Quick Look: Sid Mierer’s Civilization: The Board Game

So I’ve played enough games now that I’m comfortable giving some quick impressions on my latest purchase. To coincide with the launch of Civilization V in 2010, Fantasy Flight Games also released a boardgame, simply called Sid Meier’s Civilization. In 2011, the game received its first expansion pack, Fame and Glory, although so far there doesn’t seem to be any hints or rumours of a second. I bought both the main game and the expansion at the same time as I figured there was no point beating around the bush, plus I have a core group of four others that I play with, so I needed the extra space F&G afforded me.

In a word: It’s good. It’s also long. Generally speaking, if we start a game at 7, we can have it done and dusted between 12-1, depending on how things are going. The first session we tried with five people, we were nowhere near finishing when it came to midnight, and two of our number had to go home. The second 5-player session we tried, again, we weren’t finished by 1am and decided to call it quits, although looking at the lay of the land, one of our number might have been able to win it in the next turn. I’ve also played two 2-player games, in the first one I got trounced, and the second one wasn’t finished because we had a late start and it was a weekday.

Yeah, that’s another thing – so far I haven’t really been playing that well. I’ve won plenty of Spartacus matches, RISK, Game of Thrones etc… but for some reason I can’t seem to get a handle on this game. It’s definitely about momentum – you need to get a second city up and running as quick as possible, and you can’t suffer any set-backs (like taking on some barbarians and losing, which can and does happen). Also, you have to play to your faction’s strength as much as possible. True to the PC game, there are multiple ways to winning – Culture (uses a track you simply have to get to the end of) Technology (be the first to research the Level V tech), Economy (You have to collect 15 coins) and Military (You have to be the first to take someone’s capital). Each faction in this game lends itself to certain tracks, and provided you get a good economy set-up going, you can open up others to you as well quite easily. If you don’t play to your faction’s strengths though, you can fall behind and/or get your ass handed to you very easily (which is what happened to me in one of the one-on-ones).

Still, this flexibility make sit a very interesting game, but you really have to commit from the off or you just meander about not really doing anything. There are a lot of rules as well, so it can be hard for people to keep it all in their head. It’s quite easy though to ‘disable’ some elements of the game from the expansion however, if you need to. If you only you could disable victory types, like I often do in the PC game (Domination all the way, baby).

The only long-term problem I see with this game is that, eventually, people are going to know what strategies they prefer, and in turn what factions they prefer playing as. I can see this leading to a situation where everyone just chooses the same factions over and over, and so in turn you know what their strategy is going to be from game-to-game. Also, if you don’t get momentum going quickly, you’re essentially a non-entity from the beginning, and that’s without any having even touched you. In other games, I’ve easily come back from a weaker position or still been able to significantly affect the outcome of the game, but in Civ there’s not as much scope for that – military conflict is dialled down because it’s only 1/4 of this game essentially, and while there are some tech/culture card effects that could be considered ‘offensive’, it’s down to whether or not you actually acquire those cards.

In the other boardgames that I’ve played so far, you’re not so … locked? I mean in Spartacus every House as its own play style, but there’s a lot of luck involved and it also depends on what assets you ultimately end up acquiring. A Batiatus player may never have more than say, two gladiators (which makes his abilities hard to use), but he could still win the game through some shrewd playing. same with Glaber and Guards, or Tullius and Slaves. Civ is a lot more ‘hands-off’ in the sense that someone could just sit there, and still win, and if no-one is in a position to do anything about it can be a bit depressing as you feel impotent.

Still, it’s a good boardgame, and I reckon we’re going to get many, many good play sessions out of it. I hope they do decide to expand on it with more releases.

Losing: The Winning Strategy

Welcome to my first post from my tablet. It’s typical really, I buy a new gadget thinking it’ll improve my mobile life, but to be honest I still before blogging and writing in general on my main PC at home. This keyboard is kind of small. Anyway – I’m not here to talk about my things, I’m here to talk about March of the Eagles, Paradox’s latest Grand-Strategy game set during the Napoleonic Era.

You can read more about my thoughts on the game in the review I did over on Strategy Informer. Essentially, it’s ok, not great, and is a far better multiplayer game than it is single-player. Seriously, I’ve been playing Paradox games for years, but I’ve been missing out not trying to take these games online more often, and March of the Eagles stripped down design and narrower focus means that everything is more immediate. As I mentioned in my review, a multiplayer session of Eagles reminds me a lot of the boardgame Diplomacy.

