​“Builders! I hereby automate you! Go forth and improve the 37 billion resource tiles that we’ve had since Civ 5!”
“Nah.”
“I am your Empress! I have commanded you!”
“Eh, you have to tell us what improvements to make.”
“But…you can only build mines and farms on normal tiles, or a resource’s specialty improvement. There’s not a lot I need to tell you here. Well, alright: go forth and improve the resource tiles only!”
“Nah. Doesn’t feel special. Feels like you just want us to work in the background.”
“Well, yes, I’d love that, thanks.”
“But we want you to pay attention to us. We’re a non-renewable resource now.”
“Riiiiight…but you can’t build districts, wonders, or roads. And there’s never a reason that I wouldn’t want to improve a resource tile, so you actually have less strategic value than ever.”
“We knew it! You don’t love us!”
“Love has…nothing to do with this relationship.”
“We’re done! We’re not doing anything unless you’re there to watch us!”
“-Blinks- Every…time?”
“Yes! We want to feel special!”
“Uhh…could my ‘special’ little Builders construct roads for me?”
“No! Building roads isn’t special!”
“….”
 
(Here endeth the most absurd discussion an Empress has ever had with the basic fucking worker unit.)

​TL:DR: The Civ franchise is the godfather of the 4X genre, the fans of which will always try the newest Civ game…after the release of a few expansions. All reviewers seem to agree that this is the most ‘complete on launch’ Civ game of the past 11 years, and I’m inclined to agree.
Most importantly: Civ 6’s enhancements and innovations will be super-awesome when the next sci-fi Civ game is released. History is boring. People who get into Civ because they’re ‘history buffs’ are lying to themselves. Civ BE is great! And it’ll be even better when the next expansion to Civ BE comes out introducing districts (that can be demolished) and wonders that take up tiles!

“Builders! I hereby automate you! Go forth and improve the 37 billion resource tiles that we’ve had since Civ 5!”
“Nah.”
“I am your Empress! I have commanded you!”
“Eh, you have to tell us what improvements to make.”
“But…you can only build mines and farms on normal tiles, or a resource’s specialty improvement. There’s not a lot I need to tell you here. Well, alright: go forth and improve the resource tiles only!”
“Nah. Doesn’t feel special. Feels like you just want us to work in the background.”
“Well, yes, I’d love that, thanks.”
“But we want you to pay attention to us. We’re a non-renewable resource now.”
“Riiiiight…but you can’t build districts, wonders, or roads. And there’s never a reason that I wouldn’t want to improve a resource tile, so you actually have less strategic value than ever.”
“We knew it! You don’t love us!”
“Love has…nothing to do with this relationship.”
“We’re done! We’re not doing anything unless you’re there to watch us!”
“-Blinks- Every…time?”
“Yes! We want to feel special!”
“Uhh…could my ‘special’ little Builders construct roads for me?”
“No! Building roads isn’t special!”
“….”
 
(Here endeth the most absurd discussion an Empress has ever had with the basic fucking worker unit.)

What I Want(ed) From Civ 6
 
Jessi White
161024

I’ve had a great weekend of writing, and my health has been getting better since August. But my stomach’s bothering me at the moment, so I can’t focus on my writing. I intend to pen my reviews for both Star Ruler 2: Wake of the Heralds and Civ: Beyond Earth in the next couple of weeks. Until then, let us briefly consider the pre-/post-launch reviews, play-throughs, and first impressions of Civ 6.
 
I hadn’t imagined that I’d ever need to create a review for Civ: Beyond Earth (“Civ BE”). It’s a AAA title in a long-beloved series, and Sid Meier and 2K are probably doing just fine. So I let the general nay-saying and feelings of ‘meh’ from the creators whose content I consume drip cleanly off me like rain drops on the proverbial duck.
 
For the record: I love Civ BE. More on that later. It’s my favorite Civ game to-date, though I have yet to play Civ 6. Civ BE is not my favorite 4x game, although it can go toe-to-toe with the Civ-like 4x games (e.g. Gal Civ 2 and Pandora: First Contact). That in and of itself was something I never thought I’d say about a Civ game—when Pandora released in 2014, I had said that it was the Civ game I’ve always wanted.
 
