So... lots of peeps asking for a temporary ciV ALT?

B

bananamana

Chieftain
Joined
Sep 22, 2010
Messages
44
Hi Guys, a lot of you seem to be looking for a good alternative until ciV gets itself into a 'fun' state with some patches &/or expansions. I've seen about 5 posters now asking for alternatives.

The best one I have played other than civ is Tropico 3 & Tropico 3 Absolute Power.

http://forum.kalypsomedia.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=24

I am sure others can add to this thread with alternatives so I thought I would start with that as in my opinion its been the best and totally immersive in comparison to ciV :)

Though I love CiV for its ideas - I will be anxiously waiting to increase my 150 hours invested once some more patches &/or expansion comes :D
 
Could you not answer in those threads then ? :crazyeye:
 
It's a good game but it has nowhere near the epic feeling of a civ game. My biggest gripe about that game is the buildings and lack of diversity, it's the same looking building for everything. Anyways there's a lack of diversity. I'd try to make my cities properly and not have a bunch of random buildings plotted together. Here's an example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xS0pKa7Ek You wouldn't have a farm built next to a bunch of apartments or a cigar factory next to a church and I see lot's of videos do stuff like that. I'd try my best to perfectly place buildings. I've seen one video and while there are some buildings I find shouldn't be built beside each other, I think it's a nice looking island. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB9Qos5eFc0&feature=related
I guess it's because it's a small island and you can't really set up districts and it all needs to be crammed together. It didn't break the game for me, I played it for 60 hours.
 
Shmike's right. You don't need an Alt game.. :) But for me, I can't play just one game, I get bored too easily - today i play this, tomorrow that.. etc. if there's no work, I'll prolly play 2 hours of this and 2 of that and then RL with friends and then another 2hours of this, and that, etc.
 
Shmike said:
It's a good game but it has nowhere near the epic feeling of a civ game. My biggest gripe about that game is the buildings and lack of diversity, it's the same looking building for everything. Anyways there's a lack of diversity. I'd try to make my cities properly and not have a bunch of random buildings plotted together. Here's an example. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64xS0pKa7Ek You wouldn't have a farm built next to a bunch of apartments or a cigar factory next to a church and I see lot's of videos do stuff like that. I'd try my best to perfectly place buildings. I've seen one video and while there are some buildings I find shouldn't be built beside each other, I think it's a nice looking island. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB9Qos5eFc0&feature=related
I guess it's because it's a small island and you can't really set up districts and it all needs to be crammed together. It didn't break the game for me, I played it for 60 hours.
Click to expand...

Try Tropico 3 - Absolute Power. This expansion adds more building types and also new designs for some older ones along wiht nice new faction tools :)

Its the only game (when the flavors are right) to completely challenge me in ways I never thought possible with the same game just a scenario prior. Its fantastic overall and if you understand the game the online scenarios are very VERY good and challenging and FREEEEEEE Not like Civ DLC!!! :)
 
... so says the lead dev for Tropico (JK)....


I've been watching Tropico 3 let's play this morning... It looks fun. I downloaded the Settlers 7 demo and I don't really like that. I checked the prices on Steam for Tropico and they look reasonable.

These are different games than Civ though. The older Civs made it feel like you built an empire. That was entertaining. The current Civ just doesn't do that so I am looking for something else. You know it's funny, but a big reason the current Civ doesn't feel like empire building is because there is no proper ending to the game. Those graphs and world maps really made it feel like you did something. Instead the game just ends abruptly. I think they should bring back the old ending and add something new to it. There should be a way to create algorithm that identifies critical points in your empire and they could put up some painting images of those critical scenarios. Someone mentioned it as "Like dragon age."

Tropico looks good because you are building a City at least. A city from scratch looks fun, but not as grand as Civ as used to be. I think it will be a nice diversion and maybe soon the development of Civ will announce what there plans are. Trickle out a couple more civs? Plan for an expansion? Revamp economy?
 
If you are more RTS player, I recommend free indie game done by Age of Empires fans called "0 A.D." It is in beta state right now and free for download on their website. Basicly reincarnation of Age of Kings in much better graphics and mechanics. http://wildfiregames.com/0ad/
 
Since shelving Civ V, I've become addicted to Distant Worlds. It's an outstanding 4X space game. I typically prefer historical games, and usually hate space games, but DW has me hooked. It has much of what I hoped for in Civ V - mostly plenty of "interesting decisions." It's a very deep game, like Civ IV, and one I suspect I'll be playing for a very long time. It's real-time, but pausable, so it plays much like a turn-based game.
 
Quueg said:
Since shelving Civ V, I've become addicted to Distant Worlds. It's an outstanding 4X space game. I typically prefer historical games, and usually hate space games, but DW has me hooked. It has much of what I hoped for in Civ V - mostly plenty of "interesting decisions." It's a very deep game, like Civ IV, and one I suspect I'll be playing for a very long time. It's real-time, but pausable, so it plays much like a turn-based game.
Click to expand...