One of the issues I have with it though is how the game handles technological progression. Essentially, you learn more through losing. Now, I don’t mind the principle behind this – winning a fight simply reinforces the belief that your way is the right way, while losing forces you to look at how you do things and come up with a way of doing it better. In March of the Eagles, all nations get access to the same tech trees, which cover a range of areas from economy, to ship building, to Infantry and ‘Command’. The Great Powers also get an eighth tree which is unique to their nation. You earn idea points naturally every month, and if you fight and lose a lot of battles, your get bonus idea points and so can unlock ideas quicker. This does help redress the balance of power somewhat between strong and weak(er) nations, however it’s not perfect. To really earn enough idea points to make a credible difference, you essentially have to lose all your armies, lose a lot of sieges… essentially be taken to the brink of annihilation, and if you lose that badly, you’re essentially taken out of the game for a very long time.

Take Prussia, for example, the country I was playing as for the majority of the playtime for my review. I ended up fighting both France and Russia, which was essentially a fight I was never going to win. But that was ok, because I made it my mission to take as many of them down with me and psychologically wear both players down through attrition, hit and run tactics, and guerrilla warfare (or as close as you can come to it in a game like this). The thing is though there’s no scope in the game to reward behaviour like that. I really had to fight to keep my armies mobile, and alive, taking out a stack here, thwarting a siege there… in a move that was more troll than tactical, I sent one army into France via Austria just to take Paris, and then left again.

Man, this WordPress App sucks. And this keyboard is REALLY small.

I don’t mind so much that, as far as technological progression goes, there’s nothing gained through winning. Winning is the reward in itself, and your generals – whether they win or lose – get traits through combat which makes them more effective anyway. But I lost that war – 90% of my towns and forts were taken, and I lost most of my army in a stupid last ditch defence manoeuvre which even at the time I knew was a bad idea but I was pretty tired by this point, and wanted to see if I could defeat the Grand Army.

Anyway, despite losing all those sieges, and that one, last climatic battle, I didn’t earn enough points to even unlock a single idea, because I didn’t lose the “right” way. When you’re facing an enemy as numerically superior like France, and Russia to some extent, you don’t really want to get into pitched battles with them as you WILL lose. Yet because I lost it all in one go, instead of over a series of battles, I didn’t get the full extent of bonuses that losing battles get you.

My armies were in tatters, I had a massive manpower deficit to work through, and my nation was no more technologically effective than it was when I started. I was also essentially a non-entity for the rest of that session. Truces are locked in March of the Eagles, so I couldn’t declare war on anyone even if I wanted to, and I didn’t want to as I had to wait for my army to rebuild, which doesn’t happen quickly.

Forgive me if you think I’m whining – I had no problems with losing that war. I knew it was a no-win scenario and I was kind of proud at what I managed to achieve in the end – I annoyed the France and Russia players so much that I didn’t have to cede over that much territory, and they are now at war with each other because I gave each of them territory the other wanted. Revenge is sweet. The only things I was genuinely disappointed by was my own stupid decision to fight that last battle (It would have made rebuilding a lot easier if I hadn’t of done it) and the fact that I was unable to organise the other great powers into an alliance against France. Well, not one that lasted anyway – Russia started off fighting France with us, then truced out early and attacked me instead.

My issues with the technology system then are ones of design: the progression through loss thing is an interesting idea on paper, I just don’t think it was executed particularly well in this case, which is nothing in itself as there are a lot of things about March of the Eagles, as you’ll see in my review, that are not all there. It’s still a fantastic multiplayer experience though, and I’d recommend giving it a go.

Oh yeah, the Playstation 4 happened, didn’t it? I suppose I should talk about that at some point.

Fatherland

Today I’m going to talk to you about Grand-Strategy games. I like Grand-Strategy games. Typically they can be lighter on things like graphics and visuals, but they possess so much depth and potential options that it provides a nice counter-balance. Plus as someone with an active imagination, I also get a kick out of visualising events in my head anyway. One of the leaders in grand-strategy is a company called Paradox Interactive, and they’ve got several key franchises, each focusing on a different theme. Hearts of Iron for warfare, Victoria for Economy, Crusader Kings focuses on the human aspect of ruling a kingdom and politics, and Europa Universalis is blend of everything.

I went to see them in Iceland recently, and they’ve got a lot of great titles in their line-up for these games – expansions for Victoria 2 and Crusader Kings II, Europa Universalis IV, March of the Eagles, a Hearts of Iron spin-off called East vs. West (Which looks amazing). You’ll be able to see my coverage of these games dotted around the place, mainly on Strategy Informer, but it’s caused me to have a bit of a relapse into some of the older games – especially Victoria 2.