Civ 6 has a lot of interesting, border-line original mechanics that has reinvigorated everyone’s interest in the franchise. Here are a few points which have been made by most/all of the reviewers I’ve watched:
 
* Districts! Yes, districts and wonders actually take up space around a city—the ‘sprawl’ if you will. Not quite the way that Endless Legend did it—and not necessarily better than EL’s sprawl—but a novel concept to the Civ series. Very promising! One builds research buildings in the Campus district, military buildings in the Encampment, commerce buildings in its special district, etc. Districts consume the tile upon which they are made, and benefit from adjacency bonuses, so one must make a strategic decision about where they go. Districts also become more expensive to build as one builds more of them; one must not only plan carefully the area around the city for future districts, but for which cities will have more districts than others.
Wonders, too, take up space around a city. And while districts and wonders can be damaged (and, therefore, repaired), they cannot be removed from their tiles. If you’d like to possess the Hanging Gardens, go find where it was built, and take the city. Done. Now you have the Gardens. Congrats. Optionally, you can go marauding and just break the Gardens. Now no one gets to use them.
 
-Pros: The size of a city finally matters; you must dedicate space and time to constructing certain buildings, instead of auto-building every possible structure in every city; invaders can strategically deny you access to certain buildings and Wonders by pillaging your districts.
-Cons: Even if stipulated that Wonders can’t be completely demolished for magical ‘historical’ reasons, why can’t districts be destroyed and/or moved? And why must the build penalty for building successive districts be empire-wide? Could it not just be city-wide? Wouldn’t that better encourage city specialization? The downfall of Detroit does not prevent the USA from producing more cars.
 
* Two tech trees! Well…not really. One ‘tech’ tree, and one civics tree. The latter is pretty cool, though: it completely dissociates sociopolitical factors from the technology tree. Which leads to…
 
* New Government System! Each government type allows you to slot some number of military, economy, diplomatic, and wild ‘social policy’ cards. More complex governments allow a higher number of these cards to be slotted simultaneously. The first government (‘Chiefdom’) allows just one military and one economic card to be active, while ‘Democracy’ has eight social policy card slots. Building certain wonders or performing other tasks increases the number of cards one can slot even further. Each card provides small, incremental bonuses (e.g. +1 production in all cities) in a game that is about small, incremental bonuses. When a civic is researched on the tree that provides a new government type, one can change out one’s selection of government civics for free—otherwise, it costs some amount of money (?) to switch policy cards. New policy cards are also unlocked via the Civics tree…
 
* Eureka and Inspiration Moments! All techs and civics have a particular feat that, when accomplished, will provide half the research points required for them. Half. As a certain YouTube/Twitch personality might say: “That’s Value!” Indeed, it makes research and civics more tactical: if one has no nearby hills, then completing the ‘build a mine’ task may be challenging. In this case, an Empress can put more research time into that tech, while relying upon another Eureka moment (e.g. ‘start a trade route’) to make another tech easier to research.
 
-Pros: Simultaneous research has been a mechanic that several 4X games (e.g. SoSE, Polaris Sector) have been toying with. I approve. I’ve also enjoyed non-linear tech trees (e.g. Star Ruler 2, Endless Space), so anything that breaks up the monotony of Civ’s traditional linear tech tree is a pro.
-Civ 5 had a changing governments mechanic, and I’m glad to see it’s been expanded in Civ 6. The Social Policies are also great strategic tools: to save the cost of switching them, one must be strategic in their selection; but if one has the money available, then rotate cards to achieve maximum value.
-The Moment mechanic is fantastic! I don’t know if I would’ve gone with a simple ‘half’ mechanic, but it shows promise and enables replayability with changing map conditions.
 
-Cons: Other than the tech/civic trees still being fixed and linear, none: these are all good changes/additions!
 
* Builders! No longer can an Empress build 12,000 Workers and simply automate them! One must build a Builder unit, and that unit only has 3 ‘builder charges’. Basically, it’s one charge per tile improvement, so plan wisely!
 
