I’m on a bit of an (enforced) offline kick at the moment, and two of the games I’m currently quite fascinated with are Pharaoh, and X2: The Threat, both ‘3 for £10’ stalwarts at this point, but more than worth £3.33 each. At first glance, both seem quite different; one a historically influenced city-builder, the other a slightly different take on the old space trading and combat game, ala Elite, but as I picked away at both, it struck me how similar they were, when it got right down to the nuts and bolts.
Pharoah is a variation on the old Sim City system; the idea being to build an utopian Egyptian city, with as much population, power and prestige as the various tools, allow. These come in the form of civil buildings; firehouses, bazaars, wells and so on, all of which must be placed effectively, and somehow fed and paid for.
I've seen a lot of these, but I like this particular iteration of the theme, as the cities of Egypt you work through rapidly become colourful and fascinating places, as all the little Pre-dynastic Firemen, Priests, Labourers and Entertainers all scurry about the streets you've designed, and of course the anal retentive in me will go to endless lengths in an attempt to ensure each and every one of them has as ideal conditions as possible. There’s something enormously satisfying about seeing a little pixelated hovel transform into an affluent residence before my very eyes, in response to my cleverly placed well, or whatever. Populous was no different; powerful benevolence, and immediate results. I think I’d make a great ruler, so long as the land I ruled was a simple place free of politics, bureaucracy and was divided up into 100m isometric grid squares.
X2 is, on the surface at least, totally different, being a first-person space fighter sort of game, and on the face of what I’ve seen so far, a fairly mediocre one at that, lacking the immediacy and involvement of previous titles like Freelancer or the X Wing games, instead being open-ended to the point of pointlessness. I can see why it didn’t do that well at the time.
But then I did indeed ‘Read The Farking Manual’, and saw that I’d gotten the wrong idea a bit with this game. True, the FPS flyboy stuff is quite central, but the game also contains a staggeringly comprehensive and quite original auto-pilot menu system, allowing surprisingly delicate control of not only your own vessel, but any others you own, up to and including whole space stations. Some sessions I never touch the joystick at all, flying entirely using the menus. Ahhh, I thought, it’s an RTS too! With this in mind, I re-examined the game’s space sectors and came to the understanding that the economy, while very life-like, was incomplete in many places. I’m saving up for my first space factory now. I guess you could just play through it shooting the hell out of everything, but I’ve just started on a much longer sort game that promises to be very gratifying over the next year or so; a game of Empire! I think EVE Online strives for this somewhat, but unlike there, I go in at CEO level here, and all my minions obey instantly and without question, which is always preferable, but alas, unfeasable in an MMO.
But just as in Pharoah, the X2 universe consists of large numbers of factories which supply some goods, and need others, and it’s largely down to me to join the dots. I think it appeals to my sense of order and I draw enjoyment from this type of simulation, largely because here is a relatively simple, yet obviously incomplete or broken, system, and I have the ability, resources and power to rectify it, as long as I have the wit to understand how these should be applied – an enviable position only a handful of men and women ever reach in Real Life. I doubt I'm alone in this bizarre enjoyment.
It all comes down to Civilization, of course, both the turn-based, tile-based genre-defining game for the 386 PC, and the real and everyday process it simulates. I think that given a unit of Settlers and a flat grassland tile next to a river, most of us would build a city and start researching bronze working as soon as possible. We’re Builders, it’s what we do.