Victoria 2 is in itself a bit of a paradox – essentially it’s a game that focuses on the industrial revolution, so the economy system is very robust. You have a detailed population interface, with everyone having different jobs and you have to make sure you provide for all their needs. You can open different types of factories, which all require different types of resources that you can either find from within your nation or export from elsewhere. This is backed up by a very hands-on political system, where you have different parties and philosophies that your people with vote on (some political parties, for example, won’t let you build your own factories, letting the private investors do it for you). There’s also the diplomatic stage, where you compete with other great powers to draw minor nations into your sphere of influence, which gives you priority over trade. Essentially, they didn’t want this game to be a wargame, like the previous title they release – Hearts of Iron III.

The funny thing is though, as the name suggest, the game is set within the backdrop of the late 19th century colonial era. The scramble for Africa is accurately represented through a colonisation interface, there are the eastern nations you can interact with, and there were a lot of wars during this period. The 1871 Franco-Prussian War, the Prussian-Austrian War, the Zulu war in South Africa… the game’s time span stretches all the way to 1935, so you’ve got the First World War in there as well. None of these events are prescribed in the game – there are tools and systems in place for such events to happen. It’s strange then that they’d focus the game so much on economy, during a time where there was a fair share of fighting. And it’s not like you can sit back and avoid the fighting either. In order to be a great power, you need to have high prestige, a good industry, and a large army, and an easy way to get prestige is to fight wars. The military side of things though is rather tame – you can build three different types of units – Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery, and there are several variations you can get as you climb up the tech tree. (Tanks and Aeroplanes do appear very late in the game as well, although they don’t fit quite as neatly.)

Armies can be controlled by generals, and there are plenty of military techs you can research to make your military more efficient, but when it comes down to it a war is all about making sure your army stack is bigger than the other guys… like how Civilization used to be. At the time, it was a bit of a let down from the wonderful deep combat systems of Hearts of Iron III, and now, playing through it again, I can’t help but think it’d benefit loads from the developments made in March of the Eagles.

What I so like about Victoria 2 though is the long-term goals you can achieve. Crusader Kings II is good for this as well, in a way, as you can form De Jure Kingdoms and Empires eventually if you conquer/vassalise the right people. Victoria 2 has similar system in place for certain countries. Choose any of the Italian states, for example, and provided you can reach Great Power status you can work on bringing the rest into your sphere of influence (or just out-right conquer them), and then form the nation of Italy. Play as either Austria or Prussia (or any of the other German states, I think, although it’s much harder with them), and you can initially form the South or North German Confederation respectively, and then go on to create the German Empire. Austria also has the option to become Austria-Hungary, as it did in history. There are other ones as well for other key nations, some interesting, some not… Denmark or Sweden, for example can form an a-historical ‘Scandinavian’ nation, which I did once, although since the expansion it’s harder as you essentially have to fight Prussia for a particular territory, and you have to work really hard or get some powerful friends to become stronger than Sweden.

In my current play-through, I played as Prussia, with the eventual aim of forming Germany (going through a bit of a Germanic phase right now). The first step – forming the North German Confederation – is the easy part (relatively). You start with most of the key states under your sphere of influence; you only need to fight Austria (and maybe Denmark) for the rest. Provided you get your act together quickly enough, you can attack Austria before they have any chance of forming any decent alliances, and boom, North German Confederation. The hard part was forming Germany though, as the last few key provinces I needed were held by France, who is typically stronger than you, and in my game by the time I got around to looking their way, they had several key alliances which meant I would be fighting a war on multiple fronts. To my shame, I played a game where every so often, I’d start the war to see who joined which side (we shared several allies), and even play it out a bit to see how easy it would be… it didn’t work I, I reloaded to a save I made just before I declared war. Took a couple of goes and some more diplomatic shenanigans before I found a scenario that was favourable.

The ‘Great War’ of 1900-1905 (eventually, wars that contain multiple great powers are called ‘Great Wars’ in the game, to simulate the First World War)  was North German Confederation and my lackeys, Italy, Great Britain and perhaps a couple of others, versus France, Luxembourg, Belgium and Russia. It was the best chance I was going to get, and experience through fighting out the previous attempts gave me ideas to keep the Russians pinned on that front, allowing me to fully concentrate on the French. Essentially, the war boiled down to a massive dog-pile in Strasbourg, with two huge stacks going toe-to-toe for the whole war. Italy proved quite effective in fighting France in the south, while Great Britain kept the French navy at bay and also went for their overseas territories. I used what few stacks weren’t tied up to take out Belgium – which was harder than it should of been -  and support my allies whilst making a play for Paris. Eventually, the French army just broke, and it was only after I’d occupied all of their territories that they finally gave in. Three Cheers for Germany!

It was kind of interesting to watch the balance of power change after that – every nation on the losing side of a Great War has to ‘capitulate’, so they get rid of half their army, and other reparations as well. It removed France and Russia from the Great Power list completely, and at the time of wiring France is in the sphere of influence of The Netherlands, of all places. Russia is in the pocket of Austria, who I’ve just gone to war with as they’ve been sitting pretty gathering strength for too long. So far, the ‘Second Great War’ is going well for me.

