Work's hard. I got no motivation to work on my big projects, or to start new ones.
Games are hard too. UFO 50 is what it is, and in Metaphor a wolf bit me and I died, which dampened my enthusiasm.
Lately, the most reliable option I've had is a nice, straightforward simulation of the entire history of the world: Sid Meyer's Civilization. It's very relaxing, since it's turn-based and playable with mouse only.
I hate the Māori empire and here's why.
There are 78 different leaders in Civ 6 and the game spawns Kupe of the Māori right next to me every single time.
Here he is. Right now he hates me because I threw car batteries into the ocean.
Now the Māori are usually no threat at all. They have a special gameplay style, which lets them settle cities across the ocean from turn one. It's a cool concept, but CIv 6 includes a revolutionary Loyalty system, in which your citizens can decide they don't like you any more and simply join another player.
This means Kupe settles on distant shores far from his capital, and his new cities swiftly join the empires they're built near, leaving him with nothing.
Here in 1500 AD, his capital city is this crappy shack on the bottom edge of the map.
By comparison, here is the beautiful pinnacle of humanity, Stirling, capital of Scotland.
We have towering monuments
and we can see the flow of magic through the ground in the form of ley lines. The shadow man told me if I do the correct hand gestures I can channel this force for myself, and it's working out great. I built a golf course next to it.
In short, the Māori are inconsequential here. So what's the problem?
The problem is that their national anthem is "yelling at you"
The game alternates the theme song of every country you've discovered. That means once the Māori are here - in basically every game - I'm going to get yelled at for the next three thousand years.
This is true even if they occupy one tiny city on the map and are basically not even playing the game.
The real issue is their theme is actually pretty good.
Beautiful.
But this lulls me into a false sense of security before I get yelled at again at 2:05.
This might be the only vocal national anthem in the game. That's the real issue. I'm just a cave creature, and if I hear a human voice I curl up like a dead spider.
Really though, this theme song would be improved with the introduction of some gentler instruments, such as our own: the noble bagpipes.
