, I would say that first Civilizization

848
00:46:48,600 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 1: game was very much Western centric because I made it,

849
00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 1: and that's I made it based upon my own my

850
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:58,319
Speaker 1: own experience and education. He also joked that that the

851
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 1: reason that there were only six in um, different nationalities

852
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:04,120
Speaker 1: that you could play as was because they were at

853
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 1: the end of the sixteen color e g A graphics.

854
00:47:08,800 --> 00:47:12,319
Speaker 1: We don't have any other That's all we could do, right,

855
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 1: otherwise you're going to be confused. Actually, and the interesting

856
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:19,279
Speaker 1: thing I found in the later Civilization games was that

857
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:23,120
Speaker 1: the game itself would adapt to your play style, and

858
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: if you were doing incredibly well early on, in order

859
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:29,520
Speaker 1: for it to become more challenging, it would start to

860
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 1: not like stack the deck against you, which is the

861
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:35,520
Speaker 1: way some games work, and that I find very frustrating.

862
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:37,920
Speaker 1: Like anyone who's played any racing games where you get

863
00:47:38,000 --> 00:47:39,919
Speaker 1: way in the lead and then there's this rubber band

864
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:44,560
Speaker 1: effect where suddenly there's someone right behind. Yeah, like, how

865
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:47,360
Speaker 1: did that happen? I left everyone in the dust? Um,

866
00:47:47,480 --> 00:47:52,240
Speaker 1: I'm looking at you. Burnout anyway, he the Civilization games. Instead,

867
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 1: Let's say that you're playing and you're you're getting really

868
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:57,919
Speaker 1: militaristic very early on in the game, and so you're

869
00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:02,840
Speaker 1: you're hitting cities before they have a real defense mounted up. Uh,

870
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:06,160
Speaker 1: you could defeat a civilization, and normally you'd be playing

871
00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 1: against you know, a certain number, but it wouldn't be

872
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:10,880
Speaker 1: all the civilizations in the game. It would be a

873
00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:13,759
Speaker 1: limited number of them. So maybe half of the civilizations

874
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:15,920
Speaker 1: that are in the game are active at one time.

875
00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:19,279
Speaker 1: It would then populate part of the map with a

876
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:23,160
Speaker 1: new civilization. Uh, so I'd be starting from scratch. It's

877
00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:26,080
Speaker 1: not like the civilization would suddenly be on par with yours,

878
00:48:26,120 --> 00:48:28,400
Speaker 1: come on with nuclear warheads, but it would mean that

879
00:48:28,440 --> 00:48:31,880
Speaker 1: you wouldn't immediately conquered the world within you know, twenty

880
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 1: turns or something. Right. So yeah, it's and I also

881
00:48:36,040 --> 00:48:38,399
Speaker 1: thought it was really interesting then the first Civilization, as

882
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:41,280
Speaker 1: they were developing it, they decided to cut the world's

883
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 1: map in half because it was too big and uh

884
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:47,960
Speaker 1: and to also reduce the complexity of the technology tree,

885
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:51,600
Speaker 1: which had a two different trees originally, right, which which

886
00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 1: they wound up putting some of that insive too. Yeah,

887
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 1: because then they were like, well, once people got involved

888
00:48:56,160 --> 00:48:58,720
Speaker 1: with Civilization one and they really liked it, we figured,

889
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:01,080
Speaker 1: well now we can put that stuff civilization too, because

890
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 1: now everyone knows how to play right, Yeah, which is

891
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:07,160
Speaker 1: kind of funny. Yeah. So, um, I I had a

892
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:10,279
Speaker 1: couple of quotes from from Meyer that I thought kind

893
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:12,719
Speaker 1: of rounded out all of this. Um. One of them

894
00:49:12,800 --> 00:49:15,760
Speaker 1: was was from that Kataku interview UM in which he said,

895
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:18,719
Speaker 1: upon him being asked about retirement, I kind of feel like,

896
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:21,000
Speaker 1: I am retired, I'm doing what I want to do.

