E: I don’t want to find out, why should I?

M: Because you’re using something that’s not as good as something else…

E: but its more than sufficient for me

M: so you’re gonna be satisfied with less than perfect?

E: I’m gonna be satisfied, isn’t that what we’re trying to get to anyway… satisfaction?

M: but…

Well, we backed and forthed like this for a bit, until we got to an impasse, I’ve never had any reason to shift to linux, but I’ve never had any reason not to, and yes it is better, cheaper, more democratic, and all in all, an upgrade. But for me, it would mean unfamiliarity, change, things going wrong that I don’t understand, and lot else. And the question remained, why?

It was much later, last night actually, that I found out why Linux is not the most popular OS…

I was talking to a couple of friends, one of them, G, has messed up his computer. It boots, and then hangs, almost simultaneously. He was asking the resident super tech geek M, what to do. M being different to the one above, who if you haven’t yet guessed, is a woman.

This M told G that the only option he had was to format his disk, and re-install the OS. I chipped in with the best place to buy a pirated CD from. But G was slightly unconvinced about using illegal software… so I suggested Linux.

M Liked the idea, in fact he even suggested a couple of distributions he had, and it seemed pretty good, until…

M(the tech geek) : what do you use the computer for?

G: well, writing, movies, and I don’t know… music

M: you don’t play games or anything do you?

G: well… sometimes, actually yeah I do.

M: well Linux doesn’t run games.

So now all I have to do, is tell the initial M about my discovery. That will take sometime, she doesn’t speak to me anymore. I thought it was because I still windows, but it turns out its because I respect tailors.

E: I don’t want to find out, why should I?

M: Because you’re using something that’s not as good as something else…

E: but its more than sufficient for me

M: so you’re gonna be satisfied with less than perfect?

E: I’m gonna be satisfied, isn’t that what we’re trying to get to anyway… satisfaction?

M: but…

Well, we backed and forthed like this for a bit, until we got to an impasse, I’ve never had any reason to shift to linux, but I’ve never had any reason not to, and yes it is better, cheaper, more democratic, and all in all, an upgrade. But for me, it would mean unfamiliarity, change, things going wrong that I don’t understand, and lot else. And the question remained, why?

It was much later, last night actually, that I found out why Linux is not the most popular OS…

I was talking to a couple of friends, one of them, G, has messed up his computer. It boots, and then hangs, almost simultaneously. He was asking the resident super tech geek M, what to do. M being different to the one above, who if you haven’t yet guessed, is a woman.

This M told G that the only option he had was to format his disk, and re-install the OS. I chipped in with the best place to buy a pirated CD from. But G was slightly unconvinced about using illegal software… so I suggested Linux.

M Liked the idea, in fact he even suggested a couple of distributions he had, and it seemed pretty good, until…

M(the tech geek) : what do you use the computer for?

G: well, writing, movies, and I don’t know… music

M: you don’t play games or anything do you?

G: well… sometimes, actually yeah I do.

M: well Linux doesn’t run games.

So now all I have to do, is tell the initial M about my discovery. That will take sometime, she doesn’t speak to me anymore. I thought it was because I still windows, but it turns out its because I respect tailors.

M: so why don’t you use Linux?

E: well actually I don’t know, why should I?

M: because its better…

E: in what way

M it doesn’t hang, it doesn’t get viruses, its easy to use, its smarter than windows and osx, and in general just better.

E: my system doesn’t hang either, I don’t connect to the net, so I don’t care about viruses, Windows is just smart enough for me to use, and in all, I cant quite see any thing wrong in windows.

M: but linus is better

E: but I don’t really need something better.

M: but why use something that is worse, if you can have something better.

E: because I already have something, which is good enough for me, I don’t see the point of investing in getting something that I don’t really need, and am unfamiliar with.

M: well its free

E: its still not on my computer already

M: you’re just lazy

E: no I have better things to do

M: like what?

E: end this conversation.

M: but why cant you use Linux

E: I don’t see the point of it

M: its better

E: but it may not be more appropriate

The conclusion to this fascinating conversation later

So basically what happens is, you either have one or multiple cities. Each of them will have a garrison. Now, the point of having a city and a garrison, is that you can use the city structure as a part of the war fare tactic. For example things like city walls, embattlements etc. can be brought into play. Multiple gates, and their positions, and other stuff….

Basically, you can design your city… or at least its defenses. So you can place cities against mountains, or near rivers, etc. and use the terrain tactically as well. You can design the city to provide for things like emergency get aways, and trap doors to attack beseiging armies etc.

In actual battle, you will have a slight advantage, in that you can set up various buildings like hospitals etc. which will be more efficeint than theif field equivalents, which is obvioulsy what the opponents will have to use. But you wont be able to call on reinforcements, or will have some other disadavantage.

In battle itself you will have many more options, that of hiding behind your walls, that of going out to meet the army. That of abandoning the city. Or of cutting losses, by leaving only a small force behind, and sending the others of to anotehr settlement, or the next best thing.

Battles itself willl be handles along similar lines to a regular field engagement, except you will have walls, and the rest of the city to work with…

Now first of all, we must realise, than an army, or a standing army, does not really come into existence till pretty late in human history. So for civilizations, or players in the  earlier stages of human development, a percent of the population itself would have to be the army, and be conscripted much like militia might be. So they’ll be for some time, no really specialized warriors, meaning that focused, and well trained sorts of companies will not exist, and in truth, aggressive warfare will be rather pointless.

