You can read about what Syphilisation is here and the manifesto for the game here.

Work Done

This week had a major feature that I’m really looking forward to trying out. I built a system where lots of techs are hidden behind flags and those flags can be unlocked through sending great scientists on pilgrimages. Through this, the tech tree simplifies drastically when presented to the player and different games should now feel vastly different. It also let me put in my great people system which I expect that I’ll be able to hook things into in the future. Now, when a city grows, it has a chance of producing a great person, which right now is only a great scientist, who can currently only unlock new techs.

This feature does a couple of things to counter the determinist narrative of the Civ tech tree as well. It also decenters the player a little and makes it so that the tech progression is varied and not so completely under the player’s control. I need to see if it actually goes far enough in practice though.

Additionally, I made a ton of small fixes to make the game play better. I played through a few times as well, but this still remains the top priority for me right now. I need to get my reps in with this game so that I can smoothen out the roughness that doesn’t service the game and make sure that it says the things that I want to say and does so coherently.

Interesting Fact

I’m currently reading Churchill’s Secret War and I haven’t really gotten deep enough into it to see how it addresses The Bengal Famine, but there’s plenty in there already worth noting. I liked this quote about Churchill by Amery in 1929 “I have always said that the key to Winston is to realise that he is Mid Victorian, steeped in the politics of his father’s period, and unable ever to get the modern point of view. It is only his verbal exuberance and abounding vitality that conceal that elementary fact about him.” and “He does not want to hear your views. He does not want to disturb the beautiful clarity of his thought by the tiresome reminders of the other side” by an acquaintance of Churchill in 1921, but the one I really want to highlight this week is an anecdote from District Manager James Peddie. A boy on a train platform say Peddie, caught sight of him and called out a freedom slogan. Peddie rushed up and punched him in the face and shouted “Will you stop now.” “Wait, let me catch my breath. Then I’ll do it again.” replied the boy. “I never felt so small in my life as I did then.” Peddie later said to a friend. Non-violence was a difficult thing for the colonials to deal with.