Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: NGTM-1R on September 21, 2010, 05:25:09 am
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It's out in a few hours.
Raise your hand if you're getting it.
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:nervous:
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I never really got into civilisations. I think a mate of mine may have played it on and off. Is Civ the game where there's borders and you could mine oil and associated shizz?
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yer, its an empire sim though I don't think borders were introduced until Civ III or call to power, they are good games but definatly of a limited taste
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Is Civ the game where there's borders and you could mine oil and associated shizz?
Civ put 4X on the map, and you're expelled for gamer heresy. :P
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All over it :D Course, I still have 3 more days to wait. :(
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Civ put 4X on the map, and you're expelled for gamer heresy. :P
That. Civ isn't just another game. It's the 4x game and the only one I can think of that has been around since the early DOS days. Saying "oh is that the game with borders and mining and ****" is a bit like saying "Pink Floyd.. sounds familiar.. it's a band, right?"
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Right, I'll admit to a gaming fail.
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Im getting it, but i have to finish dragon age awakenings and all the dlc before i play it
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I'm sure that I'll be getting it eventually, but not soon most likely.
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I wish I was a fan of turn-based strategy games like this so I could nom it up. :(
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now that is something i miss, a well balanced varied turn based strategy but with a good plot and modern graphics
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now that is something i miss, a well balanced varied turn based strategy but with a good plot and modern graphics
Civ V? Meets all those criteria, if you make your own good plot!
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Civ's one of the few 4X games i can tolerate, since at least by four, a lot of the options can be automated. Yes, I obsessively micromanage things when i only have like three towns, but once I have 40... I want to stick to mainly macro-concerns. This is a model I can't find many 4X games that follow :(
Essentially I like games that let you first start out by obsessively tweaking your homeworld/city, but let you delegate more and more as things go on so you can take play in the bigger game. It seems like a lot of games either have the OMG depth but no way to manage it, or avoid the problem by having very simple management controls.
But yes. I will be watching this thread to see how you guys like Civ V. I am interested. I am also poor :P
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now that is something i miss, a well balanced varied turn based strategy but with a good plot and modern graphics
Civ V? Meets all those criteria, if you make your own good plot!
sorry i meant without the civilization management. A bit of base building and reinforcements would be ok
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I am interested. I am also poor :P
Same for me :yes:
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now that is something i miss, a well balanced varied turn based strategy but with a good plot and modern graphics
Civ V? Meets all those criteria, if you make your own good plot!
sorry i meant without the civilization management. A bit of base building and reinforcements would be ok
Ever try Sword of the Stars + expansions?
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now that is something i miss, a well balanced varied turn based strategy but with a good plot and modern graphics
Civ V? Meets all those criteria, if you make your own good plot!
sorry i meant without the civilization management. A bit of base building and reinforcements would be ok
Ever try Sword of the Stars + expansions?
got SotS not got the expansion but that's a watered down 4x and the actual combat strategy is real time
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If you can live without the modern graphics, try M.A.X. - That's pretty much the best combat-oriented TBS I can think of without civilization management. Just don't touch the sequel, which was a bug-ridden piece of crap.
Also, yes, getting Civ V :)
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Started playing it when I woke up today and I'm definitely liking the game so far.
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now that is something i miss, a well balanced varied turn based strategy but with a good plot and modern graphics
Civ V? Meets all those criteria, if you make your own good plot!
sorry i meant without the civilization management. A bit of base building and reinforcements would be ok
Ever try Sword of the Stars + expansions?
got SotS not got the expansion but that's a watered down 4x and the actual combat strategy is real time
Watered down? I prefer to think of it as distilled to perfection. The first two expansions add even more perfection, and the newest one adds more ship sections, including single-section designs like the Propaganda cruisers and the Zuul Devourer mobile factory.
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now that is something i miss, a well balanced varied turn based strategy but with a good plot and modern graphics
Civ V? Meets all those criteria, if you make your own good plot!
sorry i meant without the civilization management. A bit of base building and reinforcements would be ok
Ever try Sword of the Stars + expansions?
got SotS not got the expansion but that's a watered down 4x and the actual combat strategy is real time
Watered down? I prefer to think of it as distilled to perfection. The first two expansions add even more perfection, and the newest one adds more ship sections, including single-section designs like the Propaganda cruisers and the Zuul Devourer mobile factory.
dont get me wrong its a good game and I love the fact that it includes a unit builder, but I think in terms of 4x with unit designers I would place Alpha Centauri + Alien Crossfire and Master of Orion 2 above SotS both in terms of their civilisation management and how the unit builders operate though having said that i like the "realism" of fixed firing points in SotS which MOO2 forgets.
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The combat AI isn't as unspeakably awful as Creative Assembly's, but it's pretty poor.
Which isn't new, exactly, but what is new is this tactical wargame stuff, which makes poor AI a more serious problem.
A word of advice: do not annex new cities more than one or two at a time. The happiness hit will paralyze your empire for scores of turns. Instead, install puppets and then gradually absorb your new acquisitions.
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got SotS not got the expansion but that's a watered down 4x and the actual combat strategy is real time
There's a lot more depth to it then apparent at the first glance. Also, get the expansion. Thay add A LOT. ;)
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I have played the basic game for years now, the diplomacy is quite basic the usual NAP, Aliance swap money, swap research points , there is no colony management aside from balancing production/infrastructure/income sliders. the setup is geared towards a more fluid multiplay but it don't have the level of detail I like for single player which is what I do most of the time.
Good points for me of SotS
Ship designer
unique travel methods for each race
"realism" of fixed firing points as opposed to the omnipoint firing of the likes of MOO2
Semi-random tech tree for each player
Quick to setup a game
Fast flowing
Bad points for me of SotS
Basic Diplomacy, it lacks the ability to establish trade, swap research and you can only do one thing at a time
Basic Colony management, no building aside from ships
Only space combat is considered nothing about ground combat so the only way to conquer is to wipe out the population of the target planet
No species Customisation, MOO2 was awesome in this respect with a huge number of stats and abilities to fine tune.
I'm not saying SotS is a bad game, in fact is has many things in its favour, what I'm saying is that It lacs the depth on the civilisation management side for me to fully enjoy it for more than a few days at a time, as a multi play it is probably a blast and i imagine a lot faster pace than is the norm for 4x games. What extras does the expansion add?