All Hail the Fatherland.

Happy New Year!

Go, obligatory New Year’s Post!

Bust seriously, It’s been an interesting year all round – moved house again (new place is awesome), got nominated for a GMA, and experienced one of the biggest lows I’ve experienced since I started this job. Not in terms of what’s been happening, but only in terms of income. My fellow self-employed freelancers will know the importance of regular work and invoicing etc… And sad to say the past couple of months haven’t been great for me, which leads me to my one and only resolution for 2013: Earn moar money.

Obviously, that means I just need to buck up my ideas and start trying to get more freelance work in more places. But I also have to be realistic – I’ve been doing this for nearly five years now, and I’ve always known that unless I was incredibly lucky and found one of the few well paying, full-time niches that this industry possesses, I’d have to move on. I’ve known many a journalist who have gone over to PR in the past few years, and 2013 could well be when I make the same move. I’ve had a good run, I’ve had my fun, but considering I do want to settle down and do the whole family thing I have to be earning the money to support that. If that means moving to Videogames PR (if possible) then so be it. It’s a decision I’ll be making straight away though. The tenancy on my current flat will run out in June: at that point, if things haven’t improved, I’ll be jumping ship.

Even though 2012 has had its ups and downs for me, it’s been a great year for gaming, especially PC gaming. For a couple years PC games have kind of fallen by the wayside, with only the niche sectors really keepings strong, but 2012 has seen a lot more excellent PC games come out of the woodwork – Minecraft has gotten better, and been brought to consoles. Crusaders Kings II, Planetside 2, DayZ, XCOM (which proved a tactical-strategy game CAN work on the console as well)… it’s clear that the console market needs new hardware, but at the very least the first and third party publishers have been trying to make the best of what they have. Meanwhile, PC gaming is still going strong, with Free-to-play and the indie scene throwing out some really interesting titles, I personally can’t wait to see what else is on the way.

I’ll leave it there for the moment, but I want to just wish everyone a happy new year, and here’s to 2013!

Points of View: Halo 4 & Sexism

I usually don’t like commenting on articles about feminism, sexism or stuff like that, as I find it hard to articulate my views without getting into trouble. Ultimately, I’m a supporter of better representation of women in videogames, as it’s been a bit of a boy’s club for too long. Sometimes I think over-zealousness gets in the way of common sense, but at the end of the day I’m a guy, and I can’t really put myself into the female mind-set and so I’m not really qualified to speak. But every now and then, I’ll read something that really makes me “hmm”, like these two articles. They’re both about the portrayal of Cortana in Halo 4, and whilst I don’t take issue with everything they say, there are just some interpretations that I find puzzling. That and they’re also both written by guys, so if they can comment, so I can I.

It was Matt Barton’s piece on Armchair Arcade that I read first, which references an article on Gamasutra, so I’ll deal with each piece in turn. Like I said, I don’t object to everything that’s said, and there are some fair points in both cases, but there are other instances where I can’t help but think the authors are just a tad uninformed about Halo’s lore and background.

Take this excerpt from Matt’s piece for example: “Cortana is not even granted a body, but exists only as a hologram. She is completely and utterly dependent on the Chief for protection as well as mobility–he literally picks her up and plugs her into his suit.”

To be fair, this is a valid argument if you disagree with the original decision back in Halo: CE to make the Cortana character a hologram and female. If you’re just looking for someone to be the antithesis to the Chief’s gruffness, then perhaps it could quite easily have been a chirpy guy. I can’t help but feel it was probably due to the fact that Bungie didn’t want to add another physical character into the mix which made the Cortana character a hologram. But that’s something rather separate to the fact that the Cortana character is female, even if it does appear to say something by casting the emotional side of the duo as a woman. Even if you take this as an affront though- we’re on the fourth Halo game now. Cortana has always been a hologram, has always been “dependant” on the Chief because, funnily enough, holograms are incapable of existing outside of a computerised environment like the Chief’s exo-suit. I’m only saying complaining about it now is a bit redundant, which is never reason not to speak up, but 343 weren’t going to make changes to Cortana like giving her a body. Cortana can no more be ‘real’ than Tali could be Bi-sexual.

It’s the next bit though that I think really made me pause: “In perhaps the final insult to females in this game, it’s emphasized that even her individuality is an illusion; she can be copied again and again when the need arises. Finally, she is even denied rationality, and becomes increasingly less coherent and more dependent on Master Chief until the closing credits”.

