JDHarper.com

JD came into the room, blew a great cloud of dust off of the blog’s admin panel, coughed briefly, and began to type a new entry without bothering to apologize for neglecting the blog for four months. “That’s what RSS readers are for, to let people keep in touch with websites that are infrequently updated,” he reasoned. “Besides, no one wants to hear a long-winded apology. Best to get to the actual content.”

I have loved 4X games (games in which you control an entire society, starting from a small village/planet, eXploring the universe, eXpanding your empire, eXploiting the resources, and eXterminating your enemies) since I first played Master of Orion back in the mid 1990’s. I like starting from scratch, gradually increasing in power, building a mighty empire.

What I don’t especially care for is that last X. I like building my empire, but I don’t really care for conquering other empires (or, far more frequently, getting conquered).

Tonight I was playing Civilization 4, happily building the Portuguese empire. I had expanded out to a small island off the coast of the main continent, I had hanging gardens and spices and all the comforts of a great empire. What I didn’t have was a strong enough military to keep it–Celtic invaders broke off our trade agreements and took over everything but my small island in an embarrassingly swift conquest.

Maybe I’ve been spoiled by Euro-style board games like Agricola and Puerto Rico, but I like having a field that I know that people can’t mess with directly, where you’re competing on how well you use the resources available to you to build your territory, rather than conquering other people’s territory.

I want there to still be a goal and competition–SimCity bores me to tears–but I want it to be indirect. I want the video game equivalent of a Eurogame. Any ideas where I can find one?