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I grew up playing Need For Speed, Civilization, and Freespace. So I'm really frikking excited.
That said, I'm gonna ask for it for Christmas before I drop $50 bucks on it.
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I have played the basic game for years now, the diplomacy is quite basic the usual NAP, Aliance swap money, swap research points , there is no colony management aside from balancing production/infrastructure/income sliders. the setup is geared towards a more fluid multiplay but it don't have the level of detail I like for single player which is what I do most of the time.
Bad points for me of SotS
Basic Diplomacy, it lacks the ability to establish trade, swap research and you can only do one thing at a time
Basic Colony management, no building aside from ships
Only space combat is considered nothing about ground combat so the only way to conquer is to wipe out the population of the target planet
No species Customisation, MOO2 was awesome in this respect with a huge number of stats and abilities to fine tune.
I'm not saying SotS is a bad game, in fact is has many things in its favour, what I'm saying is that It lacs the depth on the civilisation management side for me to fully enjoy it for more than a few days at a time, as a multi play it is probably a blast and i imagine a lot faster pace than is the norm for 4x games. What extras does the expansion add?
There are two expansions, and one ship pack. The first one adds a new race, more diplomacy, interstellar trade, and slaving, but only for that new race,, mining ships, and of course new and cooler weapons. The second one adds diplomacy, complete with a xenotech research branch with a tree for each race, civilians, another new race, inter-empire trade, the ability to demand planetary and empire surrenders, space stations, and of course more and cooler weapons.
Chances are you wouldn't like Argos Naval Yards as that is only a ship and weapon pack that only adds new ways to send your foes to meet their maker.
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fair enough, looks like i will be keeping my eyes open for them then
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Mind if I ask how it's running? Civ IV had a pretty unassuming engine that didn't require too much computing power, but the trailers for V make me a little nervous. I know it's turn-based, so a consistent framerate isn't a deal-breaker. Still, has anyone here tried to play Civ V on 2007 hardware?
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Buy them off GamersGate, Steam, or Impulse. Grab the new Complete Collection as it has everything if you want everything, or just grab the Ultimate Edition if you only want SotS+BoB+AMoC.
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Mind if I ask how it's running?
There's a demo. Download it and find out.
No, really. Apparently it's inconsistent; I know a guy way below min spec who had no problems, but other people do.
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For anyone who has it, does the turn limit still exist, ie the game ends in year xxxx, or did they finally have the common sense to get rid of it?
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Nope, game still officially ends in 2050.
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A friend of mine bought it and...
Apparently it not only requires Steam, but that's all the disk has on it: Steam. You need to download the whole game, even if you bought a boxed version in the store.
There might be multiple versions of the boxed copy, but that's what he told me. So if you go out to get it, make sure to read the box closely.
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Mind if I ask how it's running? Civ IV had a pretty unassuming engine that didn't require too much computing power, but the trailers for V make me a little nervous. I know it's turn-based, so a consistent framerate isn't a deal-breaker. Still, has anyone here tried to play Civ V on 2007 hardware?
I'm playing it on low-quality hardware. It works fine, just don't alt-tab.
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I have played the basic game for years now,
Get the expansions. They expand on trade and diplomacy, improve pretty much EVERYTHING.
Seriously, the game is like SCP - it just keeps getting better with each new update (nobody uses the word patch) and expansion.
Oh, the reason there's no planetary invasion is because SOTS is set in an early era of space empires. Invasion is a massive investment of time, money and resources, and it quite frankly doesn't pay off. You got a whole PLANET full of guerilla fighters. I would make Iraq and Afghanistan look like an insignificant speck of dust.
And species customization? Nice, but I find the races in SOTS to be so utterly diverse, than a simplistic +1/-1 bonuses/penalties to trade/espionage or whatever just pale in front of it.
Playing with another race is like playing a new game.
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A friend of mine bought it and...
Apparently it not only requires Steam, but that's all the disk has on it: Steam. You need to download the whole game, even if you bought a boxed version in the store.
There might be multiple versions of the boxed copy, but that's what he told me. So if you go out to get it, make sure to read the box closely.
Huh. That kinda sucks for me, since I still haven't grown a pair and asked my parents about getting Steam on our computer.
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I have played the basic game for years now,
Get the expansions. They expand on trade and diplomacy, improve pretty much EVERYTHING.
Seriously, the game is like SCP - it just keeps getting better with each new update (nobody uses the word patch) and expansion.
Oh, the reason there's no planetary invasion is because SOTS is set in an early era of space empires. Invasion is a massive investment of time, money and resources, and it quite frankly doesn't pay off. You got a whole PLANET full of guerilla fighters. I would make Iraq and Afghanistan look like an insignificant speck of dust.
And species customization? Nice, but I find the races in SOTS to be so utterly diverse, than a simplistic +1/-1 bonuses/penalties to trade/espionage or whatever just pale in front of it.
Playing with another race is like playing a new game.
Exactly. You cannot play as the Humans even remotely close to the way you would play as the Liir, Tarkas, or Hivers. The differences get even more extreme when you think about the Morrigi or Zuul.
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So how is Civ V working out for people? I don't have a budget for it right now but all this talk about Civilization made me want to try and install Civ II. It doesn't work on 64bit OS'es without an extreme amount of trickery. I tried the demo of Civ IV whenever that came out and I didn't like that at all... it was too divergent from the more simple setup for Civ II. I hear Civ V might fit the bill as they simplified a lot of things in a smart way.
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Played Civ2 & 4 recently and I think that 4 is far more userfriendly. Really looked forward to the fifth part. But I'll wait until they release a Complete-Package with all Add-Ons for Civ5 until I buy it ;)
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Played Civ2 & 4 recently and I think that 4 is far more userfriendly. Really looked forward to the fifth part. But I'll wait until they release a Complete-Package with all Add-Ons for Civ5 until I buy it ;)
Ahh good idea :)
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Of course, the disadvantage is that you have to wait for all of those add-ons to be released. Unless you pirate them as you go along and then buy the final set, that is...
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It's a pick-up-and-play but in a lot of ways it's not as simple as 2 was, mainly because you're never going to build everything in V. That's a bit of a first for the series.