897
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 1: I've been retired for a long time. I still love

898
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 1: making games. So I've never really thought of that. Um

899
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:30,120
Speaker 1: And and the second one isn't a quote, it's more

900
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:33,920
Speaker 1: of a summarized statement. But upon being asked whether he

901
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 1: keeps track of his high score and civilization, he said that, um,

902
00:49:37,840 --> 00:49:40,000
Speaker 1: he he doesn't because he knows it's just a number

903
00:49:40,040 --> 00:49:45,600
Speaker 1: he can patch. Um, So he doesn't really see the value. Um,

904
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:47,640
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's too easy to cheat. And and

905
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:49,640
Speaker 1: and I feel like that's I feel like that's a

906
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 1: pretty good summary of his overall just statement on the world.

907
00:49:54,080 --> 00:49:57,080
Speaker 1: You know, like like he's not he's not keeping score. Yeah, no,

908
00:49:57,200 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 1: that's kind of cool. That's just the Again, he gets

909
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:04,040
Speaker 1: the satisfaction out of creating something that other people enjoy.

910
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:07,160
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I can certainly identify with that. A lot

911
00:50:07,200 --> 00:50:10,279
Speaker 1: of my job satisfaction comes from when you, listeners, get

912
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:13,360
Speaker 1: in touch with us and let's know what you think. Hey, listeners,

913
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:15,359
Speaker 1: you should get in touch with us and let us

914
00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:19,719
Speaker 1: know what you think. That's the segue gets all the

915
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:22,760
Speaker 1: more smooth the more we pointed out. Uh so, guys,

916
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:26,040
Speaker 1: if you have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,

917
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:29,520
Speaker 1: whether it's about someone who is fundamental in technology or

918
00:50:29,560 --> 00:50:33,640
Speaker 1: a particular company, or just how something works. Let us know,

919
00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:36,160
Speaker 1: send us a message ask us about it. You can

920
00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:39,520
Speaker 1: send us an email. Our addresses tech Stuff at Discovery

921
00:50:39,560 --> 00:50:41,919
Speaker 1: dot com, or you can drop us a line on

922
00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:45,320
Speaker 1: Facebook or Twitter are handled. There's tech stuff hs W.

923
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:48,919
Speaker 1: And uh wait, there's something else, right, Lauren. Yes, we

924
00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:52,239
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, Jonathan started up a Tumbler account. Yeah,

925
00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 1: I totally forgot I did that, and so I have

926
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:57,840
Speaker 1: revived it. We are tumbling, Yes, I do it on

927
00:50:57,840 --> 00:50:59,840
Speaker 1: a daily basis. And I'm not even on the tumbler

928
00:50:59,880 --> 00:51:02,920
Speaker 1: at on the new I just fall over. But no,

929
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 1: we really do have a Tumbler account. It is active.

930
00:51:05,200 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: Lauren is the keeper of all things Tumbler, and she's

931
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:11,239
Speaker 1: doing an amazing job. You guys can keep up with

932
00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:14,560
Speaker 1: stuff that we're doing and also just cool things that

933
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:18,200
Speaker 1: Lauren finds about the world of technology. Then yeah, and

934
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:21,640
Speaker 1: and I actually actually cephalopods. Sephalopods are my big tumbler

935
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:25,120
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, all the time, So you should check

936
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:27,400
Speaker 1: that out. Um, where can they find that? That is

937
00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 1: also at tech stuff hswum excellent, so find us tech

938
00:51:32,640 --> 00:51:35,680
Speaker 1: stuff hsw We will be looking for you. We really

939
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 1: really will be, all right, So that wraps us up.

940
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:41,319
Speaker 1: We hope you enjoyed it, and Lauren and I will

941
00:51:41,360 --> 00:51:46,840
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon for more on this

942
00:51:47,040 --> 00:51:49,520
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how staff works

943
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:49,960
Speaker 1: dot com