Tag: Sid Meier's Civilization

Phone it in Friday CXI: YouTube Roundup CLXXI: Blackbeard Sails into Civilization VII

The Portly Politico4 Comments

In my never-ending quest for lo-fi, low-effort YouTube (and blog) content, I make the most of whatever limited assets and time I have to churn out highly-compressed but—I hope—charming content for the masses.

Such is the case with today’s post.  I made this video with just one picture I took with my iPhone SE’s camera (mainly to show Dr. Fiancée that I was playing as Blackbeard the Pirate in Civilization VII).  I recorded the voiceover with the Voice Memo app on my phone, and used iMovie (again, on my phone) to put in the picture (three times) against the voice message.

Apparently, when I send the finished video file to Telegram, it deeply compresses the video quality (although I think it does the same if I save the video to my phone and upload it to YouTube from there).  The most it can muster is 360p, which might as well be a VHS recording that I’ve sloppily converted to a digital format.

 Whatever the case, the video was a fun experiment.  I hope you agree!

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Phone it in Friday C: YouTube Roundup CLX: Civilization VII is Gorgeous

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Folks are probably tired of me writing about Civilization VII, which is shaping up to be one of the least popular Civ releases ever.  That’s a shame, because the game is getting better and better with each update.

For awhile I thought that I was lying to myself about liking the game.  Something felt off about it for awhile.  But I realized that my main complaints—the dragging late game, the lack of visual information—were ultimately fairly minor.  Every game in the series drags in the late game.  If anything, Civ VII has a more robust late game than Civ VI, although it’s still pretty lackluster in the Modern Era.

Ultimately, though, I feel like the time I have put into the game has reaped dividends.  There are times when it’s not always fun, but those are rare; mostly, I can’t help but keep playing (often to the detriment of my sleep schedule).  That’s the mark of a good game in my book.  Even when it’s a slog, there is some objective towards which I am working.

One thing about the game is that, in spite of its poor visual information (which has improved since launch, but I still can’t figure out which buildings I’ve built where in a city), the visuals themselves are stunning.  It is a gorgeous game.  The same quality that makes the visual information obscure is also what makes the game look great.

As such, I shot a YouTube short last week while playing a game with a buddy of mine.  My World Wonders-encrusted former capital was just too sumptuous not to share.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Reassessing Civilization VII

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Yours portly has finally dived back into Civilization VII after almost three months away from the game.  The hiatus was not due to disinterest, but rather to the overwhelming busyness of the end of the school year.  Longtime players of Civ games—or any other franchise or game in which picking up after an extended break is difficult—will understand how the thought of returning to a half-finished save file is challenging, as you’ve likely forgotten what you were doing and what your goals were.

That made it difficult to return to my last save file, but when I play Civ VII, I need hours of uninterrupted time to lose myself in the game.  I’ve never been good at playing for an hour or two and then heading to bed.  I need to know I have three or four hours to dedicate to the game, and that my plate is clear of any obligations or tasks.

Naturally, that state of limitless free time is rare for yours portly, except for two months every year:  June and July.  Yes, I’m keeping busy with writing blog posts, teaching lessons, practicing piano, filming silly YouTube shorts, planning a wedding, etc.; but after dinnertime, I’ve got hours of gaming goodness ahead of me.

That’s all to say that, after a few weeks of dipping into Colonization, I’m back to Civilization VII.  The game has had a number of updates (with version 1.2.2 coming soon, promising massive map sizes and other improvements), and they have really improved the gameplay experience.  It’s still not perfect, but the game is getting better.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Lazy Sunday CXXIX: Civilization Series

The Portly Politico7 Comments

Yours portly is in the midst of his busy Christmas performance season, and wistfully dreams of blowing hours of his life conquering the world as various historical leaders.  I haven’t had much time for world conquering, but I’ve certainly written about the legendary Civilization games for years now.  Here are my posts about this beloved franchise:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

TBT^2: Game Review: Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution

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Thanksgiving Break is long gone and Christmas Break is still a good ways off, so yours portly doesn’t quite have the time to game that I did just recently.  I’ve had a blast playing my Nintendo Switch Lite lately, especially diving into F-Zero 99.  I’ve been hitting Civilization VI on my PC pretty hard, too, which has fed my highly cyclical video gaming buzz.

