The S&T Times

Fine then, just to make sure we won't, JUST GET ON WITH IT!!!

Indeed. There are of course other ways we can take out our spamming needs... by arguing in the off topic area of the forums!

or the social group

I suggest someone creates a 2nd epic war thread in the OT forum, and have it be a pointless, never-ending, hilarious chatwar! that will solve our spam problems, will it not?

Speaking of which, epic is so overused now it is now pointless. Congratulations.

SamSniped said:

I suggest someone creates a 2nd epic war thread in the OT forum, and have it be a pointless, never-ending, hilarious chatwar! that will solve our spam problems, will it not?

Click to expand...

Sounds like an extremely good idea, all things considered.

The Times Will Be Smaller During School​

Sorry that the Times is so small this time around. We decided that we should get the Edition out on time, and that we would release other stories that were almost complete in smaller “special editions” after they are finished.

~Tambien

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Mod Spotlight: Realism Invictus​

Realism Invictus. The next installment within the Realism series, this may be something that many people will recognize instantly, and others will be happily surprised by what it has to offer. From a more realistic feel with reworked units, uniforms and a variety of other things, with more diversity thrown into the mixture with different forms of unique units and buildings for every civilization, from the careful balancing and testing of the mod so that it works well with what you plan to utilize it for.

For those that want the full listing of what Realism Invictus has to offer, stand back and be awed. Over 120 new techs across every era, many with voice acting by the developers of the mod. 20 new civics, 3 for each category except religious; over 80 new conventional promotions, including new promotions exclusive to naval units (this doesn’t cover the traditions and doctrines, providing another 60 unique advantages to your units.) Over 90 new leaders for existing civs, each with his own personality, with a few added to BtS by the employees and designers at Firaxis. 5 new leader traits and unique drawbacks, so that now each leader has one drawback and two positive effects given to them, making you think harder about a better strategy. 8 broad new unit categories including light cavalry and submarines. Over 40 new land unit classes, 20 new naval unit classes, 11 new air unit classes, unique limited national units for each civ, nique limited world “wonder” units, 5 in total. A variety of different artsyles, including a complete overhaul of the leaderfaces, with their standard animations replaced with beautiful depictions of artwork. Over 50 new regular buildings to construct in your cities, 35 new World Wonders to give you an edge over opponents, 30 new resources, some to be harvested, some to be produced by your industries. Unique great people; when a great person is born, expect to see his/her artistic rendition or photo and either find out his/her biography or to learn a quote of his/hers with close to one thousand different great people shown, and a variety of other features that could fill up the rest of this article without us including the stories!

Because of the highly realistic nature of the mod, it essentially allows itself to have a historical textbook like basis. Detailed and a highly complex history involving this mod would be highly praised and enjoyed due to it's vast amount of content. No current entries using the Realism Invictus mod are easily found on the Civilization IV Stories and Tales forum, which makes the person that comes up with a highly detailed and gripping story all the more special.

That doesn't mean that a gripping narrative/textbook hybrid can not exist. Indeed, that would probably be a blessing, allowing you to keep the story varied and interesting by switching it up often and fast, and showing events that your civilization sees and witnesses through the eyes of an (assortment or so) of characters. This style will indeed make it a very interesting story to maintain, and would require the creator to have a well thought out plan ahead of time with what they wish to do with the story, and may even have to function as a sort of after action report if you intend to try and create the narrative and story from the ground up instead of having to roll with whatever the game throws at you.

Realism Invictus does not really fit into the complete narrative style in my opinion, but that does not mean it can not be done. Although it would be heavily more complex to work out, it would be possible and an interesting thing to do if you intend to create a long tale. If it is attempted though, an after action report style story with the narrative structured with how the game first started and leading up until it's end.

