Emperor Gary of the Mighty Babylonians

Posted by Gary Hodges at 3:06 PM Jul 11, 2008

As far as July 2008 goes, there were three big things I've been really looking forward to:

1) The Dark Knight opens (I'll be there for the first midnight showing, tickets already bought, Final Fantasy Tactics A2 set aside to pass the time in line),

2) Comic-Con (which I'll be covering for Joystick Division, more details on that next week), and finally

3) Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution.

Well I'm still waiting on the first two, but Civilization Revolution did finally come out this week for the 360, PS3, and even the Nintendo DS. (Has anyone played the DS version? How is it?) I've only played the demo so far but can't wait to dig into the full game, sitting in front of me as I type. I'm curious to see how this supposedly streamlined, console-friendly interpretation of the series holds up.

But most of all, I'm excited to continue my eternal campaign against the English, my lifelong (virtual) enemies thanks to the very first game of Civilization I ever played.

I actually discovered Civilization a bit late, since consoles have been my primary gaming platform for years. I was only introduced the series a few years ago, my first being Civilization II.

For those not familiar, this is an utterly brilliant game where you pick a culture to play as (Romans, Americans, Chinese, Incas, etc.), start the game as a little primitive settler, found your first city, and then start working towards becoming rich, powerful and technologically advanced enough to either annihilate every other culture on the planet or build a spaceship and leave Earth to the savages. As involved as the game is, it's still very easy to learn, and you can control everything from where to irrigate to whether you should build a temple in one of your cities to how to set your nation's tax rate.

But this was my first time out, and I just wanted to screw around, be feared and respected by my people, and wage unprovoked war on my neighbors. So I picked the Babylonians (feeling they probably never got enough attention compared to Germans, Americans and the Chinese) built a town, and set about making a spearmen to attack my neighboring tribe, the English. "They'll never expect it," I reasoned, "so early in the game. Take out the competition early, yessir."

Well apparently while I was building a barracks and spearman, the English had built some farms and - disastrously - a city wall. Marching up to their prehistoric London and futilely banging away at their front gate, the English shrugged, sighed, and went about their business. My little spearman starved to death just outside the wall.

I felt guilt, then fury. The English would pay for this humiliation!

I didn't have the time or knowledge to do it legitimately, though. Vengeance can't wait for wisdom! So I got a list of cheats off the Internet to speed things along a little bit, starting by granting my little mourning Babylonians an inexhaustible supply of gold and food.

"Ha! Silly Englishmen, pulling your food from the dirt! We Babylonians have food raining on us from heaven - your gods are weak!"

Then I went to the "science" cheats.

In Civilization, your culture has "science advisors", and you tell them what sort of knowledge you want your people to pursue, then set aside some taxes to do so. A couple game years pass, and *poof*: "The Babylonians have discovered the mysteries of the wheel!" Furthermore, one discovery leads to others, so if you have your people learn math, they can eventually learn banking, then trade, then algebra, calculus...

Like I said, it's a brilliant game. And like I said, I didn't have time for that horseshit. I gave myself a little boost in the technology department.

NOW I had a game! I couldn't help but chuckle malevolently when at one point the game announced "The English have dicovered the mysteries of pottery!", then shortly after "The Babylonians have discovered the mysteries of jet propulsion!"

Fucking English, we'll see who's starving this time! While they were huddled around campfires trying to work on an alphabet, my mighty Babylonians discovered genetic engineering. By the time they built their first road, I was ordering the construction of my third offshore oil rig.

Naturally the English were starting to shit their bearskin pants. I was building stealth fighters and tanks, and they didn't have to be rocket scientists (like us Babylonians were) to see their cutting edge, high-tech horse-drawn chariots weren't going to be much help. They demanded an audience.

"We request an exchange of wisdom," the English emissary said. "If you give us your knowledge of explosives, we will share the secret of writing with you!"

Wow, that's quite an offer. God damn it I wish there was an option to kick emissaries into a well like in 300.

Babylonian tanks rolled on London, and once I had looted their treasury for every one of its 12 gold pieces, I dropped a nuclear bomb on it for good measure. The English were no more, as extinct as the woolly mammoth. By the time their neighbors, the Japanese, figured out what happened, my mighty Babylonians were climbing on a spaceship destined for Alpha Centauri.

It launched in the spring of 1907 BC. I like to think all the other ape-people watched the streak of light in horror and awe, assuming my fine rocket was a god.

Except for the English, who weren't around to see anything. Fuckers.