-Pros: Builds improvements instantly now; forces one to manage one’s improvements more strategically (which I consider a positive).
-Cons: Many Civ players prefer automated workers, though I am not counted among them. Even given that districts are permanent once placed, why can one’s Builders not be automated? Can districts not simply be built over Builder improvements? I suspect that Civ 6 players would be fine with a certain level of Builder automation, especially since (A) roads are no longer built by the player, and (B) districts cannot be constructed by Builders.
 
* Amenities and Housing! Gone is global happiness, and good riddance! Now each city’s happiness is its own. Gone also is unlimited population housing! (Unless you were Endless Space or Star Ruler 2 or Star Drive or….) A city’s maximum population and growth rate are dictated by its ‘Housing’. Some improvements (e.g. Farms = 0.5 Housing) and districts (e.g. Neighborhoods) provide housing, as well as some civics and some technologies. A city’s growth rate tanks when it reaches a population between n – 1 and n + 1, where n = maximum housing capacity.
The happiness system has been usurped for the Amenities system. Having more Amenities (e.g. certain resources) than necessary provides morale benefits to growth rate and production. Having too few does the opposite, and threatens revolt.
 
-Pros: Personally, Endless Space has done happiness the best, with both local and global happiness meters. But having happiness be local is more logical than global happiness, so kudos. Additionally, trade is now of far more importance, because it builds roads and allows the reallocation of amenities where needed.
-Cons: None, really: both systems are better than their Civ < 6 counterparts. Of course, Civ BE had a health system which made a ton of sense….
 
* Colorful and bright aesthetic! I love it! A lot of people don’t. Those people are the same people who enjoy first-person cover-based shooters with brown, brown, grey, and brown palettes. Civ has always been a series meant to appeal to people of all ages; the complaints that the new aesthetic is too ‘cartoony’ makes little sense. Neveryoumind that the framerate is apparently fantastic now—Civ has always been, at best, an abstraction of city/empire/world management. If one is looking for realism, one jumps up to the ‘Grand Strategy’ genre.
 
-Pros: Better framerates, and I can tell which tiles have roads on them without putting 30 hours into the game.
-Cons: Some people are put off by the cartoony visuals. These are the same people who keep saying “I love playing Civ games because they’re historical!”
 
* ‘Full-Feature’ base game! It has been the opinion of many that the launch versions of Civ 4 and Civ 5 felt incomplete—that the developers had held back content for future expansions and/or DLC. I cannot speak to this, as I didn’t get into Civ 4 or 5 until their expansions/DLC had already been released. I did play Civ BE before and after the Rising Tide expansion, and although the expansion did good things for Civ BE, I wouldn’t necessarily say that Civ BE was ‘under-featured’ at launch. However, I’m glad that Civ 6 feels complete to its players; it seems many PC game launches of the past couple of years have been holding back…if they weren’t completely broken.
 
-Pros: All pros! Like the Star Ruler 2 devs have said: expansions should fix bugs and make the game ‘more’. But the game should always release as a full game. Apparently, Civ 5 didn’t even launch with the religion system!
-Cons: No cons. Games should always release as full games.
 
Nit-Picking:
* Religion system seems interesting, but many have said it needs some work. Some have said that religious combat is boring, that religions can die too easily, and that one has no chance of starting a religion unless it’s one’s primary goal.
* Interface needs a tune-up. Some have said that there aren’t enough hover-over tool-tips, and that the Civlopedia is lacking in statistic and strategic information.
* Why are districts permanent once placed? Again: ignoring for the time being that Wonders are permanent ‘historical’ fixtures, why can districts not be removed? “I don’t like that there’s a school here! Let’s bulldoze it and put up a strip mall!” “Well actually Empress, we can’t.” “Of course you can! I command nuclear silos and submarines! I built the first computer in 1390 ACE!” “Riiiight…but it’s a special district.” “Oh! Of course. My bad. Wait: …nuke?” “Won’t work either, I’m afraid.” “But in Pandora a black hole generator would literally destroy everything in and surrounding a hex!” “Go play Pandora then.” “Well fine, maybe I will!”
* Roads…built only by traders…can’t be built by workers or ‘Builders’. Can’t build roads everywhere, even if I can afford the upkeep. Can’t focus on roads leading through hills or other terrain that requires more movement. Hmm….
* Diplomacy. Developers have been making Civ games for 25 years. One would’ve expected that they would have the AI’s diplomatic subroutines down pat. Of course, I invariably turn off all win conditions except for ‘Domination’, so I’m sure this won’t bother some of us.
 