Credit for the makers of this mod goes to:
•Anaztazioch – Simon Sienko (Poland)
•Hian the Frog – Yann Dubois (France)
•Josh – Josh Sjoding (USA)
•Mexico – Peter Bodnar (Slovakia)
•Vitez – Tomasz Stępczyński (Poland)
•Walter Hawkwood (Russia)
•12monkeys (Germany)
•Ankenaton (USA)
•charly1977 (Germany)
•el_zozo (France)
•Houman (Persia/UK)
•israfil (Canada)
•jaynus
•Kristine
•Nightravn
•Phatlip
•PTFeilong
•Tahnkout (Turkey)

Additional thanks to the members of the modding community within the Civilization IV Creation subforum:

TheLopez, Wolfschanze, asioasioasio, Rabbit White, Snafusmith, MaxRiga, The Conquests, Nevermind, C.Roland, Ploeperpengel, Notarzt, Chalid, sharick, Chamaedrys, esnaz, ArdRaeiss, ComG, baal_isidro, seZereth, Hunter, LittleRedPoint, heroes182, Expositus, Von Zeppelin, Robo Magic Man, nautil, tlucky4life, RogerBacon, Dom Pedro II, Mumin, krowtrobot, Zuul, Aranor, Hell's Angel, villo, Tremo, Snaitf, Frontbrecher, Bhruic, SupremeOverlord, Cafegio, AlazkanAssassin, Stone-D, Thalassicus, Optimizer, Master Lexx, Mylon, Patricius, naf4ever, abbamouse, Sevo, Willowmound, TheFourGuardian, danrell, Chugginator, Bakuel, bernie14, sepamu92, Zerver, GarretSidzaka, Cham, GeneralMatt, Polycrates, ambrox62, coffee_junkie, The Capo, zenspiderz, charle88, ermelinho, AchillesZero, JustATourist, Deliverator, Xenomorph, NikNaks93, Refar, Nicholas Hawkwood, Deon, Jinzor.

More thanks to the creators of the BUG Mod:

Alerum68, Cammagno, EmperorFool, NikNaks, Ruff_Hi, and others credited in the ingame interface.

Even more thanks to the playtesters of the mod:

•aod (Brasil)
•awh1979
•BareJag (Finland)
•Cruel (Brazil)
•Freakwave
•gforce (Canada)
•Harrier
•Iamwinterborn
•Ignacio (Argentina)
•Narxysus
•nicrolyte (USA)
•riesscar
•spleskan_kur
•Sukkels88
•taylor
•tmk
•RonZeroRange (USA)
•vamperium
•VenGence (Canada)

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Story Reviews by Alexius08​

Civ 3
The terrain-unwise Romans by Choxorn

The story is set on an unmodded version of Civ3, playing as the Romans.

The game starts out with the player roaming around to hunt down barbarians. After running out of barbarians to attack, the player started to invade neighbors until it snowballed into a world war. The continuous wars of expansion eventually ended with a nuclear apocalypse.

The first few updates were filled with detail. However, as the game progressed, the captions slowly became shorter after being swarmed with so much in-game details. The last few updates were more detailed, though, when it was down to one last enemy.

Score: 86/100

Civ 4
Age of Discovery by Darth_Pugwash

The story is set on Dale's Age of Discovery scenario, with the author playing as Spain. The mod is based on the history of colonization, starting at 1510 and ending in 1796.

Historically, Spain went on to colonize a large chunk of the New World, but the player, content with occupying Aztec lands and the coasts of the Caribbean, eventually invaded France and the Netherlands. An invasion of Ottoman lands was also started, but he ran out of time due to the constraints of the scenario.

For the story, the author used pictures other than screenshots to spice up the updates and he went as far as to edit screenshots. The updates progressed somewhat too quickly, and more details on the invasion of France would be appreciated.

Score: 81/100

Civ 5
One city. One Large Deity Game. Always war by Slowpoke

The story is set on an unmodded version of Civ5, playing as the Greeks while limited to only one city.

Starting with lack of space and unfavorable terrain brought problems to the player. The presence of enough resources made his last stand go all the way to the industrial age, when Athens, defended by cannons and riflemen, were overrun by mechanized infantry and Panzers.

With the story being a short one, there's not much to say for this review, except that this could inspire others to do the same but with more forgiving terrain (a one-tile wide peninsula leading to the player's city).

Score: 72/100

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Welcome all, to the first edition of Civilization III Corner! I am Sparthage: writer, forum-gamer, and CivFanatic. Before I begin, I’ll tell you a little about my CFC experience.

I’ve been on CFC for a couple of years now, but no forum here has captured my attention as much as the Civ3 S&T has. Many of my posts can be found within the forum, and I have read every story posted there since I joined CFC. Some of the best stories and tales of warfare and conquest are hidden within the Civ3 S&T. This column is meant to feature the more recent additions to the Civ3 forum, as well as to dive into the vast numbers of stories contained in the forum’s nine year history.