This comment could have been influenced by a couple of instances from Halo 4 – I profess I don’t know which one Matt is referring to, but I’ll deal with them both. First off, there are a couple of comments that Cortana makes when trying to figure out how to deal with her on-coming Rampancy. The second is a bit in the last level where Cortana makes copies of herself in order help feet the Didact. In both cases, having read Matt’s article, I get what he’s saying, I just again think it’s a bit… cynical, to take the material and interpret in that way. Matt himself does go on to say he doesn’t believe the game is truly sexist, but he raised the argument so I shall respond.

In terms of the last Halo 4 level – I just saw it as a computer thing. Cortana is an incredibly advanced computer program, and one of her abilities is to be able to make copies of herself so that she can monitor or do several things at once. In the novel First Strike, she does a similar thing when they assault a Covenant Space Station, and as far as Canon goes, the ‘Cortana’ you meet in the Halo Reach game is supposed to be a copy or shard as well (It’s one of the few things they did to reconcile the game Halo: Reach with Eric Nylund’s companion novel The Fall of Reach which had been released nearly ten years prior).

Then there’s comments Cortana makes earlier in the game where she says a ‘new’ version of herself could be made if they don’t get her back to Earth in time. In the Halo universe, “smart” AI’s like Cortana are created by using the natural synapses of a human brain, usually the brain of someone smart and already dead because the organ is destroyed during creation. Cortana’s case is unique however as she’s the only AI generated from a living brain, that of Dr. Catherine Halsey, an important figure in the Halo Universe who made her first in-game appearance in Halo: Reach. Halsey cloned her brain to create Cortana, and considering Halsey is still alive and well, the process could be done again (even though it’s illegal).

Cortana is quick to point out though that the ‘new’ Cortana, should she ever be created, wouldn’t be the same as the Cortana you’ve known through the past four games – she wouldn’t have the same knowledge or experience, and so ultimately wouldn’t be the same person at all. Despite what the author may think, I don’t think the game is trying to say that Cortana can be replicated at will, far from it. I personally would find the inclusion of a ‘new’ Cortana fairly interesting, as the Chief will have to undertake a new emotional challenge of dealing with this entity that’s so familiar, yet so alien. As far the “even denied rationality” comment goes, Rampancy has been a known quantity in Halo lore for donkey’s years – Smart AI’s (for reasons you’d have to look up as I can’t remember) only have a shelf life of 7 years. By the start of Halo 4, Cortana had been in service for 8 years, so the fact that she hadn’t already gone Rampant is a bit of a miracle. Cortana was always destined for Rampancy, as is every other human AI in the Halo universe, like Roland the AI of the Infinity who you see in the Spartan Ops cutscenes.

Apart from that though, Matt piece has some interesting sections to it, I liked his take on Cortana as the ideal women, and Halo 4′s notion of chivalry etc… although again, the bit where he says “whose very identity, individuality, and physicality, are all either denied or rendered suspect” I take issues with this as these are all symptomatic of the fact that she’s an aging AI who’s been through a lot – how else is she supposed to act? I also think Matt was being a tad unfair in the next bit:

“There’s a telling (if not touching) moment at the end of the game where the Chief is talking to a much less intimidating man, one who’s face is not obscured behind a helmet but is in fact quite animated. It becomes obvious from the man’s questions, attitude, and height compared to the Chief makes it clear he’s not nearly as rugged and self-contained as the hero. His remark that soldiers makes him seem weak and barely worthy to be in the same room. The Chief is taciturn, as a man ought to be; this guy talks too much about his feelings. Indeed, the Chief’s last words before the credits point out that Cortana, the Female, had said the same thing.”

I’m not actually sure if I’ve figured out what Matt is trying to say here (some missing words and poor sentance construction), but if I have, I think he’s making one too many assumptions as to what the character of the Chief “is”. Halo 4 raises some very interesting points, points that you don’t really think about until they’re thrust in your face. The Master Chief and the rest of the Spartan-II’s were kidnapped as children, indoctrinated, medically enhanced and trained to fight.

Fighting is all they know and fighting is all they have done since the Human-Covenant War began. The scene in question is more to do with the Chief struggling with that fact that he’s human, something Cortana tries to remind him off in game. I think trying to twist this as something about how men “ought to be” is a bit unfair. Men, even Soldiers, aren’t supposed to be machines, and Lasky (the ‘less rugged man’) is trying to remind the Chief of that.

Anyway, that was Matt’s article. Let’s take a look at the Gamasutra article he references, written by “Jon W”.

To start with, he points out what everyone has been pointing out since the first images arose – Cortana’s “makeover”. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a fan either. It wasn’t really necessary, although thankfully when playing through the game I didn’t really notice it much. Some odd shots here and there where her new cleavage is a bit ‘in your face’, but mostly the game concentrates on her face and emotions anyway, which helps support something Matt mentions in his piece about Cortana. Anyway – I don’t really have any issues with Jon’s comments here, although if you look at the two images he uses, Cortana actually does have a respectable chest to her in Halo 3 as well, so one could argue Cortana’s bust isn’t a new thing, only that the change in art direction and better technology has made it more obvious.