There are additions and changes but they're relatively simple from IV. I think I personally preferred IV for feel, but V's still fun and it's not as twitchy as IV was.
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It's a pick-up-and-play but in a lot of ways it's not as simple as 2 was, mainly because you're never going to build everything in V. That's a bit of a first for the series.
There are additions and changes but they're relatively simple from IV. I think I personally preferred IV for feel, but V's still fun and it's not as twitchy as IV was.
I imagine there will be mods available eventually to address any lack of depth
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I imagine there will be mods available eventually to address any lack of depth
Oh, it's not a lack. It's deeper than IV. I'm just not sure I want it deeper.
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The game also does a poor job of explaining its systems to the player. How does unit upkeep work? We don't know. The civilopedia is the worst in series, as it doesn't give you actual important information. I learned that railroads give a production bonus from the goddamn tooltips, as all the info in the pedia was a historical summary.
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I loved the civilopedia. I could've skipped grade and middle school history from what I learned from these games. :p
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I loved the civilopedia. I could've skipped grade and middle school history from what I learned from these games. :p
Agreed! I learned a lot about the world from Civ and Civ II back in the day.
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So how is Civ V working out for people? I don't have a budget for it right now but all this talk about Civilization made me want to try and install Civ II. It doesn't work on 64bit OS'es without an extreme amount of trickery. I tried the demo of Civ IV whenever that came out and I didn't like that at all... it was too divergent from the more simple setup for Civ II. I hear Civ V might fit the bill as they simplified a lot of things in a smart way.
The demo of Civ V is on Steam. The demo lets you run 100 turns of the game.
I have 64-bit 7 and the demo (at least) seems to work just fine (truthfully it seems to handle better than Civ IV did). I have to agree with the uselessness of the civilopedia, though, you learn about the actual number effects of buildings and improvements from hovering over the icon (which I have to say, isn't so bad as having to read the civilopedia just to know that, for example the Pyramids add +2 Food for all cities is annoying, rather than just hovering over the Pyramids icon in the build menu).
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Which is fine for the buildings, but again: how does upkeep work?
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Which is fine for the buildings, but again: how does upkeep work?
City number + population number = total upkeep available. It's in your military overview if you care to look.
Or you could RTFM. That's usually a good idea.
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Upkeep available? I'm talking about maintenance costs, not the unit cap.
So, do tell, which page in the manual am I supposed to be reading?
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Upkeep available? I'm talking about maintenance costs, not the unit cap.
So basically you think it's not 1 each.
...like it always has been.
And still is as far as I can tell. Unless they're garrisoned.
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So basically you think it's not 1 each.
Given weird behavior I've seen reported by various people on a couple boards, including civ fanatics, yes. I mean, it's possible it's just bugged, but when you have a worker, and you delete it and your gold goes from -3 to +5 and then you delete another worker and your income doesn't change, there's something at work that isn't immediately apparent.
For damned sure in my own experience it hasn't been 1 unit = 1 gold cost.
ETA: things that weren't in the manual, but that you should know
# To show the movement range of a selected unit and the path it would take when ordered to move, hold down the right mouse button while moving the mouse cursor over the map.
1 Marble speeds production of all wonders by 25% in the city that works the quarry.
2 Greece has the special ability that moving units through the territory of city states never degrades influence with them.
3 Railroads not only give the usual gold & movement bonuses for roads, but also +50% production for cities connected to the capital. Harbors act as railroad connections as soon as the technology is available. The exact movement bonuses for roads & railroads are unknown.
4 Units count towards a supply limit defined by your cities and population, shown on the military overview. The exact effect of reaching that limit is unknown.
5 Units have a maintenance cost (aka upkeep) in gold which depends on your total number of units, and is summarized in the economic overview. The actual formula for unit maintenance is as yet unknown, and may or may not be related to the unit supply limit.
6 If you have no gold left and are running a deficit in excess of 5 GP per turn, units will begin to be forcibly disbanded to save on maintenance costs.
7 Razing a city takes one turn per population point, and begins only after you end your turn. So if you choose to raze a conquered city, you can still enter the city screen and cancel the razing. The city will then be annexed -- you cannot turn it into a puppet state anymore.
8 Pacts of Cooperation make the AI friendlier and more receptive to other deals. Pacts of Secrecy against another player do the same but with the added condition that neither player must cooperate with the target player.
As well, it is believed--though I think not confirmed--that the AI, which in prior games always knew your exact strength, now only knows about the units it can see. There is, furthermore, no friendship boost from open borders. Which means that if you think the AI is stronger than you, you really don't want to give it access to your territory.
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Only 33 hours so far...
Loving it.
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Upkeep available? I'm talking about maintenance costs, not the unit cap.
So basically you think it's not 1 each.
...like it always has been.
And still is as far as I can tell. Unless they're garrisoned.
If it's anything like Civ4, then city upkeep includes a minute amount of building upkeep as well. It's basically number of cities and distance from a capital city. In IV, you were able to build your Palace, Versailles (a World Wonder), and a Secret Palace (a National Wonder). Optimally, you'd place Versailles in the middle of your civilization and your Palace and Secret Palace on opposite ends (since those can be rebuilt if the city is lost).
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There's no distance penalty AFAIK, which is why going to embarkation and then spreading settlers across the seas is a viable strategy.
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only played one run through so far (Greek, military victory on easy). There're good and bad points. I like the hex grids, and got used to the no stacking rules pretty quickly. Combat is... Ok. The new predictor could do with being a bit less accurate - takes a bit of the excitement out of fighting. I also love the fact that i can build a giant death robot.
Overall though, i think there're a few more negatives than positives. First off, performance is a dog once you get a big empire. Admittedly, i'm at least a generation behind current hardware, but for a turn based strategy hand it's painfully over graphical. I'm definitely going to have to tank the graphics for next time. Also, and i know it's terribly non specific of me, it's just ... Lost the vibe of number 4. 3 and 4 got of hooked straight away, but 5 feels a bit like a struggle, a chore. I think it's because the timing is off - it takes too long to do anything at the begining, then everything happens too quickly to take stock of new events. I'm going to fiddle the speed and difficulty settings and see how i go before i give up though.