TL:DR: The Civ franchise is the godfather of the 4X genre, the fans of which will always try the newest Civ game…after the release of a few expansions. All reviewers seem to agree that this is the most ‘complete on launch’ Civ game of the past 11 years, and I’m inclined to agree.
Most importantly: Civ 6’s enhancements and innovations will be super-awesome when the next sci-fi Civ game is released. History is boring. People who get into Civ because they’re ‘history buffs’ are lying to themselves. Civ BE is great! And it’ll be even better when the next expansion to Civ BE comes out introducing districts (that can be demolished) and wonders that take up tiles!

October has been decreed "Self-Published/Independent/Indie Author" Month at Amazon, Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), CreateSpace, and Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACE).
 
My participation in this event is unpaid; I was sent an offer to participate as an author who publishes with the above-mentioned entities.
 
Find my stuff:
Website: www.MercedesMace.com
Twitter: @MercedesMace
Facebook: @Mercedes.Mace.2020
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/14635619.Jessica_A_White
            My books are available in paperback via Amazon (CreateSpace), and eBook formats for Kindle (Amazon) and Nook (Barnes and Noble). iBooks is a quagmire through which I am still wading.
 
You can visit the official landing page for the “Powered By Indie” #PoweredByIndie event at Amazon. You can visit the Kindle Direct Publishing Facebook page to connect to the campaign and participate in indie author Q&As.
 
I am somewhat new to advertising, self-promotion, and social media. To make the most of my participation in the Powered By Indie event, I know I should create posts, pictures, and videos regarding my interest in, and experience as, an independently published author. I’ll try to figure out something resembling pictures and/or video later this month.
 
For now, to focus on “why [I] love being an indie author”. I love being an author. Since I’ve only been an indie author, I can’t speak from any life experience as to why I might “love” being an independent writer as opposed to a dependent writer. I have always wanted to be an author, have been practicing to be an author since I was very young. When I was thirteen, I tried to write my first manuscript for publication, but I’d been writing stories since 2nd or 3rd grade.
 
I said that I tried to create my first manuscript at 13. That failed. In fact, I’d tried sixteen times to finish a manuscript, about once per year, from 13 to 30. All of those failed as well. This led to my 0th (‘zeroth’) Apothegm: “Finish a Manuscript.” One cannot become a successful author—in any genre—unless one completes a manuscript. If you’re an aspiring author, that’s really the only advice you need.
 
I have many friends, also aspiring authors, who haven’t yet finished a manuscript. For seventeen years, I was one of them. We rationalized it away. “I haven’t even finished high school yet. How can I get published?” “Well, all of my writing so far has been short story. It’s so much harder to get published as a short story writer.” “I need to spend some time in the industry. It makes sense that I’m not published yet: I don’t know enough people in the industry. I need to network more!”
 
No you don’t. I lived all of those ir-rationalizations. Finish a damn manuscript. A novel or novella, a collection of short stories or poems, that screen- or stage-play—not a single author has become successful without finishing a draft, and then…
 
1st Apothegm: “You have to let someone critique it.” And this is where the indie author experience diverges from the…owned author? Catered author? Subordinate author? I like it. “Jessi: that’s a pretty early divergence that separates the two classes of author.” I agree. At this point, the subordinate author can rely upon the machinaria of the publishing world. Editors to edit your drafts and demand deadlines; publishers to advertise your work; agents to shop your writing around to other lucrative ventures.
 
