Encrypt-Keeper

Yes for sure. D1 is older but it plays the exact same as D2. The story is a good one and you’ll really enjoy the context you get from the first game when you reach the second. They aren’t incredibly long games so you can finish it in a few evenings if you don’t take your time exploring and doing little side missions.

Two things to keep in mind, since you’ll be playing through D1 for the story, make sure you play through it non-lethally. The low chaos ending is canon so you’ll want to get it so that the plot in D2 makes sense. The other thing is to make sure you play the Knife of Dunwall and Witches of Brigmore Manor DLC (in that order) as they are functionally a prequel to the plot of the second game.

I just played through both and it’s definitely 2. The graphical difference between the two is actually absurd, and the QOL changes, level design, and two main characters pushes it into a separate leagues from the first.

I would be receptive of this if it was limited along geographical or cultural lines, but given that in Civ you don’t really play as nations from different time periods but rather their most modern equivalent (Like Germany instead of any of the previous countries that became Germany over time) I have the feeling you’ll be able to go from Japan in one age, right to American in the next age, my interest level in this game has dropped exponentially. Like, the driving mechanic behind the entire series is guide “A civilization” through time, not a series of entirely different, unrelated civilizations. That’s why the game is called Civilization and not CivilizationS

CIV does loosely fit into the grand strategy genre by way of scale and mechanics, but you’re right that it’s usually not included, mostly because of the nature of how symmetrical and “video gamey” each game start is.

The appeal is that Humankind did it and they’re trying to ape the mechanic from that game, even though nobody liked it in that one either.

They have rewards tied to… playing the game. Just like every other video game ever made. That’s how video games work. The only way for there to be “an incentive to keep playing beyond when you want to” is by making the additional content limited in time to generate FOMO or worry that you’ll have wasted your money… which in this case is not happening at all. There is no FOMO because you can buy any of the war bonds whenever you want, and complete them whenever you want. You paid money for something you will keep forever. That’s how it’s supposed to be. That is literally the best possible approach to new content. By your reasoning, every video game ever made is manipulative because they made the game and put… content in it to get you to play the game more than before you bought the game.

“Buying the rewards directly to play in the game” on the other hand is the wrong approach. Why would you prefer to play the game less? If you don’t want to be playing the game why are you spending more money on it?

Only timed battle passes manipulate you into playing it more than you enjoy it for. The ones in Helldivers 2 never expire so if you were to get bored of the game you can just stop playing. Then come back to the game a year later and continue on where you left off.