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only played one run through so far (Greek, military victory on easy). There're good and bad points. I like the hex grids, and got used to the no stacking rules pretty quickly. Combat is... Ok. The new predictor could do with being a bit less accurate - takes a bit of the excitement out of fighting. I also love the fact that i can build a giant death robot.
Overall though, i think there're a few more negatives than positives. First off, performance is a dog once you get a big empire. Admittedly, i'm at least a generation behind current hardware, but for a turn based strategy hand it's painfully over graphical. I'm definitely going to have to tank the graphics for next time. Also, and i know it's terribly non specific of me, it's just ... Lost the vibe of number 4. 3 and 4 got of hooked straight away, but 5 feels a bit like a struggle, a chore. I think it's because the timing is off - it takes too long to do anything at the begining, then everything happens too quickly to take stock of new events. I'm going to fiddle the speed and difficulty settings and see how i go before i give up though.
Do you think I should buy Civ 4 now that it's cheap? I've played the Civ V demo and didn't get addicted until about Turn 70, which felt late.
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Overall though, i think there're a few more negatives than positives. First off, performance is a dog once you get a big empire. Admittedly, i'm at least a generation behind current hardware, but for a turn based strategy hand it's painfully over graphical. I'm definitely going to have to tank the graphics for next time. Also, and i know it's terribly non specific of me, it's just ... Lost the vibe of number 4. 3 and 4 got of hooked straight away, but 5 feels a bit like a struggle, a chore. I think it's because the timing is off - it takes too long to do anything at the begining, then everything happens too quickly to take stock of new events. I'm going to fiddle the speed and difficulty settings and see how i go before i give up though.
I have to agree with these points. Performance isn't as great as it should be on my i7 with 12 gigs of RAM. Granted the nivida 9800 gt inside it isn't exactly top of the line these days, but I play games that look a lot more impressive than Civ 5 and get great performance out of it. Thing is, the game feels terribly unoptimized. I like some new game concepts but the thing is lagging all the time and I get long loading times where I shouldn't. I also don't like the fact that you no longer need sea transport units to move your troops to different continents / islands. The unit turning into a "boat" automatically when it moves on the sea seems a bit too convenient to me. Overall, I liked the "vibe" you mentioned a lot better in civs 3 and 4.
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Overall though, i think there're a few more negatives than positives. First off, performance is a dog once you get a big empire. Admittedly, i'm at least a generation behind current hardware, but for a turn based strategy hand it's painfully over graphical. I'm definitely going to have to tank the graphics for next time. Also, and i know it's terribly non specific of me, it's just ... Lost the vibe of number 4. 3 and 4 got of hooked straight away, but 5 feels a bit like a struggle, a chore. I think it's because the timing is off - it takes too long to do anything at the begining, then everything happens too quickly to take stock of new events. I'm going to fiddle the speed and difficulty settings and see how i go before i give up though.
I have to agree with these points. Performance isn't as great as it should be on my i7 with 12 gigs of RAM. Granted the nivida 9800 gt inside it isn't exactly top of the line these days, but I play games that look a lot more impressive than Civ 5 and get great performance out of it. Thing is, the game feels terribly unoptimized. I like some new game concepts but the thing is lagging all the time and I get long loading times where I shouldn't. I also don't like the fact that you no longer need sea transport units to move your troops to different continents / islands. The unit turning into a "boat" automatically when it moves on the sea seems a bit too convenient to me. Overall, I liked the "vibe" you mentioned a lot better in civs 3 and 4.
Wait... you don't need transport? But that was always one of my favorite moments in any civ 4 game, building your first galley and conquering a few nearby islands unopposed (fast exploration has always been a strategy of mine)
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Nope, sure don't. And now that I've used just about every unit and almost beat he game, I have some things to say:
- Ships generally feel useless, their attacks against ground units is minimal and they can't completely take down the HP of a base. The only thing really worth building is the carrier and only because bombers are pretty good for killing ground units.
- Later game, bases are absolutely useless at defending themselves, their attack does an usual 1 damage to anything, which is kind of annoying.
- The game starts up a bit too slow, it only really gets interesting at 70 turns or so.
- Diplomacy seems to be non-existent in this game, I have no real idea how to make other empires happy.
- I hate how all you have to do to kill a ground unit on water is to move a ship over the tile the unit is on.
- The megadeath robot can kill a well defended base in one hit. Just sayin'.
- Most later ground infantry can easily take over a well defended base on their own.
And probably some other things I need to remember.
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Invading another island or even a continent was a huge undertaking before; in addition to creating enough attack units to invade with, you also had to build enough transport ships to carry them over and have enough of a navy to protect the units in transit. You had to embark your units on said transports and send them to suitable landing zones. Now you just send your land units wherever and they magically spawn boats for themselves when they reach the sea. This effectively kills the strategic importance of islands as it's no longer that big of an issue to invade one - it's almost like invading territory on the same continent as yourself; the only difference is that you do have to watch out for the enemy navy not to sink your units in transit. That's it - no huge feeling of accomplishment once you've successfully invaded an island, having worked hard for it, making sure all the strategic and logistical requirements are met. Just create a big enough mob and send it over.. lame.
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Anyone having issues with performance, switch to strategic view. I've been told that someone who runs Civ IV at 12 fps on their old and busted laptop has no problems with Civ V once it's switched to strategic view.
Do you think I should buy Civ 4 now that it's cheap?
I think that when RPS talks about V being a companion to IV rather than a replacement of it, they're correct. So yes.
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(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/ab/Apple-logo.png/125px-Apple-logo.png)
There's a mod for that.
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A friend of mine bought it and...
Apparently it not only requires Steam, but that's all the disk has on it: Steam. You need to download the whole game, even if you bought a boxed version in the store.
And that's why Steam is retarded
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And that's why Steam is retarded
I'm sorry, why does a decision by Firaxis result in Steam being retarded?
Or is this a PEBKAC on your part?
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And that's why Steam is retarded
I'm sorry, why does a decision by Firaxis result in Steam being retarded?
Or is this a PEBKAC on your part?
Steam is an enabler.
It enables companies to do stupid **** like this where you buy a game in a store and it's not the full game and you cannot even play the thing without an internet connection. If you buy a game off steam, as I have done on a few occasions, then sure download it. But if you buy a copy in the brick and mortar store there shouldn't be any asinine internet-based DRM.
