Sid Meier

[Blackhawk]

Being that the Railroad Tycoon Series was initially started by him I figured I'd make a post about him and his games. I generally think he is overhyped and not that great of a game designer. The majority of the people here think RT2 and RT3 are better than RT1 and Railroads! You might say we'll it's not like RT1 has a chance against the later technology of RT2 and RT3 but Sid had his own chance in Railroads! and dropped the ball.

He also gets hyped up for his work in earlier games like Civilization, Colonization, and Alpha Centuari. Turn based building/civilization developing games. Alpha Centuari I think got rated a 98% in PC Gamer Magizine which was the highest rating for any game in that magizine ever I believe. I think Half-Life or some other game might have now tied it at 98%. While Alpha Centuari was a decent game, it wasn't as great as was all the magizines said it was. In fact another game out there created by largely just 1 person and lacking the funding and graphics of Alpha Centuari seemed to be a much better game to me. (Space Empires) In both games you could customize your units, but in Alpha Centuari you essentially had maybe 5-10 different choices to use to customize a unit and could only have a limited number of customized units. In Space Empires every unit was customized as you desired and the research trees were infinitely larger and better. In addition, there was the ability to mod Space Empires, which was lacking in Alpha Centauri.

Assuming Alpha Centauri was even worth the 98% it was rated in game reviews, it's predesessor Civilization IV was a let down. The research tree was more limited again, unit choices were restricted to just a few choices per era you were in versus Alpha Centauri with some customization, and the diplomacy options seemed fewer.

So at least to me from the various games of his that he has developed that I have played, he seems like an overhyped game designer.

I also thought the Civilization: Call to Power Series (not made by Sid) were just as good if not better than his own Civilization games. These games provided for more unit choices and more government choices.

[nedfumpkin]

Rt3 and Rt2 are really the only games I have played for any length of time. Even then, Rt3 mostly. Now I play TM....

[Hawk]

I tried Railroad Tycoon Deluxe but never did get anywhere with it. 'Course that was after playing RT2 and RT3.
I tried the demo for SMR and didn't care for it a bit. I never did buy it.
I did buy Civilizations but that kind of game just isn't my interest, although I tried the demo version of AD 1701 and like it better than Civilization.

[proudcanadian]

Agreed, 1701 AD is a great little game. I love those "colony builder" games, and it seems like 1701 improved a lot over its predecessors (I've only played 1602 AD, the first game in the series, but not 1503 AD, the second)

[Knave]

I much prefer RRT 3 over SMR. Sim over just game. I will have to admit that for personal reasons I play smr a lot more than rrt 3. There is a simple play style that lends itself to being my version of solitaire.

Civ 4 a by itself does leave one feeling there should be more to the game. Eventually. By the time you have civ 4 upgraded with both the expansion packs you can see the game is now complete. And a hell of a game. I had not mastered all the intricacies of the game when I stopped playing. It has it all.

Sid did some amazing stuff when he was at microprose. Don't ask me what. I am at that age where I have forgotten. And it doesn't bother me. What he did others built on. Will Wright for example. And so on. The games of today are amazing feats of computer technology. And sadly, mostly requiring twitch skills. Sid made sim games we needed our minds to do. Not fast fingers. And that is why I believe a few of his games remain on our computers to this day.

But hey, just a few of my thoughts on the matter.

[Blackhawk]

I never did get the expansion packs for Civ IV. I just couldn't see spending more money on an average game, but if they expanded upon things and improved it's depth that's good to hear. Shame it all the additions weren't released with the original game, or in patches instead of a expansion packs.

In most of his early Microprose days he made Flight games, which I think I've only played 1-2 of them but I don't remember them standing out much more than any other flight sim. Silent Service was a good game though, although Silent Service (which I don't think he had anything to do with was much better.

Apparently Sid wasn't even the lead designer on Civ II and Alpha Centauri, which many consider some of his best games, Brian Reynolds was. To me it seems like Sid might have some original ideas, however, he's never been the best at actually making the best game using those ideas and concepts. That said I can't be too hard on him, it was RT1 that inspired RT2 and RT3.

[Gandar]

I was a huge fan of Civ and played it for many many hours, it had so much more than SimCity and I became addicted to it, then I found out about RRT and after that Master of Orion. In all of these games I thought that the Original game was the best, although later games had improved graphics, in every case it seemed that the game play was made easier to please a larger audience. I know that in RRT1 the AI seemed to be more aggressive in the stock market and control of your own company was imperative. I also felt that the signals, train collisions and having to build engines and then send them across rail to their starting stations made it a much more believable game. I also liked the special train deliveries that came up, Do you take a train off a profitable route to make a special run for a big payoff.
Whichever way you look at it one way or another Sid Meier has brought me an incredible number of happy computing hours.

[Third Rail]

I never did get the expansion packs for Civ IV. I just couldn't see spending more money on an average game, but if they expanded upon things and improved it's depth that's good to hear. Shame it all the additions weren't released with the original game, or in patches instead of a expansion packs.

I half agree with this statement. I bought both expansions and Warlords certainly could have been a patch. BTS, on the other hand, offered so much more depth and variety to gameplay that it's been referred to as Civ 4.5 on Civ boards I have frequented. It is definitely worth the money; it goes for cheap these days and was worth full price when it came out. It took an admittedly average game to new heights. If you enjoy Civ and think that Civ 4 was unfinished, I highly recommend buying it. BTW, you only need BTS as it includes all of the Warlords content minus the sub par scenarios. The new scenarios and mods included in BTS, although mostly available for free as many were created by the community, are conveniently included in one place. Some of them, such as Final Frontier, Rhys and Fall, and Fall From Heaven, are as good as new games in themselves thanks to the superlative modding capabilities of Civ 4.

[AZ Rail Rat]

Over-hyped or not, he still has A BUNCH of our money in his bank account Blacky.