The Newest Additions
The Renewal by Verarde
Verarde makes his return to the Civ3 S&T with a remake of his earlier tale by the same name, only this time it has pictures!
Realpolitik: Greek Democracy by Princeof Persia
The second Realpolitik forum game for Civilization III comes from Princeof Persia as *drum-roll* Greece!
The Snake in the Grass by dominatr
Covering the Cherokee Nation’s rise to power, dominatr’s writes his war-filled return to Civ3 in the Golden Hordes Mod.

Current Stories
The Sons of Odin by Princeof Persia
The Sons of Odin chronicles the rise to power of the Viking people from their humble beginnings on the Iberian Penninsula.
Blood and Iron: Conquests of the Chancellor by MTB4884
Perhaps the most regularly updated story on CFC, Blood and Iron is an excellent read based on Pax Romana, one of the more popular Civ stories on CFC.
Sengoku: Rise of the Uesugi by HagiaSophia
HagiaSophia makes his debut with a tale that remakes Japanese history in the Sword of the Shogun conquest scenario.
The Conquests by choxorn
After a long hiatus, choxorn returns to Civ3 with a series of tales telling of his adventures in the Conquests scenarios contained in the Civ3 Complete (C3C) package.
Celtic Fury by Sparthage
My own story, in which I tell of the Celts’ rise to world domination through plenty of warfare.
1776 – CCM American Style by M60A3TTS
A long-overdue update revived this popular tale last month as the Americans resume their march to power.
Save the Mongols by tR1cKy
In the only current story that uses Civ3 Vanilla, tR1cKy attempts to use unorthodox methods to spread the conquered Mongol people as part of the Roman Empire in a comedic fashion.
CCCM (That is, China in CCM) by Elephantium
Elephantium takes his succession game-inspire story off of a hiatus, and resumes his story of Chinese conquests.
I am your slave! by Raliuven (started by BaneFire)
The only current Anarchy game in the Civ3 S&T, Raliuven keeps it entertaining with amusing updates.

The Few, The Proud, the Finished
Nuovo Impero Romano – Italy AoI 4.0 by Taniciusfox
Tanaciusfox is well known in the Civ3 S&T for his many short, but well-written stories. Nuovo Impero Romano is no exception to this, chronicling the rise of a new Roman Empire in the popular Age of Imperialism mod.
Uncharted Territory: Aabraxan Plays Nice by Aabraxan
Aabraxan’s most recent story was played with a twist for him: no warmongering. One of the rare peaceful stories that we see in the Civ3 S&T, and an excellent read.

Featured Story
The Vanguard by BasketCase
Rating: 4.5/5
Although it is now long dead, The Vanguard remains near the top of my personal favorites list. Using Star Wars-based characters, BasketCase created a tale similar to WildWeazel’s One More Turn Theater in update fashion. In a One City Challenge, an advanced civilization emerges from the wreckage of a spacecraft and begins to attack the surrounding nations. Full of warfare, political games, and adventures, BasketCase does not disappoint in The Vanguard.

The reason I never bring in any article is that I do not know what to write about.

Yeah, it sometimes gets hard to know who is reviewing what. That is why I just asked for an assignment last time.

You guys could always do interviews...

One of mine's finished!

Yeah, like an interview of me... (Will someone nominate me?)

MoreEpicThanYou said:

Yeah, like an interview of me... (Will someone nominate me?)

Click to expand...

I nominate MoreEpicThanYou!

(And me!)

I nominate everyone who has posted on this page.

The review on my story is pretty much spot on. It was a bit short and simplified, as were all of them, and left out some things like the sort-of variant and the fact that it wasn't so much a nuclear apocolypse as me getting bored and nuking China to death, but still pretty much spot on.

Sorry, I didn't have time to do this edition. I'll do a Civ3 FttB article for the December edition, and I might also have something for a special Christmas edition as well...

Yay! Can't wait,

Glad we got the update finished up. Everyone did really good work .

I might start a story soon...

S&T Times Group said:

We could let authors do short summaries of their peices so far, kind of like reviews, but with an entire article devoted to one story.

Click to expand...

This has been approved by the Times Board, so if you want to do this send me a PM in the following format!

Name of Story[Linked]
Summary
Any other comments you want to put in.