That and the only reason companies are likely doing this sort of thing is because Valve themselves in part, or in whole, pioneered this thing when they sold their games with only 95% of the game on the disk and required a steam download to actually play.
On topic though, I want to pick up Civ V. I only played the demo in Civ IV but the combat and weird land development turned me off. Civ V looks more like III but with tactical combat instead of stacks o' doom. Sounds like a winner.
Though given my computer I probably can't play it yet anyway. Nor Starcraft II for that matter.
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Starcraft II scales pretty heroically, in my experience. If you don't mind my asking, what are your specs?
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I'm shaking, I just had such a good game in Civ 4. Fighting against all 6 AI opponents who got pissed after I finished the manhattan project. Through a ton of luck, rapid unit movement, and selective capital nuking, I was able to force them all to peace one by one. But time was running out, and england and inca were both leading by ~300 points because of all the pillaging on my land. So I rallied my citizens and my civics, and stockpiled as many ICBMs as possible. With one turn left to go, I unleashed 60 nukes total on the two, and managed to win bit a measly 7 points. But I won. It feels so good.
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The AI in this game is stupid. All I ever seem to get is nothing, hostility, or war from them. They like to randomly go to war with the player for absolutely no reason at all, you can't ever seem to get them to form packs of cooperation or secrecy nor can you get them to go to war with anyone else. Trading with them is finicky too.
tl;dr The AI are assholes
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Starcraft II scales pretty heroically, in my experience. If you don't mind my asking, what are your specs?
I'm not even sure how to look that up dude.
But what I do know off the top of my head, I think my graphics card is some ancient Radeon X800 or something. And my computer is about 2-2.5GB dual core processor. So . . . a few years old now.
EDIT - more accurately:
Pentium(R) D CPU 2.66GHz, 1.00 GB RAM
Radeon X800
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Some other things that bothered me with civ 5:
- pretty ridiculous resource system - can't build enough modern units because a lot of them require aluminum, for instance; a helicopter gunship requires just as much aluminum as a spaceship factory does. A nuclear sub doesn't need uranium but it does need aluminum. So does rocket artillery, modern armor, helicopter gunships, missile cruisers, etc. Want to have lots of carriers filled with jet fighters or stealth bombers? Carrier only requires oil but all of the modern planes require aluminum, meaning 3 fully stocked carriers will cost you 3 oil and 9 aluminum. Almost the entire selection of modern units relies mostly on this one resource. This effectively means you either have to be extremely lucky that really large amounts of aluminum appear near your cities, or go to war with half the map to acquire the necessary resources. Don't even get me started on nuclear missiles (not atomic bombs, these are ICBMs) which require 2 uranium each (no plutonium in the game, but meh I can live with that). So a single ICBM requires the same amount of radioactive material you'd need to run two nuclear power plants indefinitely? It's not even a MIRV.. Of course once it detonates it frees up the two uranium it cost. This entire system is flawed from the get go.
- removal of sea transports, all units now magically turn into boats when they reach the sea (mentioned this before but it's such a huge point it deserves to be mentioned twice);
- removal of airports and the airdrop mechanics that came with them;
- removal of cool wonders like the space elevator;
- removal of a separate spaceship building screen like in Civ 4 (fluff, I know, but it was cool);
- various bugs pertaining to combat bonuses;
- graphical glitches and overall crap performance even on my system which is relatively powerful;
- global happiness system;
- unexplored parts of the map now remained unexplored even after you've researched "satellites" and/or built the apollo program; in previous civs the entire map would become "explored" once you got to space. They probably just forgot about this in civ 5, but it's still annoying and makes no sense.
- nuclear subs can't enter other empire's territory unless you have an "open borders" agreement with them (duh, didn't mean you should cruise to their shores on the surface, dive and be quiet ffs - I can partially accept this restriction on standard diesel electric subs as the time they can spend submerged is limited, even though modern diesel electrics can also stay below the surface for long periods of time)
- re-basing air units now only works for cities/carriers in range of that unit. On the surface this seems logical but let's think about it for a moment - you're not ordering that unit to perform an air strike here. Re-basing an air unit could be handled by other transports or it could automatically land to refuel on certain points along the way; they might be refueled in mid-air too - point is it should be done automatically for you, the way it was in Civ 4 where you could re-base an air unit to any city on the map. This way re-basing a fighter squadron to a city on the other end of the world can literally take years in game time. It particularly doesn't make sense when you look at some other design decisions that oversimplify matters - such as the mentioned removal of sea transports and making every unit in the game amphibious. It's like they didn't know themselves whether they want to simplify or complicate matters so they decided to have the worst of both worlds.
- "Science victory" (used to be called "space race victory" before) has been downgraded to complete suckage. Apart from not having a separate spaceship construction screen, there's only 4 different parts needed for the ship, one of which needs to be built 3 times. Once the ship is built, it launches automatically and all you get is an end-game victory screen. There's no countdown until the ship reaches destination; no end game cutscene of your colonists reaching their new home - nothing. After that needlessly long non-skippable intro sequence I expected at least a short outtro..
I still think this game has a lot of potential and in a year or two it'll probably be awesome - even though at present it seems like someone did his best to kick as much awesome out of it as humanly possible. At any rate, out-of-the-box product by itself needs a lot of work.
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Hey, at least they've patched it more than once.
That's two patches more than most 2k Games get.
/me still fuming about bio**** 2.
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This entire system is flawed from the get go.
And by flawed, you mean great.
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Some other things that bothered me with civ 5:
- removal of sea transports, all units now magically turn into boats when they reach the sea (mentioned this before but it's such a huge point it deserves to be mentioned twice);
Well that's pretty obvious.
Units can't stack right? So if you put 9 guys inside a transport, are you going to wait 3 turns to fully unload them? That would be infuriating and unrealistic I think. Most places where you can make landfall you can only have 3 adjacents hexes which means 3 units unloading each turn which means 3 turns to get 9 guys ashore.
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And that's why Steam is retarded
I'm sorry, why does a decision by Firaxis result in Steam being retarded?
Or is this a PEBKAC on your part?
Steam is an enabler.
