How do YOU play the game?

[littlemute]

Originally posted by Kaljamaha:
Some years ago, on a Civ related forum, someone (sorry, I have zero recollection of said person) said that strategy gamers can be divided into two categories: gamers and sandbox people.

I'm a sandbox at first, then a gamer after a month or so. I was in a fantasy cream dream with warcraft 3 and thought the unit designs were just awesome, now I don't care if they are little chits on a hexboard as long as my Night Elves beat you again and again and again in the most efficient manner possible saying GG after 5 minutes.

King of Fighters, Last Blade, Samurai Shodown, Shadowfist all the same, loved the fluff (what if the Korean Team was joined by Yagami rather than Kim! Would they revert to crime again?) but then it's the 9-hit cross-up combos buffered into super despiration moves that thrill me.

It's when the fluff sucks (CIV, Age of Empires) that I can't get into the game enough to enjoy the mechanics.

[Wauthan]

If sandbox players are thematic roleplayers then I'm the fourth kid in Prince Megahertz example. The one hiding behind a rock out of fear that his carefully decorated sandcastle might get ruined by hurled rocks and stomping feet.

For some reason I have very little drive to actually win games. I just want to create something I find interesting and see if it works. If it's really competitive I tend to go for the quickest win possible just to get back to empire building. I think I'm running about 22 mods on Dominions now for the sole purpose that I want the game to reflect my vision on how the factions ougtho behave. If they ever make a Civilization spinoff from this game consider one copy sold already.

It's greatly annoying that noone seems to be interested in creating the ultimate game for a player like me. It would be something like a Dominions/Master of magic/Alpha Centauri hybrid. But the future seems to be all realtime 3D hackfest were the fastest and most focused tactics win all the time.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Wauthan:
It's greatly annoying that noone seems to be interested in creating the ultimate game for a player like me. It would be something like a Dominions/Master of magic/Alpha Centauri hybrid.

Well, such a game would be sadistically massive, and playable only in single-player, as most multiplayer folks can't stomach that kind of enormous slog. As such, the AI had better be pretty awesome, and this ain't easy to do, as computers, by their nature, are inherently stupid.

But the future seems to be all realtime 3D hackfest were the fastest and most focused tactics win all the time.

Hmm. I wouldn't go so far as to say THAT. I wouldn't exactly say that the "fastest" tactics win all the time, either: My tactics are widely regarded as being a slow, grinding, slogfest. Although certainly focus is important: It's kind of hard to win a game if you're stumbling around aimlessly with no plan or objective beyond "look at the pretty lights". Depending on the game settings and general aggressiveness level and crowding, it's certainly possible to maintain and hold an empire of reasonable size just kinda plodding along trying to stay alive into the end game, though: Inevitably, however, a lack of any plan will not bring you to ultimate victory, no matter what the game is: Any game where somebody can win without an objective or plan is one which requires absolutely no skills and is functionally indistinguishable from playing Rock, Paper, Scissors over the Internet.

[Maltrease]

My only small wish for the game is that there would be more "Builder" style stuff.

I like to make long term investments in the economy and infrastructure of my empire. You can do a little of that now by picking a high admin to cost fortress (such as wizard tower, castle) and plopping it down in a rich province. Or by collecting clams and other gem producing items. Early site searching, Archaic Record, represent this as well.

The Builder vs Momentum (conqueror) play style is yet another control bar for the strategy game player.

[HJ]

I'm also a sandbox player, so to speak, although I do enjoy the challenge that the AI can present. I don't like to play vs. people, as that's too stressful and I play the games to relax from the real world stresses. I like to lay back and try out things for the sake of trying them out, and without any competitive drive behind it. If I were to approach the game in any other way, it would lose it's charm, and instead of having a beautiful toy that I can enjoy with a (somewhat naive) fascination of a child, I would have to reduce it to a cookbook with recipes on how to win it as efficiently as possible. And I don't like cooking, so....

[ June 04, 2004, 20:32: Message edited by: HJ ]

[Karacan]

On a sandbox/gamer scale I am at sandbox+2.

I wouldn't like Dominions at all if it featured modern military units like tanks or fighterplanes, even with the same game mechanics, the game context is always very important to me. The only 3D-Shooter featuring pre-WorldWarII-units I really really like isn't Wolfenstein but BloodRayne - not because of the mechanics, but because of the setting. There is something about being a rogue vampire lady secret agent. That's about the same feeling when I Gift Of Reason a Doom Horror or Abomination (though I admittedly haven't managed to summon an Abomination in DomII yet), and that's the major part of why DomII will survive on my harddisk until physical failure.

[fahdiz]

I'm definitely a sandboxer, but occasionally I have gamist tendencies.