So, in the spirit of video game nostalgia, I thought I’d look back to a review of a game that’s not nearly as good as the ones I just mentioned, but which still devoured a ton of my time in late 2021.

With that, here is 10 November 2022’s “TBT: Game Review: Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution“:

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Giving Thanks… for Civilization VI

The Portly Politico3 Comments

Yours portly had a massive burst of productivity on a lazy, rainy Saturday early in November.  I buckled down and finished my lesson plans, quizzes, tests, study guides, exams, exam review guides, etc., for the rest of the semester.  I spent the following Sunday afternoon churning out blog posts, as I’m trying to get back ahead so I don’t have to worry about writing over Thanksgiving.

One upshot to all of that hustle is that I have a rare thing now:  free time in the evenings.  I’m always working a bit on something, and I have plenty of grading to keep me warm over Thanksgiving Break, but I’ve been slamming that stuff out, too.

That’s all to say that I’ve had way more time to play video games in the evenings, usually while watching horror movies.  The game that has dominated my time the past few weeks—and which has kept me up far too late on a number of occasions—is Civilization VI.

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TBT: Game Review: Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution

The Portly Politico2 Comments

I’ve been on a YouTube history kick lately, listening to long historical biography videos while doing things around the house.  If you’re a history nerd like me, listening to the intrigues of medieval kings gets you hankering for a piece of the action, albeit a sanitized simulacrum of the real thing.

Yes, that means I have been playing a great deal of Civilization VI.  I was a bit sick this past weekend, so I had hours in bed conquering the world as Poland.  If your fantasy is a world in which an Eastern Orthodox Poland controls all of Europe, Asia, and most of Africa, as well as large swaths of North and South America, then you’d have loved that game.

With turn-based strategy still fresh on my mind, I’d thought I’d look back to this review of a far more primitive game in the legendary Civilization series: Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution on the Nintendo DS Lite.

With that, here is 30 November 2021’s “Game Review: Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution“:

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Civilization Series: Slayer of Productivity

The Portly Politico32 Comments

The school year is winding down for yours portly, but before the clock stops and summer begins, there’s a flurry of last-minute activity.  This week is exam review week, which means an odd mixture of light and easy classes alongside frantic preparations for exams.  For students, it’s studying for the exams that has them stressed; for teachers, it’s putting the exams and their related review guides together.

In college, exam week was the time of the semester I squeezed in the most gaming.  Paradoxically, it was when I had the most free time.  I’d spend a few hours over the course of the week reviewing notes for history exams, or memorizing the singing exercise for my Jazz Theory final, but would spend the rest of that unstructured time diving into games, notably The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

Now I have far more responsibilities, but exam week still offers some unstructured time to get things done (most importantly, grading all of those exams!).  Unfortunately, I picked this weekend to dive back into Civilization VI, specifically the vanilla version on my Nintendo Switch Lite.

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Game Review: Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Last week I took some time to play a few games, notably The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.  Once my niece and nephews arrived, though, I didn’t have time for much else (although we built some cool planes and helicopters with a big bin of LEGOs).  They love Uncle Portly’s “devices”—my Nintendo Switch Lite (the “big device”), Nintendo 3DS XL (the “medium-sized device”), and Nintendo DS Lite (the “small device”).  My older nephew will spend hours building levels in Mario Maker 2 if left to his own devices.  My niece usually ends up with the “medium-sized device,” leaving my littlest nephew to play whatever I happen to have that will run on the DS Lite.

In digging around for games a two-year old could grasp, I found my old copy of 2008’s Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution.  It’s an interesting, almost “abridged” version of the full Civilization experience—what would now be a cellphone app.  The game contains the major elements of a Civilization game from the Civilization IV era, and the game bears the stamp of many of that iteration’s innovations (as well as one of the major contributions from Civilization III, culture borders).

Naturally, my nephew wasn’t going to be playing that, but I popped it in one evening after the kids went to bed and found the game highly entertaining.

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