It enables companies to do stupid **** like this where you buy a game in a store and it's not the full game and you cannot even play the thing without an internet connection. If you buy a game off steam, as I have done on a few occasions, then sure download it. But if you buy a copy in the brick and mortar store there shouldn't be any asinine internet-based DRM.
That and the only reason companies are likely doing this sort of thing is because Valve themselves in part, or in whole, pioneered this thing when they sold their games with only 95% of the game on the disk and required a steam download to actually play.
On topic though, I want to pick up Civ V. I only played the demo in Civ IV but the combat and weird land development turned me off. Civ V looks more like III but with tactical combat instead of stacks o' doom. Sounds like a winner.
Though given my computer I probably can't play it yet anyway. Nor Starcraft II for that matter.
Incorrect. You install the games from the disc into steam. That's what happened with Darksiders retail, and another game I got that installed through steam - Ah, Dawn of War II.
Any downloading that happens after that is patches, day one or whatever. Which is always nice, saves you the effort of hunting them down your self.
Oh, and I manage to play my steam library offline all the time, save for games by people like Ubisoft (And that's nothing to do with Steam)
Sorry to come down on you like that, but it's that kind of misinformed statement about steam that really irks me.
On topic: It does seem to me like Civ 5 loses a lot of the things that I really enjoyed about previous civ incarnations, so I'm on the fence about purchasing it.
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And that's why Steam is retarded
I'm sorry, why does a decision by Firaxis result in Steam being retarded?
Or is this a PEBKAC on your part?
Steam is an enabler.
It enables companies to do stupid **** like this where you buy a game in a store and it's not the full game and you cannot even play the thing without an internet connection. If you buy a game off steam, as I have done on a few occasions, then sure download it. But if you buy a copy in the brick and mortar store there shouldn't be any asinine internet-based DRM.
That and the only reason companies are likely doing this sort of thing is because Valve themselves in part, or in whole, pioneered this thing when they sold their games with only 95% of the game on the disk and required a steam download to actually play.
On topic though, I want to pick up Civ V. I only played the demo in Civ IV but the combat and weird land development turned me off. Civ V looks more like III but with tactical combat instead of stacks o' doom. Sounds like a winner.
Though given my computer I probably can't play it yet anyway. Nor Starcraft II for that matter.
Incorrect. You install the games from the disc into steam. That's what happened with Darksiders retail, and another game I got that installed through steam - Ah, Dawn of War II.
Any downloading that happens after that is patches, day one or whatever. Which is always nice, saves you the effort of hunting them down your self.
If you can't play it without patching it, it isn't complete.
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Steam is an enabler.
It enables companies to do stupid **** like this where you buy a game in a store and it's not the full game and you cannot even play the thing without an internet connection. If you buy a game off steam, as I have done on a few occasions, then sure download it. But if you buy a copy in the brick and mortar store there shouldn't be any asinine internet-based DRM.
That and the only reason companies are likely doing this sort of thing is because Valve themselves in part, or in whole, pioneered this thing when they sold their games with only 95% of the game on the disk and required a steam download to actually play.
On topic though, I want to pick up Civ V. I only played the demo in Civ IV but the combat and weird land development turned me off. Civ V looks more like III but with tactical combat instead of stacks o' doom. Sounds like a winner.
Though given my computer I probably can't play it yet anyway. Nor Starcraft II for that matter.
Incorrect. You install the games from the disc into steam. That's what happened with Darksiders retail, and another game I got that installed through steam - Ah, Dawn of War II.
Any downloading that happens after that is patches, day one or whatever. Which is always nice, saves you the effort of hunting them down your self.
Oh, and I manage to play my steam library offline all the time, save for games by people like Ubisoft (And that's nothing to do with Steam)
Sorry to come down on you like that, but it's that kind of misinformed statement about steam that really irks me.
On topic: It does seem to me like Civ 5 loses a lot of the things that I really enjoyed about previous civ incarnations, so I'm on the fence about purchasing it.
I never said that you need Steam and a continually internet connection to play games, so your implication that I did is incorrect. I know that Steam is not quite the same as the Assassin's Creed 2 DRM that ubisoft employs.
But nothing I said was wrong. I bought Half Life 2 and the episode pack. Without an internet connection, I could never play them because I could never fully install them. Heck I bought the Half Life 1 platinum edition or whatever as well. It's the same thing. The disc that you buy in the store, does NOT ALLOW you to play the game. After installing the game from the disc, or, 95% of the game more accurately, you NEED an internet connection to download the rest.
Which is bull****.
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A few things;
A) You're arguing about needing an internet connection for activation on an internet forum. :wtf:
B) In most countries where people can afford the hardware that'll play the games, they can afford broadband, let alone dialup, as of two years ago 95% of the UK had access to high speed broadband, and we're 'mid-range' for developed countries.
C) Dial up penetration makes for almost complete coverage world wide.
D) If you hate it that much just 'acquire' a copy after you buy a game. - I very rarely use the CDs for my games, especially, the ones I've bought, unless they have a heavy online component.
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Well that's pretty obvious.
Units can't stack right? So if you put 9 guys inside a transport, are you going to wait 3 turns to fully unload them? That would be infuriating and unrealistic I think. Most places where you can make landfall you can only have 3 adjacents hexes which means 3 units unloading each turn which means 3 turns to get 9 guys ashore.
To be fair units probably shouldn't stack inside the transports, either. At any rate what they did is the worst possible alternative. Throughout the history of war islands always had a special strategic significance because of the logistical and tactical difficulties one needed to overcome in order to successfully invade them. This tactical significance of islands has been reduced significantly by this game mechanics. Yes, invading islands should be a big deal - finding the proper landing locations, escorting your transports in, making landfall.. all that has been reduced to build&send.
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You've been playing against the AI too much.
Try build and send very a player and you will lose a massive number of units before they even get to the shore.
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That's not the point, I just said build & send as opposed to build, embark on transports, find suitable landing zones, make landfall, march towards cities. Personally I don't play multi, but I want my sp experience to not feel dumbed down. Any proper strategy game that involves islands and seas should have sea transports. Fact.
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That's not the point, I just said build & send as opposed to build, embark on transports, find suitable landing zones, make landfall, march towards cities. Personally I don't play multi, but I want my sp experience to not feel dumbed down. Any proper strategy game that involves islands and seas should have sea transports. Fact.