Do I “like” being independent of those resources? No. Like many writers of my generation, I grew up idolizing the machinarum. I am the creative spark that gives life to the un-glamorous industry. Without this spark, the machine's engine cannot run.
 
Well that’s not true. As my wife has come to realize over the last few years: it’s easy to be creative, it’s difficult to create. How often do we creative people offer up this excuse: “If only I were independently wealthy! What marvels I could create!” But is that true? If you were actually given the opportunity to do anything you desire, would you pound out 10k words per week? I didn’t, not for a very long time. Seventeen years of long time. Last year my wife had a six-month period of time off—the dream, am I right? And how many of her long-treasured projects did she finish?
 
It’s not difficult to guess. I say this not to denigrate her; she has admitted to herself that she is not a self-directed person. Many creative people aren’t. It’s easy to imagine that the world of publishing would help compensate for that. “Hey, you, Authorlady! I’m pretty sure you owe me fifty pages in two days!” “We need to get your cover concepts to the graphic artists, so sit down for five minutes and doodle something!” “Have you finished your homework yet?”
 
Oops. That last one’s a bit Freudian, no? But if you’re the kind of person whose parental units had to constantly remind you to do your work, you’re probably having trouble becoming an author. Don’t worry: you can overcome it, using cognitive-behavioral psychology. That’s how I finally, seventeen years after I’d stated the desire, managed to finish a draft.
 
And overcoming that—becoming a creator—is key to being an independent author. There are people who won’t try new things—hobbies, occupations—if they don’t know how to do them. But creators are people who jump in regardless. Do you remember that episode of “American Dad” in which Stan has never tried opening a restaurant because he doesn’t know how restaurants work? He discusses it with Roger, who in a single morning learned how to be a blacksmith. Believe it or not, it’s pretty easy to sit down and learn a thing.
 
This is where independent authors can thrive: outside of the machanarium which we grew up worshipping. No editors demanding artificial deadlines be met, nor insisting that the public won’t understand your four-syllable words or complex punctuation. No publishers insisting that your content appeal to the 19-25 male demographic. No agents demanding you dedicate twelve weeks a year to book tours. Successful indie authors wouldn’t be able to work within the constraints of the machine, in which every cog is a specialized cog. “Sorry, I won’t be your agent because I specialize in the young adult genre.” “But you’re 55 years old. Being generous, you haven’t been a young adult for at least a decade.” The experience that such an agent can bring to YA writers is a valuable commodity, but one that can also grate against the creative spirit of someone destined to be an indie author.
 
So I “like” being an indie author in the same way that a self-made YouTube creator or Twitch streamer “likes” being an indie content creator. The burden is on me to write—to decide what to write, how to write it. The burden is on me to sort out my covers, find editors, plan deadlines, manage social media, and advertise and network. I am very good at some of these things, not so good at others. But I enjoy learning about them. I enjoy the challenge. Are subordinate authors not challenged? They are, in different ways. Would I enjoy the challenge of being a subordinate author? I don’t know. I’m not sure that career path will survive another generation. Just as professional actors have taken to various internet video platforms, many professional authors have cast off the shackles of the machinarum to become independent authors. Does that make being an indie author more difficult? I think not.
 
Will I ever be a “successful” indie author? In advertising jurisprudence, that word has no meaning. Many people have said to me that I was born to write. I disagree; I was born to teach. Writing is “merely” something that I love to do. Being an independent author has made me successful, because there are five published books that bear my name on their covers and spines. By May of 2017, that will double to ten titles.
 
If a writer is a person who writes, then I have succeeded at being a writer five times over, ten by mid-2017. I like being a successful indie author very much.

You have to add a component to the Registry to do it.  :P

What have I been doing for the past month? Violating one of my rules. Don't start several projects at once, kids!

I've finished two of the 'short' stories for YMM02. The collection should go to my editors by the end of October.

Initial editor suggestions for MM04 came in. I'll spend this week editing, and send it back to them. I just finished editing the cover; you'll observe the thumbnail has been replaced on the website.

And my elder brother has been inspired by Elon's announcement this week, so he and I are going to trade some notes of our own!