Good Answer!

And with the New Expansion pack: Return of The Shakturi, it's got even more!

JosEPh :)
 
Quueg said:
Since shelving Civ V, I've become addicted to Distant Worlds. It's an outstanding 4X space game. I typically prefer historical games, and usually hate space games, but DW has me hooked. It has much of what I hoped for in Civ V - mostly plenty of "interesting decisions." It's a very deep game, like Civ IV, and one I suspect I'll be playing for a very long time. It's real-time, but pausable, so it plays much like a turn-based game.
Click to expand...

wut? Looks very nice. Why have I heard nothing about it before? I navigate through quite a lot of game webs and forums.
 
Europa Universalis 3
 
kaltorak said:
wut? Looks very nice. Why have I heard nothing about it before? I navigate through quite a lot of game webs and forums.
Click to expand...

I posted this recently in the Distant Worlds forum. It sums up why I like the game:

I'm an experienced strategy gamer, but long-time hater of space games. I've tried almost all of them at one time or another and hated all of them. I'm not much into science fiction. I thought Star Trek was silly. Lost interest in Star Wars after the second one (Did Luke ever find his father?).

I short, I couldn't be less representative of the target audience for this game.

And, amazingly, I love it. I haven't had this much fun in ages.

Why?

First, as several folks have said here, the world in DW feels alive. You really get the feeling that you're in a real, living world. It's hard to describe, but it's palpable.

Second, it has that most essential element of a good grand strategy game: frequent interesting decisions.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the automation system is pure genius. I've never played a game where so much can be automated without destroying the sense of player involvement. You literally can automate almost everything, yet somehow you never feel like you're just an observer. You can tweak here and adjust there, and have a strong sense that you're in charge, but the AI handles all the mundane - and does it remarkably well. The story is yours; the automation just makes it easier for you to direct it. I'm incredibily impressed with this feature - probably the best example I've ever seen in a game.
Click to expand...

I'll add that it's one of those rare games where you constantly are finding new things to do, new strategies to try. For example, there's an entire subgame involving the designing of ships and bases that I've yet to touch. And a variety of different economic strategies. Yet, learning all of it is fun. It's as close to the Civ IV experience as I've found in another game. (And I've played all the Paradox games.) I'm very impressed.
 
Quueg said:
First, as several folks have said here, the world in DW feels alive. You really get the feeling that you're in a real, living world. It's hard to describe, but it's palpable.

Second, it has that most essential element of a good grand strategy game: frequent interesting decisions.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the automation system is pure genius. I've never played a game where so much can be automated without destroying the sense of player involvement. You literally can automate almost everything, yet somehow you never feel like you're just an observer. You can tweak here and adjust there, and have a strong sense that you're in charge, but the AI handles all the mundane - and does it remarkably well. The story is yours; the automation just makes it easier for you to direct it. I'm incredibily impressed with this feature - probably the best example I've ever seen in a game.
Click to expand...

Wow, that sounds really impressive. A real, living world, lots of interesting decisions, and sensible automation options?? Civ 5 could stand to learn a lot from Distant Worlds. :) I'll have to check it out, thanks for the tip.
 
Did you ever hear of Dwarf Fortress? It’s not a new game but it keeps improving and it has a nice community of players. It’s some sort of very complex and original city building game. Most people get scared and run away from it when they first see the ASCI graphics, but once you play it for a while and get into it you stop seeing all the “:)” and “d” and “c” and star seeing dwarves and dogs and cats and think who cares about all those boring 3D graphics games? It’s really an awesome game if you can ignore the lack of visuals. And the game is 100% FREE, which means you’ll pay 0.00$ for it and no one will call you a pirate.
 
I tried Sins of a Solar Empire... it was good for about 96 hours of game play... but then it got kind of boring and repeative.

I played Tropico before Civ5 came out (without the expansion). It was a fun game... it wasn't as epic as Civ obviously - worth about 148 hours of game play.

I have been playing a lot of Empire: Total War. It is really a good game. I'd say worth 300 hours of game play. The problem is that your armies are really tricky to control on the tactical map screens when forts are involved. I can never get them lined up on the walls the way I want them. Also the management is tedious in the end game...

Right now I'm playing Defense Grid the Awakening - a cheap tower defense game that gives you what you want. I don't see it lasting much past 72 hours.

For reference: I played many thousands of hours of Civ4 - probably about 10 thousand all in total. I played about 300 hours of Civ5.

Still looking for my next big game... might have to wait for Diablo 3
 
Imperium Galactica II for those of you who want real stacks of doom, unlike previous civs :)

Back to Tropico 3... Try it, it can be surprisingly deep. There are quite a few dynamics and lots of free online challenges are immense fun even if you keep dying. Its fun to try again with another strategy type of game :) Your name etc gets recorded also :)

Tropico 4 is coming soon, can't wait, hope its a big upgrade :)
 
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