r/todayilearned • u/DueNeedleworker5036 • 4h ago

TIL that the Civilizations games (and others) include creator Sid Meier's name in the title because Robin Williams joked that it would help sell more copies of 1987's Sid Meier's Pirates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier#MicroProse
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u/nowitscometothis 4h ago

and you have an irrational hatred of Spain

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u/Nazamroth 4h ago

No, it is perfectly rational. Im pretty sure that Spain was the first to ever declare war on me in a civ game.

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u/JohnnyLeven 3h ago

Mine was the Romans in civ 1. I remember because I asked my dad about them when I encountered them, and he said I should try to make peace with them since they were powerful at the time (in the real world). I did, but they ended up declaring war on me and destroying me any way.

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u/aesemon 2h ago

You were playing civ during the Roman empire?

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u/TitanicJedi 2h ago

He did say Civ 1 that is about the same age.

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u/aesemon 2h ago

My god, I was born in the prehistoric times then😅

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u/JonatasA 1h ago

Don't worry, there were no record before writing. Hope you were never the great library though. Stay away from me and the pyramids.

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u/aesemon 1h ago

Stories passed down from parent to child of the old one that groans when sitting or standing.

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u/gregorydgraham 26m ago

You played Civ against the Harappans?

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u/superbekz 1h ago

Civ1 is such an RNG demon

i raged how i somehow lost my musketeers against a fortified phalanx in a mountain....like how??????????

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u/brainacpl 57m ago

That's nothing. Losing Bombers to Phalanx was enraging.

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u/Hegario 52m ago

Back in Civilization 1, I lost a battleship to a settler.

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u/Nazamroth 1h ago

Clearly, you foolishly ordered a bayonet charge up the mountain.

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u/frymaster 12m ago

If you squint, you can juuuust about see how a military unit with no guns but time to prepare in a mountainous area might defeat musketeers. Not if the phalanx used a phalanx formation, mind you - if they made good use of terrain, ambush tactics etc. I guess it's possible, maybe, sorta?

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u/JonatasA 1h ago

Gandhi betraying me when I was boxed in Civ V.

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u/Which-Towel5826 4h ago

Mine was Gandhi and he started as a pal, but it quickly became extortion lol

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u/JonatasA 1h ago

And they never yield! Ruined my super Africa project.

 

I also once kept Polynesia out of compassion and that micronation made my life a nightmare the rest of the game.

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u/WhereIsTheInternet 1h ago

Weird. Your comment just floated the first game of civ v I had and it was Rome who declared war on me first. That was a long time ago, with thousands of hours of civ since then but I still remember somehow.

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u/T-T-N 3h ago

Would you like a trade agreement with England?

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u/Zeromius 2h ago

Every time I hear her say that I just hear "Hoi oim bri'ish"

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u/AshleyTyrian 1h ago

It's very much one of those 'what yanks think English people sound like' vocal performances.

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u/JonatasA 1h ago

I beg you pardon?

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u/Stun_the_Pink 2m ago

Would you be interested in a trade agreement with England?

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u/DownstairsB 4h ago

And a deep fear of pissing off Ghandi

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u/hulksmash1234 4h ago

You’re about to learn of his peaceful ways, by threat of nuclear war

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u/JonatasA 1h ago

The Mahatma Project are backed by nuclear weapons.

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u/CzarDale04 3h ago

You realize that is the computer character that is most likely to use nuclear weapons..

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u/DownstairsB 3h ago

Yes if I recall there was some kind of integer overflow bug in his attitude, that ended up making him very aggressive instead of kind

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u/manicMechanic1 2h ago

I assumed it was a joke by the developers

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u/Illustrious-Line-660 2h ago

It became a joke in later games. They wanted him to be the least likely to use nukes, and they accidentally made him the most likely.

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u/Initiatedspoon 2h ago

This isn't true. .

Its a fairly well known myth now.

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u/sillysausage619 1h ago

I hate how everybody has agreed to this being fact, making up stories of their game making it happen regularly, when it was barely ever possible.

I don't really understand why people do it haha

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u/Initiatedspoon 1h ago

It's been programmed in since Civ 5 so for some players it has basically always been true.

For the older games especially the very earliest ones Gandhi's preset civilisation was a decent mix of traits that ment they prioritise certain techs faster than others so they often got nukes before other civilisations might have and once you have nukes well you want to use them and the juxtaposition is strong.

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u/Everestkid 12m ago

Even in Civ 5 Gandhi is only nuke-happy when you're actually at war with him, and being Gandhi he rarely ever declares war.

So the Nuclear Gandhi meme is really basically the same as the "guy putting a stick between the spokes of his own bicycle" meme, since the scenario of them declaring war on Gandhi and him responding by nuking the shit out of them is much more likely than Gandhi himself declaring war.

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u/Brambarian 2h ago

As a Dutch person, any level of hatred of Spain is rational in my opinion.

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u/JonatasA 1h ago

Polders for days. All marshes belong to us.

 

Edit: Chocolate got over my mind I suppose. Polder, not powder.