Hmmn, I'm not sure it's that big a deal.
The bigger question is, does the AI actually do amphibious assaults?
I never played 4, I only played 3. But in that the AI would basically almost never in my experience do any sort of assault from the sea. They'd drop a couple dudes off, sure. But not like a big time invasion. So if under the new game they do assaults it would be a step up.
Also I hope they changed the railroads. That was the second biggest pain in the butt for me. One time I tried to invade a guy with like 4-5 transports full of dudes. Next turn, two countries' continent worth of dragoons attacked my invading force. It was dumb. I'm pretty sure railroads dont' give infinite movement anymore though.
Heck, for that matter. If you're arguing for amphibious transports, why not argue for railroad as well? Since Civ 1 normal units have been able to use railroads without use of a train. Is this not the same thing???
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If you can't play it without patching it, it isn't complete.
Yeah, the thing about steam? It means they put the stuff on the disc, and send it off, and keep working on the game, and you get that extra month or two of work when you install the game.
Ideally, anyway. That's how it worked with GPG and SupCom2.
Yes, invading islands should be a big deal - finding the proper landing locations, escorting your transports in, making landfall.. all that has been reduced to build&send.
I dunno which Civ games you were playing, but the ones I played reduced it to build and send too. Oh, sure, you had to build one or two transports to carry your guys, but so what? Build, send. Simple. Hell, then you could start airlifting guys in to the first city you conquered.
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Yes, invading islands should be a big deal - finding the proper landing locations, escorting your transports in, making landfall.. all that has been reduced to build&send.
I dunno which Civ games you were playing, but the ones I played reduced it to build and send too. Oh, sure, you had to build one or two transports to carry your guys, but so what? Build, send. Simple. Hell, then you could start airlifting guys in to the first city you conquered.
Airlift ++ <3
I used to have most of my attacking force on a continent after the first transport had been there and back.
What's more, no more airlifts = awesome, personally.
And, the AI do use their naval forces a lot more on the higher difficulties.
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Yes, invading islands should be a big deal - finding the proper landing locations, escorting your transports in, making landfall.. all that has been reduced to build&send.
I dunno which Civ games you were playing, but the ones I played reduced it to build and send too. Oh, sure, you had to build one or two transports to carry your guys, but so what? Build, send. Simple. Hell, then you could start airlifting guys in to the first city you conquered.
Airlift ++ <3
I used to have most of my attacking force on a continent after the first transport had been there and back.
What's more, no more airlifts = awesome, personally.
And, the AI do use their naval forces a lot more on the higher difficulties.
I liked how airlifts were done in Civ4, though it was a bit annoying after you automate all your works and build airports. Even so, being able to airlift a group of fresh defends was a godsend. Add to that instantly moving airplanes and short-range missiles.
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The AI in this game is stupid. All I ever seem to get is nothing, hostility, or war from them. They like to randomly go to war with the player for absolutely no reason at all, you can't ever seem to get them to form packs of cooperation or secrecy nor can you get them to go to war with anyone else. Trading with them is finicky too.
tl;dr The AI are assholes
So they're just like human players!
No, really, this is the first Civ I've ever been able to pry cities out of them in a settlement. They'll go to war with me primarily because I lack sufficent military might for them to think twice about it. (That his usually backfires in the face of wartime production is something they've yet to learn, but then that's a typical mistake of real nations too.) I've gotten them to respond of pacts of secrecy or cooperation early on, but eventually I'm the strongest power on Earth and they're all doing it against me.
As for the current system being merely build-and-send, you take awful losses doing that because of random floaty barbarians. It needs escorts and consideration of route and jumping-off points. Most of the other concerns are the nature of logistics Civ and most 4xs haven't included.
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I hate the city-states. Your reputation with them is constantly falling. How the hell does on keep them happy?
Meh..I'm just gonna conquer them with my legions.. FOR THE GLORY OF ROME!
EDIT:
Strategic resource limitations suck. The number of units you can build is terribly limited because of that.
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I hate the city-states. Your reputation with them is constantly falling. How the hell does on keep them happy?
Strategic resource limitations suck. The number of units you can build is terribly limited because of that.
You keep city states happy with bribes and by doing things they want you to do. Bribes are often easier.
You also just described why strategic resource limitations are nice.
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I dunno which Civ games you were playing, but the ones I played reduced it to build and send too.
I played every Civ game ever made, from Civ 1 to Civ 5, including Alpha Centauri. In previous civs island invasions felt like they required more effort, and I liked that feeling. Of course it wasn't realistic any more than this is but for me it felt better.
You also just described why strategic resource limitations are nice.
I for one don't think you should be unlimited, but I do think the current resource system pertaining to unit building is badly unbalanced and illogical. Almost the entire modern era unit selection depends on aluminum, as do certain city improvements, meaning you'll need heaps and heaps of the stuff just to build a modest force. Otherwise you're forced to use ww2-era tech, like regular tanks and first generation of fighters. A nuclear sub requires aluminum? Their hulls are built of special high-strength steel alloys. So, never mind, you build a nuclear sub and it takes one aluminum. Lose or decommission it and that aluminum magically reappears. Not to mention that one aluminum can be a lot in that game - it's enough to build a spaceship factory or a hydroelectric plant. Building a single unit should require less - the old system where as long as you had access to needed resources you could build units that needed them made more sense to me. Or at least make it possible to spend like 0.2 of a resource so the expenditures make a bit more sense.
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How about a resource gives you so many points. Different tiles of the same resource could give you different amounts, which leads to more battles for valuable fields instead of just that one resource tile.Until you research recycling, those resources don't come back once applied to units. However, those units would use little amounts compared to very modern units.
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Different tiles contain different amounts of resources already. I had tiles that had like 8 aluminum, or ones that had 3... with uranium, I found between 1 and 4 per tile.
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In previous civs island invasions felt like they required more effort
Nah, they felt like they required more tedious micromanagement bull****.
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Let's agree to disagree then. For me, micromanagement was always an integral part of civ.
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You can't really call it micromanagement like it's a skill or anything engaging in a turn based environment.
Also, there's a long thread about naval combat on the forums, and having spent more time on the higher difficulties I think you need to get off settler.
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You can't really call it micromanagement like it's a skill or anything engaging in a turn based environment.
Yes, you can.
