{"id":1448,"date":"2009-05-12T09:20:16","date_gmt":"2009-05-12T14:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/?p=1448"},"modified":"2009-05-12T09:20:16","modified_gmt":"2009-05-12T14:20:16","slug":"putting-my-degree-to-work-on-a-stupid-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/2009\/05\/12\/putting-my-degree-to-work-on-a-stupid-list\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting My Degree To Work on a Stupid List"},"content":{"rendered":"

My recent feature at Crispy Gamer<\/a> is mostly tongue in cheek, but I hope it provokes some discussion. (I sent a draft to my podcast panel before Sunday’s recording, so we talk a little bit about the idea. You’ll be able to hear it soon.)<\/p>\n

Regular readers probably know that I think lists like this are fundamentally silly. In spite of Jim Sterling’s elegant defense<\/a> of a well-made list (which boils down to “they sometimes take work and people like them”), I think a good list means one where the reader can figure out the author’s position and priorities. I doubt you could read either my games and foreign policy list (or any of the three movie lists I link in the introduction for that matter) and come to any conclusion about how I think games should present diplomatic options and communication or even about how I think international relations are best understood.<\/p>\n

Though not as empty of calories as a hot dudes of gaming list, it’s a fair cop to say that this is a fairly light article. As I think on it, a “worst” list might have been both more interesting and more illuminating. And lists are also super easy pitches. Most of my feature pitches are two or three paragraphs. This one was a sentence and a link. Maybe they just trust me to do a passable job.<\/p>\n

I will say that I enjoyed writing it, though, especially since I made the initial decision not to include a lot of games that self-consciously addressed foreign policy. Of the ten, only two have true diplomatic systems (Imperialism<\/em> and Alpha Centauri<\/em>) and only one specifically addresses a contemporary debate (Peacemaker<\/em>). I could have easily tossed in Medieval 2: Total War<\/em> (the relations with the Pope and demands of domestic nobles nicely reflect constraints on foreign policy) or any of the EU games (balance of power wars, I suppose).<\/p>\n

Anyway, fill the comment section (here or there).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My recent feature at Crispy Gamer is mostly tongue in cheek, but I hope it provokes some discussion. (I sent a draft to my podcast panel before Sunday’s recording, so we talk a little bit about the idea. You’ll be able to hear it soon.) Regular readers probably know that I think lists like this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5GFeQ-nm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1449,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1448\/revisions\/1449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}