Anyway, if the ‘quota’ of a player is limited to this level of under-development, then his army will consist of peasant, badly trained and weak.

But then there is a point when the army becomes a specialized group in society. Now these people are fun… the army will contain of trained soldiers, and research will allow you to increase the variety of units  you have, and their abilities etc. pretty much like standard RTS armies today.

But the army will be divided into two sets of fighters, the first will be the garrison, a group of defensive warriors for your city. And the second will be the standing army. The garrison becomes important, because if you have multiple cities.

They are basically for defensive tactics… though they can be sent out with the standing army in time. But having a set of garrisoned soldiers and specific defensive tactics can be very interesting.

The second kind of army, will the field, or aggressive army, these will naturally work differently, with different units, and requiring much else. Plus when you choose to fight with the field army, you will have a very different battle scenario, and different tactics to follow.

The way I see it, a target, in terms of what Caesar 3 sets down should be given us, in the beginning of the game. Now either we can be given a fixed amount of time to achieve this target, or we should be racing both to fulfill our quotas. If we are racing each other to fill the quota, then it might be interesting to allow players to choose their own quotas.

The quota might be like a status in the game, like industrial age, 6 level military, 8 science… etc. and so much capital… or liquid assets for army building. This will make things interesting, because if a players set themselves different targets of civ, and compete with each other, when setting the target itself, players will have to think.

A player might set a really low quota for himself, in the hope of catching his opponent early, unaware, but if the other opponent plays faster, even if he does not complete his quota at the end of the session of resource collection, he might still have the advantage. And if one sets himself a really high quota, he might suddenly find himself having to fight, without really preparing for it.

The quota might also be a steady ‘income’ for the city or state, from what ever it does to collect resources. So then the quota would have to be three things… first would be the level of research, then the amount of resource collected, and then the ‘income.’

So anyway, once one of the players attains his quota, the next step is the battle. Now if you have the resources you’re supposed, it will mean that you can support a particular size and kind of army. Like if you haven’t done any maritime research, you cant have a navy. So then you set about choosing an army.

The ‘income’ has been included because an army when on campaign will still need some sort of an economic resource. Plundering of course counts. And also an army would treat economics very differently, it wouldn’t build ‘town centres’ to start with.

Anyway the army, and how it works will be dealt with later.

Lets see, I begin to see why its not been done yet. Basically, the idea is to create the illusion of comprehensive control of the city, or state, or whatever it is.

Plus it becomes too easy, using any of the existing gaming systems to actually build a game in any way.

I will therefore make a suggestion, MARRY CAESAR 3 WITH CHESS. That would be a good RTS game. Caesar 3 itself has a mockery of battle for battle, I mean all it asks you to do is create a steady stream of soldiers, and in fact, even that is limited, and you have to depend on wall towers! but what the game has managed to do, and done very well, is set up a challenging urban development puzzle. The whole trade bit, where resource collection is based, very really, on collection of capital, be it from trade, or human capital, or infrastructure, and you are judged, or have to achieve certain amounts of all of the above, to get to the next level.

I’ve already suggest SIM CITY 4 in the past, and that too would fit the bill perfectly. So then, assuming you have a good city in place, what about the army? And defence and the rest of that?

Its weird in games like counterstrike when you get a single head shot and then just die, or spend an entire round hidden up in some corner, waiting for a victim… you know in typical sniper style people don’t get what you’re doing. Is it really that important to run after kills? If all I’m trying to do is have fun, then that’s all I’m trying to do…

If I find it interesting to build 20 ornagers and have them mow down a forest, while my woodcutters do nothing, is that really all that big a deal? I don’t get it… why aren’t we allowed to be weird, and slightly irrational when we play a game?

Its really not fair!

I mean most games are bad parodies of realities, specially in the FPS format, so then if I want to have some fun and just get myself killed as I try to at least play the character with some amount of dignity what is the bid deal?

For example when I Splinter Cell, I find it virtually impossible to actually pull of the whole stealth bit, and instead try Rambo mode… the game wont let me. In fact most games don’t let you do most of what you want to… which brings me to the topic of my next blog… but then you’ll have to wait for that, because I’m not yet sure what I want to say.

First I’d like to qualify my statement. Okay, now I know there are games that let you make some very significant choices. As an RTS fan, I cannot but acknowledge that, of course the choice between training horsemen, pikemen or bowmen is very important, as is the choice between collecting gold, wood or food, or gems, or whatever it is the game requires you to do.

Even FPS games give you a choice, you can either go through the front door, or the sewers or the back door… or I don’t know, the roof maybe. Sports games give you choice too, the team you want to play with, how you want to play with it. I mean you can make someone like yourself become the star of the NBA. The only thing that you cant choose, and this is common to all games…

Is to loose. There is no game, at least none that I know of where if you pursue a strategy with any goal other than winning in mind that you can be successful. I mean I know what I’m arguing for is kind of stupid… to say that you want to play a game to loose it, is not exactly intelligent…

What I’m complaining about is the simple, singlemindedness with which we are required to pursue this goal. There are no hasty beatings of the retreat… no changes in strategy… to use analogy from the economic world, as a gamer the only goal you are allowed to have is that of profit maximization… even in economics one can try risk minimization, or underselling etc.

So I’m not saying I want to loose… just that sometimes we should be allowed to choose what it means to win. In Racing games a third place should be acceptable… the insistence on a win before the game allows us to proceed is kind of irritating.