Let’s break down the Civilization games versus the Bard’s Tale ones. I am intentionally not including the Xbox Bard’s Tale game from a couple years ago, nor am I considering any of the billion Civ expansion packs, because humans only get 99 years. Let’s go!
Civilization vs Bard’s Tale I: Advantage: BARD’S TALE. Do you know anyone still playing Civ? The original BT is still a fantastic game. Creepy, claustrophobic and deadly.
Civ 2 vs Bard’s Tale II: Advantage: CIVILIZATION. It’s close, very very close. The Bard’s Tale might be the best sequel of all time — in terms of following a truly great original game, I mean. If the original Civ was a little better than perhaps we wouldn’t have all been monkeynuts for Civ 2.
Civ 3 vs Bard’s Tale III: Enormous Advantage: BARD’S TALE. BT3 is difficult, what with most of your helper buddies like Garth and Roscoe being dead (spoiler). I don’t know anyone who liked Civ 3 over Civ 2. Or who liked Civ 3.
Civ 4 vs Bard’s Tale Construction Set: Enormous Advantage: CIVILIZATION. JC Fun Fact: When I moved to Colorado I picked between developing Chicks Dig Jerks or what would have been a mod made with the Bard’s Tale Construction Set. I actually got fairly into the scripting language before ditching it and settling on Inform 6. Which was great, as I learned how to program through I6. If there had been more of a community in 1998 for Bard’s Tale games I guess nobody currently here would currently be here. On the other hand, I’d have a lot more moral support for continuing to show up to work and this website drunk.
LEGACY
Alpha Centauri vs. Wasteland: Enormous Advantage: BARD’S TALE. The games use pretty much the same engine as their predecessor and you need to consult reading materials to make any sense of either of them: for AC you need… you fawking NEED… the map on your wall. For Wasteland you need to read from the manual to get the game’s story. Which would you rather play, though?
TESTICLES
Lack of Adolph Hitlers vs. Getting Fucking Bombed In a Video Game: Advantage: BARD’S TALE. Every year there is some guy who fucks up picking a fantasy baseball team. This guy is already unwittingly deciding what round to take Cory Lidle in, he just doesn’t know it yet. Anyway, Adolph Hitler not being the grandmaster and Civ Head of Fake Game Germany in any of the Civ games is a goddamn travesty picked by the same kind of clueless moron. I’m sorry the most evil man in the history of the world happens to be the one leader everyone thinks of when it comes to Germany. Everyone except for Sid Meier, I guess. Leave Mein Fuhrer out of the German version of the game, I don’t give a crap. But don’t treat us (or THE U.S.!!) like mouth gaped, gap-toothed children. The Bard’s Tale demonstrates that getting nicely buzzed is important in getting anywhere in life and that lesson is paying dividends for me even today. “Ha, ha, more jokes about drinking” – nobody’s fucking joking. I would not have anything I currently value if I couldn’t imbibe the occasional glass of wine… and reflect. Eat shit, Sid.
So in my ultimate opinion, I’d take the Bard’s Tale and its direct sequels over Civ and its. Although if I were stuck on a desert island, I’d definitely be fucked because after finishing the first three Bard’s games, I’d be stuck waiting for someone to show up and play whatever I made in the construction set.
I dunno, I think ol’ Adolph carries too much baggage to be a good videogame character in a game that’s not Doom. Nobody wants to *be* Adolph, nobody wants to ally with Adolph, and he brings up unhappy memories. Not to spoil a perfectly good rant, but I really can’t think of a good reason to put him in.
Yeah, in retrospect, I should have argued that the Civ team could have done what EA Sports had to do when Michael Jordan signed his own deal for basketball video games, therefore keeping MJ out of the NBA Live series – EA needed to have an amazing player be on the Bulls’ roster, so they put the stats in and just gave him ‘Joe Nobody’ as a name. (I think the same thing happened for the Giants in baseball the last few years, because Barry Bonds wasn’t part of the MLBPA.) Sid & Company could have given some of Adolph’s characteristics to “Augustus Rammstein” or something and made everyone happy. Well, not happy, but you know what I mean.
Towards the end of the era of athletes opting out of their associations, the rich pricks in question started objecting to easily-anagramed versions of their own name, so there was at least some discussion of making Barry Bonds’ replacement a right-handed white guy and so forth. Along the same lines – and along the lines of good taste – I think you need to make sure that the Hitler doppelganger does *not* have the toothbrush moustache. If I were the lead designer, I would probably go with “bowl cut-sporting gypsy with Walrus beard” for the avatar, since it’s Sid Meier’s name on the box anwyay. When robo/zombie Hitler goes on-line/comes to life and starts to avenge that perceived insult (actually, with a bowl cut involved, the insult is genuine) it’ll be Sid he’s gunning for – not me!