To also be fair to Jon, Frank O’Conner’s quote doesn’t really help things either. It’s true; Smart AI’s in the Halo universe do get to choose their appearance. I don’t know if Cortana’s choice is stated in any of the EU works, like the Fall of Reach novel, and Frank’s explanation is to be honest a little hollow. I doubt Cortana chose to be more obviously ‘sexy’ so that she could disarm people in conversation, and again it’s only in this recent game that Cortana has become so obviously “a women”. It sounds like Frank just trying to downplay something that they knew they didn’t really need to do, so Jon has a point calling them out on that.

I take issues though with some of the other things Jon points out though. For example, he rags a little bit on the Master Chief being called “Master Chief”. Sure, it’s not a great name, but Master Chief Petty Officer is his rank, and given that he’s technically the result of illegal kidnapping and experimentation, throwing his name about probably wouldn’t be a good idea either, so what does that leave? That’s not even me delving into some of the psychology of Spartan’s you get to see in the novels – they’re a close-knit family, the kind of family who wouldn’t give their name to just anyone.

Anyway, Jon moves on to point out some other examples of Halo 4′s assumptions on women, moving next to Spartan Sarah Palmer: Commander of the Spartan IV forces aboard the UNSC Infinity and voiced by Jennifer Hale (femshep). Jon makes a quip (using a still taken from the post-credits cut scene) that Palmer’s only purpose is to “gawp openly at the hero”. This is again unfair – with the Covenant laying waste to humanity world by world, the Spartan-II’s were the only force that were making much of a difference. They were deliberately built up to be heroes, and the Chief (besides being a bit of a ledge for what he did in Halo‘s 1-3) is the only ‘officially’ (as in, in the games) recognised survivor of the Spartan-II program. He’s a freak of nature, a thing of legend, and he was supposed to have just died when the Didact’s ship exploded over Earth. If you then saw him just rock up without so much of a scratch, you’d stare too. If you play that mini-scene out fully you’ll notice Palmer’s companions – other Spartan IV’s – are also staring. Also, her mouth isn’t open. This speaks to me of Jon being deliberately obtuse, and to be honest ruins the whole article as I don’t want to take him seriously. He does have a point about the achievement titles though… I  think 343 have been watching too much How I Met Your Mother.

But this is why I don’t get involved too much in more subtle side of discussions like this – Matt and Jon look at these things and see a cynical, almost juvenile representation of the relationship between men and women. I look at these things and (mostly) see eventualities backed up by a thoroughly laid out backstory, plot, and universe. Of course, there are more obvious and vulgar examples of sexism in games, and I’d happily join Matt and Jon in calling those out, but as far as Halo 4 is concerned I can’t help but ponder how they got to where they did. I think way too much about Halo stuff.

Deconstructing Halo 4

So, as you might have gathered from previous posts I’m a bit of a lore buff. The Halo universe is one I’m particularly interested in due to my strong connection with the games, and so I read a lot of the novels and other media and am not against ideally looking through Halopedia to look things up (especially when I wrote that Halo/BSG crossover fan fiction that one time). Having recently played and completed Halo 4 for review purposes, I felt like writing about it and the lore surrounding it because, sadly, it’s not really explained that well during the game itself. So, here I am. Feel free to tune out now if you’re not really into this kind of stuff as it is kind of geeky, even for a gamer.

*** MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT ***

Do not read if you haven’t completed Halo 4′s campaign yet

NOTE: This article doesn’t take into account anything that occurs within the Forerunner trilogy of novels written by Greg Bear (Cryptum, Primordium, Silentium). In all truth, I haven’t actually read them yet but I plan too as it’ll be interesting to see how the ‘official’ version of events is expanded on. Regardless, anyone who knows anything about IP canon knows that the primary source always takes precedence. In this case it’s the Halo games and any material directly linked to that (for example, the Terminals). Anything that happens in the EU books is basically second-class material.

Everything has happened before…

Okay, so the first and most important thing you have to understand is that the Human Race has actually been around a long, long time, technically speaking. Hundreds of thousands of years ago back when the Forerunners were actually around and masters of the Galaxy, Humanity also existed on a technological level that rivalled that of the Forerunners. This is something that’s kind of glossed over in the important Halo 4 plot sequence, and for those who weren’t expecting it it can be kind of a ‘wait, what?’ moment. Hell, even I was like “hang about?” and I kind of knew it was coming, since I’d read up some stuff on Halopedia regarding all this. (The Forerunner trilogy is set during this time period, so there’s a lot of background material already online).