Also, there's a long thread about naval combat on the forums, and having spent more time on the higher difficulties I think you need to get off settler.
I played on "king". Meh, I'm done with this discussion, wonder if the good ol' Civ 3 still works under win 7..
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Let's agree to disagree then. For me, micromanagement was always an integral part of civ.
My clearest memory of a naval invasion is of sitting around for a dozen turns waiting for the transport to complete, then another dozen for the transport to get over there, and then steamrolling the victim. I can do without the first part going forward.
But yeah, agree to disagree. Civ V has significant flaws, but they're not the ones you're pointing at. Which is to say, I don't think it matters that aluminum shouldn't really be needed for boomers. I do think it matters that the AI is--at best--as bad as ever and that we don't have information on how some game systems work.
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i just want to know which one to buy :shaking:
Right now I think Civ 4 sounds more appealing. It has all those neat expansion sets. But maybe I should just try to get SMAC?
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there's an AC total conversion mod for Civ IV
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there's an AC total conversion mod for Civ IV
Wait, seriously? With the videos and everything?
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I don't know about that, but the gameplay's there.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=253775
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Whoah, cool. Downloaded in an instant! :yes:
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People actually like Alpha Centauri? I played it for about an hour and lost interest. Though I think my favourite civ is still civ1. That's the only game where I read the historical information. I think the **** graphics have a certain charm that the newer ones lack. Though it sucked losing a battleship to a phalanx.
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People actually like Alpha Centauri? I played it for about an hour and lost interest. Though I think my favourite civ is still civ1. That's the only game where I read the historical information. I think the **** graphics have a certain charm that the newer ones lack. Though it sucked losing a battleship to a phalanx.
loved it though yer Civ 1 tops it. i also had the Alien crossfire expansion but it didnt add a great deal of note (though the sea faction was cool)
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People actually like Alpha Centauri? I played it for about an hour and lost interest.
I think it's commonly considered the best of the series, I-V inclusive.
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People actually like Alpha Centauri? I played it for about an hour and lost interest.
I think it's commonly considered the best of the series, I-V inclusive.
Really? I always thought it was weird. Fighting slime or some crap. Though people prefer MOO2 to 1 and I don't understand why because I thought 2 was crap myself. I still got AC around maybe I'll pop it back in sometime.
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I think it's commonly considered the best of the series, I-V inclusive.
More or less. I think the AI for IV was better at handling military bits and the V setup handles culture/borders in a far less annoying manner than IV does.
But AC was the last of the pure 4X setups without resources and the first of them to use borders in a meaningful way, so it stands at a transition point between landgrab (which is what 4x is all about anyways) and scrambling because the AI can see unrevealed resources.
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[With the videos and everything?
No. You have to manually import the art and sound, though you can do so. Provided you have the original disc, or a, um, facsimile thereof. I'd rather just straight play the original.
For my money, SMAC is superior because it has actual goddamn personality, something every other iteration sorely lacks. I love the tech and building and wonder quotes, whereas the quotes in III-V are painfully earnest and deadly dull. Leonard Nimoy cannot compete with Colonel Santiago, or Chairman Yang, or CEO Morgan, or whoever.
Richard Baxton piloted his Recon Rover into a fungal vortex and held off four waves of mind worms, saving an entire colony. We immediately purchased his identity manifests and repackaged him into the Recon Rover Rick character with a multi-tiered media campaign: televids, touchbooks, holos, psi-tours--the works. People need heroes. They don't need to know how he died clawing his eyes out, screaming for mercy. The real story would just hurt sales, and dampen the spirits of our customers.
vs
"Where tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers therefore are the founders of human civilization"
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I agree that Leonard Nimoy totally phoned in his lines for Civ IV, but the guy doing V isn't terribad.
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Right, but it's basically devoid of personality. Oh, sure, he puts some emotion into his lines, but it's nowhere near SMAC's level. They did a fair bit of world building and character development in those quotes, and random, vaguely topical one-liners just aren't as good.
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I loved how AC managed to put you into this deep story while at the same time conforming to however the current game was going.
I always like using the gaians to unleash cheap mind worm hordes to sweep over aggresive factions while an elite human force tagged behind to take and hold key cities/locations.
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Alpha Centauri rocked the party. Mind worms 4tw :yes:
Just played the mod with my brother and it feels almost like the original :nod:
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Planet busters ftw. AC rocked.
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I agree that Leonard Nimoy totally phoned in his lines for Civ IV, but the guy doing V isn't terribad.
Beep...Beep...Beep...Beep.
:D
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I had such a :wtf: when I researched that tech for the first time.
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I laughed at that, actually - considering sputnik 1 was originally supposed to have all sorts of scientific apparatus installed and it ended up being a machine that goes ping.. well, beep :D
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(http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=216919&d=1244398127)
Inspiration for the Uhlan?
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Firaxis should have gotten Mr. T to do the quotes. Sure, every quote would have "foo" in it at least once, but at least it would be characterful.
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(http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=216919&d=1244398127)
Inspiration for the Uhlan?
Looks like a Hammerhead from Space: Above and Beyond
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Looks like a Hammerhead from Space: Above and Beyond
That's because it is one. Minus the turrets.
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I'm modding the schnitzel out of this...gonna add some more units and civs..
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This game should have been
Civ IV + Rise of Mankind + Rhyes and Fall of Civilization
this game turned into
Civ Rev for the PC
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Rhyes and Fall of Civilization
This mod is da bomb!
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Rhyes and Fall of Civilization
This mod is da bomb!
:) :) :)
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*sigh* my mod does not cooperate with me...blast it!
That said, there are some pretty nifty mods to download, which change gameplay and add stuff...
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Could someone link me up with mods to this? In particular I'd be interested in one that lets you stack multiple units on the same tile. That's my chief dislike at the moment.
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Could someone link me up with mods to this? In particular I'd be interested in one that lets you stack multiple units on the same tile. That's my chief dislike at the moment.
stacking units is my chief dislike in Civ4, since the AI always goes crazy on me with stacks of 20 calvary and crap.
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Could someone link me up with mods to this? In particular I'd be interested in one that lets you stack multiple units on the same tile. That's my chief dislike at the moment.
Steam lists the top 10 Civ V mods. You're looking for Legions.