Let's face the facts; civilization building games are hard to create successfully. You need to take so many factors into account when creating a game about creating a fictional world. You need to make sure units and structures are not too weak or overpowered and everything needs to have some sort of balance. So imagine trying to create a MMO browser civilization building game, and you might think humbug, but I say Cyber Nations
Cyber Nations has you creating a small burgeoning country on Planet Bob (which look suspiciously a lot like Earth, but weirder things have happened) and trying to survive in the big bad world of more than 40,000 other nations.
You start with a small plot of land in any location of your choosing (you can place your countries starting location anywhere on the map, even in the middle of the ocean). You get to name your country, pick your rulers name, and create your own little information tidbit about your country. You then pick what kind of government you are and what your state religion is. You are also assigned two random natural resources (there are around 15 or so natural resources), this will give you a small boost to some part of your country as well as giving you something to trade with other players. You also fill in a little questionnaire asking what your countries stance is on several controversial issues (such as nukes and immigration). This will affect several aspects of game play in your country (if you say your country is opposed to nukes than you cannot build nuclear weapons). You also need to pick what team color you are on (you can change your color anytime in the game), this determines which color sphere you belong to, which can effect several aspects in the game (for example if you trade with someone in your color sphere, then you get a trade bonus, like more population happiness). You also pick weather it is O.K for your country to go to war, if you don't like the appeal of that then you can select the No-war option, which means that other countries cannot attack you, but you also cannot attack other countries.
Once your country is created it created it is up to you to decide how you want to play the game, you can steadily grow your country by buying infrastructure, land and technology. OR you can buy a crap load of military units and go rampage into other less protected countries and steal their land and technology. Be carful though if you choose the path of war lease you gain the wrath of an ALLIENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Player created alliances play a huge role in this game. They usually form in color spheres and are groups of countries that have banded together to pool resources to defend their own little bloc and help fund other countries. These are actually very serious groups (not super die-hard serious, but they are no jokes either) they each wield there own type of power and are very influential. They all usually have their own elected officials in different parts of the alliance that manage different parts of the alliance. Along with mutual defense, most alliances also give out aid packages in the form of money and soldiers to help younger nations grow more rapidly, in exchange for them joining their alliance. Woe to anyone, any country or any alliance to earn the scorn of another alliance (I'm not kidding, massive wars have been fought due to various alliance defense obligations and treaties). However alliances can also be social circles, as many of them maintain their own official alliance web site, where you can go and discuss various things with your alliance, such as tactics and invasion plans, or just goof off and talk about other things, (not pretaining to stratagy specifically)
Alliances are good in that they can give you a sense of comradely in the vast world of BOB. I remember starting out as a fresh faced newbie and was being attacked by another country that would just not let up. My alliance stepped in and made sure that guy stopped attacking me. .When you start your game, you will most likely receive various invitations to join various alliances, I urge you DO NOT DISMISS THEM FLAT OUT (like I did), look into some of the alliances that are asking you to join, who knows you might find one you like (I sure did).
What I like most is how the game balances out. To make sure that nukes are not proliferated to a disturbing degree, your country must: have access to uranium (either have it when the game starts out or trade for it), be in the top 5% nations, have a massive cash surplus, and a large amount of technology and improvements. Also to attack a country you and that other country must be reasonable close in strength (which his determined by several factors about your country). If too are to far ahead or too far behind then you cannot attack that country and that country cannot attack you. This stops large, powerful countries from suppressing the little ones.
Overall Cybernations is a fun social experience that anyone can get into, and I encourage all of you to go out and at least try it, It's a free browser game so you don't have to worry about fees, so you have nothing to lose.
Here is the link if you are interested in joining this unique community
http://www.cybernations.net/
Also this is only my secound review so some helpful comments would be appriciated.
Cyber Nations has you creating a small burgeoning country on Planet Bob (which look suspiciously a lot like Earth, but weirder things have happened) and trying to survive in the big bad world of more than 40,000 other nations.
You start with a small plot of land in any location of your choosing (you can place your countries starting location anywhere on the map, even in the middle of the ocean). You get to name your country, pick your rulers name, and create your own little information tidbit about your country. You then pick what kind of government you are and what your state religion is. You are also assigned two random natural resources (there are around 15 or so natural resources), this will give you a small boost to some part of your country as well as giving you something to trade with other players. You also fill in a little questionnaire asking what your countries stance is on several controversial issues (such as nukes and immigration). This will affect several aspects of game play in your country (if you say your country is opposed to nukes than you cannot build nuclear weapons). You also need to pick what team color you are on (you can change your color anytime in the game), this determines which color sphere you belong to, which can effect several aspects in the game (for example if you trade with someone in your color sphere, then you get a trade bonus, like more population happiness). You also pick weather it is O.K for your country to go to war, if you don't like the appeal of that then you can select the No-war option, which means that other countries cannot attack you, but you also cannot attack other countries.
Once your country is created it created it is up to you to decide how you want to play the game, you can steadily grow your country by buying infrastructure, land and technology. OR you can buy a crap load of military units and go rampage into other less protected countries and steal their land and technology. Be carful though if you choose the path of war lease you gain the wrath of an ALLIENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Player created alliances play a huge role in this game. They usually form in color spheres and are groups of countries that have banded together to pool resources to defend their own little bloc and help fund other countries. These are actually very serious groups (not super die-hard serious, but they are no jokes either) they each wield there own type of power and are very influential. They all usually have their own elected officials in different parts of the alliance that manage different parts of the alliance. Along with mutual defense, most alliances also give out aid packages in the form of money and soldiers to help younger nations grow more rapidly, in exchange for them joining their alliance. Woe to anyone, any country or any alliance to earn the scorn of another alliance (I'm not kidding, massive wars have been fought due to various alliance defense obligations and treaties). However alliances can also be social circles, as many of them maintain their own official alliance web site, where you can go and discuss various things with your alliance, such as tactics and invasion plans, or just goof off and talk about other things, (not pretaining to stratagy specifically)
Alliances are good in that they can give you a sense of comradely in the vast world of BOB. I remember starting out as a fresh faced newbie and was being attacked by another country that would just not let up. My alliance stepped in and made sure that guy stopped attacking me. .When you start your game, you will most likely receive various invitations to join various alliances, I urge you DO NOT DISMISS THEM FLAT OUT (like I did), look into some of the alliances that are asking you to join, who knows you might find one you like (I sure did).
What I like most is how the game balances out. To make sure that nukes are not proliferated to a disturbing degree, your country must: have access to uranium (either have it when the game starts out or trade for it), be in the top 5% nations, have a massive cash surplus, and a large amount of technology and improvements. Also to attack a country you and that other country must be reasonable close in strength (which his determined by several factors about your country). If too are to far ahead or too far behind then you cannot attack that country and that country cannot attack you. This stops large, powerful countries from suppressing the little ones.
Overall Cybernations is a fun social experience that anyone can get into, and I encourage all of you to go out and at least try it, It's a free browser game so you don't have to worry about fees, so you have nothing to lose.
Here is the link if you are interested in joining this unique community
http://www.cybernations.net/
Also this is only my secound review so some helpful comments would be appriciated.