Anyway – The short version, just so you know, is that Humanity was around, we were pretty awesome, but then we had a war with the Forerunners and lost. After we lost, we were kicked back to the stone-age, and after the Halo rings fired and wiped out all life we were one of the races re-seeded, which is where the actual timeline of humanity starts as far as ‘real-life’ goes and then things plod along until we get to the ‘current’ Halo timeline.

The Didact: Motivation

Ok, so even if you haven’t played the game by now you should have some inkling as to who the antagonist of Halo 4 is – The Didact. In short, he is (was) the commander-and-chief of the Forerunner military and the highest member of the Warrior-Servant ‘caste’ within Forerunner society. He also has personal command over the ‘Prometheans’, a special sect within the Warrior-Servant Class (Special Forces maybe?). In order to understand why he hates humanity and why he wants to destroy them in Halo 4, you have to understand three key things: the afore-mentioned war between ‘ancient’ humans and the Forerunners, the fact that that war caused the Forerunners to be unprepared for the coming of The Flood, and that he saw Humanity as a threat to Forerunner superiority and holders of ‘The Mantle’. I’ll deal with each point in turn:

Human-Forerunner War – As mentioned above, Humanity was around long before and in a higher technological state then they are in 2557. What’s also kind of glossed over/hidden in the EU works is that Humanity was also the first to encounter The Flood, and fought a gruelling war against the parasite which they were basically losing. In a desperate attempt to both flee from the infestation and stop it from spreading, they went from world to world and ‘cleansed’ any that were already touched by The Flood (the rest of Galaxy, inc. Forerunners were unaware of The Flood at the time, and Humanity couldn’t be bothered to tell them it seems), including Forerunner planets. As the Librarian-shard states during the game, “Humanity wasn’t expanding, you were running.”

The Forerunners were already aware of Humanity and thought of them as a bit aggressive, but even they weren’t going to sit back and let them kill their own people, and so the Human-Forerunner War raged. The Didact was the commander who led the Forerunner forces, so you can imagine how over time he came to see Humans as nothing but ‘the enemy’. After the war was won, Humanity was ‘devolved’ and reduced to a primitive species, although the Forerunners still left them with potential within their genetics to reclaim what was once theirs, and even take up ‘The Mantle’.

The Flood – As far as the game is concerned++, it’s stated that almost as soon as the Forerunners defeated humanity and kicked them back to the stone-age, they discovered what was really going on. Humanity was running from The Flood and were trying to save the rest of the Galaxy through some extremely tough-loving. Personally, I feel that not telling anyone what you’re doing because it ‘wastes time’ is a bit of a flimsy excuse, but what can you do. The Forerunners – especially the Didact and his troops – had already paid a terrible cost in stopping Human aggression, and so they weren’t really prepared for The Flood when it attacked the Forerunners in turn.

The Forerunner-Flood war waged for a long time, again with the Didact leading a lot of the Forerunner forces, and it was a long, slow grind, one that the Forerunners were losing inch by inch. When it became clear that The Flood couldn’t be defeated through sheer might, other options were considered.

The Mantle – The ‘Mantle’, in short, was a belief system and a way of living one’s life (comparable to Buddhism, perhaps) that the Forerunners subscribed to. In a wider context, the Forerunners believed they held the ‘Mantle of Responsibility’ for looking after the ‘lesser’ races in the Galaxy, helping them grow and protecting them from threats beyond their control. The Forerunners had been around for a long, long time, even when Humanity showed up with all the enthusiasm of a young race with cool toys, and whilst many believed they could inherit ‘The Mantle’ as the Forerunner race declined, The Didact specifically believed that the Mantle of Responsibility was for Forerunners alone and forever, and resented the Humans for trying to assume the Mantle as their own (and for how willing some of his own people were for wanting to give it to them).

The Didact: Plan

So, in short, The Didact was pissed off at Humanity for A/ waging a great war against his species killing billions (inc. his own children) B/ leaving the Forerunners unprepared for the arrival of The Flood and C/ that Humanity dared challenge Forerunner supremacy and attempt to take Mantle upon themselves (through cleansing infested planets and not telling anyone about it). However, at the time, all that was kind of moot as he still had an infestation to deal with. An infestation that was winning.

This is where the Composer comes in: again, the Librarian-shard tried to explain what it did during the game, but basically it was a device that was created during the Forerunner-Flood war as one of the potential solutions, along with the Halo Array, in dealing with The Flood. What it essentially does is ‘digitise’ life and create some kind of digital/organic hybrid, but the project was abandoned because the newly created life form lacked a moral compass, and any attempts to reverse the process resulted in ‘abominations’. Originally the Forerunners were going to use it on themselves to become immortal, but once the idea was abandoned in favour of the Halo Array, the Didact used the composer on his own Promethean Warriors to make them 100% loyal to him, but also make them immune to flood infestation so they could better combat the enemy. The form they took after this transformation is the form you see in Halo 4.

