NFOpocalypse

If you’ve been following my sporadic Evony coverage, then you’ll be glad to know the game seems to be dying off.  Whether as a result of bad press (look at all the links in the comments), their attempt to silence the press causing a Streisand Effect, bad management (hilarious read), even worse management (a much more disturbing read), or bad customer service, players are finally getting the picture: the official forums are littered with people who have proudly left Evony or been banned for speaking negatively about it or its developers (the game DOES originate from a dictatorship).  Now, with versions coming out by far more professional companies, even the few that enjoyed the game itself can find a new home.

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It’s been a little over a month since I last beat the Evony\Civony dead horse.  In that time, I’ve stumbled across posts that demonstrate the game’s plagiarism of art and text, as well as the suspicious iEvony client, a post that shows the early progression of the ads from normal to stupidly raunchy, and a bunch from Bruce Everiss - fellow game blogger, former Codemaster, and veteran marketer - who is being threatened with cease-and-desists to stop talking about Evony’s abuse of AdSense among other things (frankly, I’m a little jealous I haven’t gotten a C&D yet).  These tidbits… they are interesting, but they hardly make up the meat of a post.  I prayed and prayed to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and He delivered a completely original, totally fresh game: Kingory.  Naturally, I had to have a look.

–[ If you’re not up to speed on Civony\Evony, you might consider reading my original post, and both of my updates before taking the plunge ]–

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As a business major, I find myself questioning the marketing decisions of just about every company.  How many people actually know what Aflac sells?  Is Flo from the Progressive commercials funny to any demographic?  Do fast food and annoying pop music ever meet outside of the board rooms of desperate executives? Still, most of these commercials at least get the product name across.  The ad above?  It’s selling a video game, the one noted in the very top left corner - yeah, that text that’s illegibly tiny.  But if you think that’s bad, wait until you see what’s after the jump (Not safe for many workplaces)…

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Civony has taken a page from AIG’s playbook and rebranded; perhaps to dodge the bad press, or perhaps to make it less obvious that they’re hijacking elements of popular games to piece together a money scheme.  Either way, it’s clear their marketing people haven’t changed.

Note their use of “half a million players.”  They can’t say it in advertising if it isn’t true, right?

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You may have seen these Google ads on sites like… well, everywhere.  While I can’t find screencaps of the original “Your queen is waiting” ads, they were what got my attention because I’d always wanted my own sexy fairy queen.  A few nights ago, I finally gave Civony a try - hell, the worst case scenario was that I’d unearth some blog fodder!

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In Dominus, you control the ruler of a small province, which consists of a castle, outlying towns, city walls, forests, and the like. It’s divided up into about thirty different area maps. Your goal is to defend the province against eight invading tribes, which have randomized personalities. You combat these tribes using your own armies of monsters, traps, and spells. Additionally, you have four generals at your disposal, which you can use to automate setting up area defenses and other attacks. You win the game when all of the invading tribes have been eliminated, either through warfare or diplomacy.

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One of my hobbies is collecting old PC games. Over the years, however, I’ve amassed a large number of games that I’ve never gotten around to playing. I would like to play all of these eventually, but I don’t have a lot of time to invest into playing them all to completion. Therefore, I’m going to play them all for an hour or two and discuss my preliminary findings. I’ve chosen to start with strategy and war games.

Home of the Underdogs calls Silicon Knight’s 1993 D&D-licensed title Fantasy Empires as “one of the best fantasy games ever made.” I was not as impressed.

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Okay, let’s put aside the fact that war doesn’t really make much sense in real life. We’re talking about games, here. This is a gaming blog.

I’m not a historian by any means, but I don’t think I need to be one to tell that something’s a bit off when one of the CPU-controlled players, with whom I’ve had very little contact, declares war on me even though I’m not controlling an important resource, blocking some strategic position, or otherwise being much of a threat. Potentially, I could turn this into a long rant on why AI in 4X games can be so lacking, but I don’t think that’s the actual problem, here.

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My next column article is up on Massively. It is called Under The Hood: Strategy on a Massive Scale