Article View: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Article #697904Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN MAY 2017?
From: Spalls Hurgenson
Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2017 13:37
Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2017 13:37
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3597 bytes
On Fri, 2 Jun 2017 08:11:47 -0700, Dimensional Traveler <dtr...@sonic.net> wrote: >On 6/1/2017 10:17 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote: > >The final game was one I found the CD for while I was going thru some >boxes. Serf City: Life is Feudal!!! :D (AKA Settlers 1.) A real >blast from the past. I remember when I first got the game thinking this >explained why people are so fascinated with ant farms. :) So I spent a >weekend getting it to run under DosBox and then my free time for a week >or so watching my ant farm, ahem, serfs wandering around. Still fun. I remember being very impressed with what SerfCity was trying to do. In an era where most game abstracted its larger systems, SerfCity aimed to create a very detailed economic simulator. You essentially had to build your economy from the ground up, taking into consideration each of the many steps necessary to build a medieval economic base (lumberjacks cut logs, sawyers turn the logs into planks, carpenters turn planks into furniture, etc.). It was an exceptionally impressive effort, especially given the technological limitations of the time. I also loved how the peasants' foot-traffic created paths and roads just by their using the same route over and over again. But damn, unless you had an intense and abiding interest in micromanging, the game just wasn't fun to play. The AI was brain dead and the systems contradictorily were both too detailed and not detailed enough to work. The former meant a huge workload for the player, whilst the latter denied the player access to necessary information and tools that might lessen that workload. As you said, fun to watch but probably just getting it to run in DOSBox was a more entertaining challenge.
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