Unfortunately the Didact only had so many warriors at his personal command, and it was rather late in the war to be trying such an ethically questionable stunt, so it didn’t have much effect. In search of new ‘raw material’ to create new soldiers, had a great idea. He would use The Composer on the remnants of humanity – this ensuring new warriors for his army and also getting his final revenge on an enemy the upstarts that had caused him and his a lot of anguish and trouble. It would also prevent them from re-evolving further down the line and trying to assume ‘The Mantle’ once more.

He managed to use the composer on some humans and continue his war, but eventually the rest of his race stepped in – his wife The Librarian was especially annoyed as she had worked hard to create a future for mankind. Whether alone or with help, she captured the Didact and imprisoned him within a ‘Cryptum’ at the centre of his own personal artificial planet (A Micro Dyson Sphere, if anyone cares) ‘Requiem’. The Composer was then taken and stored in one of the other Halo Installations.

The Didact: Halo 4

So now we come to the events of the actual game. For reasons that have not fully been explained yet, the Didact seems to be the only member of his race in existence^, having been sealed in a ‘Cryptum’ by The Librarian so that he could both stop causing mischief, but so that he could also survive the effects of the Halo Array. What Promethean Knights he had left were turned into guards/jailors. However, as you’ll know if you played the game, the Didact managed to trick the Master Chief into releasing him (it seems you can be aware and have limited control over things from within a Cryptum).

Despite his wife urging him to meditate and to come to terms with everything, it seems The Didact is still pretty pissed. Realising though that Humanity had not yet assumed ‘The Mantle’ yet, he still sees a chance to at least have his revenge for all the shit they caused him back in the day. Therefore he seeks to find the Composer again and use it against humanity so he can finally have his revenge and prevent them inheriting the Forerunner’s empire, which is basically the plot of Halo 4 and source of the “An Ancient Evil Awakens” moniker.

I like to sum it up by saying the Didact wants to upload Humanity onto a USB stick and lock that stick in a box somewhere for all time.

Trivia & Notes

* Whilst this is currently under contention, it is my personal belief that the speech the Didact gives after the credits have finished rolling during the ‘secret’ ending is actually from his original trial following his victory over ancient humans, and not some proof that he survived the events of Halo 4. Even though it’s highly likely that he did survive and will return, many people online seem to think that particular speech is from the present, when I think it’s actually from the past.

* ^ It’s not been fully explained what happened to the Forerunners. Some of the EU stuff mentions that many just up and left the local part of the Galaxy for destinations unknown, and the games don’t really shed any further light on the subject, not even through terminals. I always assumed that the Forerunners were unable or unwilling to save any of their species before the Halo rings had to be fired (to prevent the Flood interfering and ensuring they couldn’t be fired at all). I imagine we’ll find out at what actually happened some point down the line.

* ++ There’s some discrepancy between various media regarding the events following the Human-Forerunner war and the start of the Forerunner Flood war… Halo: Legends stipulates that The Flood randomly arrived from ‘outside’ the Galaxy (possibly indicating that the Halo 4 material is essentially changing the original idea), but what ‘officially’ happened is that Humanity drove off the Flood for a time, although not in time to stop them being annihilated by the Forerunners who by that point just saw Humanity as too much trouble to be left standing. The Flood supposedly remained hidden for a while before pouncing upon the Forerunners in turn by arriving from outside the Galaxy, where they hid, although it’s possible Forerunners still knew of them through documentation left over by The Humans. They knew enough to know what the Humans were running from, at any rate.

* The Flood was actually created by the ‘Precursors’, an ancient and powerful civilization who held the ‘Mantle’ prior to the Forerunners. In their tending of the Galaxy, they deemed that the Forerunner race should be made extinct and tried to kill them all off. However the Forerunners rebelled and defeated the Precursors and assumed the Mantle for themselves. The Flood were created as both revenge against the Forerunners, and as a ‘test’ to Ancient Humanity, who the Precursors saw as their rightful successors.

* The Humans were aligned with an ancient version of the Prophet race, who were also kicked back to the stone-age when they lost.

* The Covenant obviously return in Halo 4 as well, and just for clarity so that their deal is this – The Covenant forces you encounter in the game are a ‘sect’ that are highly religious and still believe that the Forerunners are Gods. Via events that you can actually read about in the Kilo-Five trilogy of Novels by Karen Traviss (Glasslands, The Thursday War and an untitled final novel), they learn of the Didact’s existence and his location and seek to free him. Conveniently they seem to arrive at the same time as the Chief’s segment of Forward Unto Dawn.