How is this X-PacK? Will it get me back into Civ?
- Thread starter Tekee
- Start date
Adam7Eight
Emperor
It's pretty good and definately worth it, however there are a few things that need patching (espionage, corporations, military academy bug)
Solver's patch (http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=168750) fixes the biggest bugs with BTS, high corpration maintenence and unbalanced espionge on high speed.
Just don't play on Marathon. Also try to avoid using corporations unless it's to spam onto someone else. I prefer state property anyway.
Yes I will try to learn to use state property too
From what I am getting this game has a bad Espionage system and a bad Corporations system,
Do the other good features enhance the game?
Should I just wait for patch?
Espionage is fine, just there's a bug re: water poisoning/foment unrest that unintentionally triples their effectiveness (or even more than triples) under Marathon.
Corps increase inflation too much. Perhaps they'll fix it so inflation isn't out of control.
Underdawg
King
Yes indeed. But my cities are fine since I prepare for it, there are usually a few farms around my cities and when the city is poisoned the city just works the food tiles... all I ever play are Huge maps so Marathon is pretty much a must.
Charles Martel
Warlord
- Joined
- Jun 21, 2007
- Messages
- 244
Don't buy it, it's a waste of money. The two most advertised features, corporations and espionage, are broken. People say that there is a patch for that, but it's not an official one and doesn't fix the worse bugs. If you got bored with vanilla and warlords, you'd probably be unimpressed by BtS. The expansion only adds a bunch of new civs plus some buggy and overcomplicated features that contribute nothing to gameplay. The scenarios are meh, except for a couple of historical world-wide scenarios ("Rise and Fall" mods). These are ok but CPU-intensive, it takes ages between turns. The most disappointing thing is the new AI, it's very buggy and in many ways even worse than warlords.
phungus420
Deity
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2003
- Messages
- 6,296
Overall the X-Pack is very good. There are a couple of things that are indeed broken, as mentioned. But there is an "unoficial" patch (official patches have to go through testing, and a whole lot of buerocratic paperwork is involved, don't expect the official one for a few weeks at least) that fixes all the "game breaking" problems. A quick look through these forums should give you a good idea of the improvements BTS makes. Overall though, it is well worth the $.
DrJambo
Crash-test dummy
It's very good. A definite improvement over Civ4 and Warlords, which got a bit repetitive after a while. There's a bit of fine tuning required for some of the new features and there's a couple of somewhat annoying bugs to iron out, but otherwise it's fairly solid and enjoyable.
Lars_Domus
Say No 2 Net Validations
Inflation rates ramp up with slower game speeds.
Corporation maintenance ramps up with difficulty level.
On Marathon/Immortal life will generally be horrid and Corporations useless.
On Normal/Prince Corporations are the best thing since sliced bread.
In other words, how broken BtS is depends on the settings you're using, though Solver's patch goes a long way to make things more enjoyable all around.
Corporation maintenance ramps up with difficulty level.
On Marathon/Immortal life will generally be horrid and Corporations useless.
On Normal/Prince Corporations are the best thing since sliced bread.
In other words, how broken BtS is depends on the settings you're using, though Solver's patch goes a long way to make things more enjoyable all around.
Game_Mieser
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 29, 2007
- Messages
- 85
Actually if you were bored with civ4 vanilla then you need to ask yourself why? If the reasons for being bored are gameplay issues like graphics not working correctly because or programming problems or if your interests normally lie in FPS or RPG type games then civ might not be for you.
On the other hand, if you like strategy games as a whole then you'll need to annalize what about civ4 original might still be there even with warlords or BTS X-pacs. It is nothing but addon material as far as BTS is concerned but there is a lot of it for an expansion. I like it because it made the AI more challenging at times (unless your playing on the lowest couple levels).
I do not see how the Corporations or Espionage parts are broken as some others are saying in this thread? I have yet to have any relavent problems with getting them to work fine for me on most levels of play that I use.
The only things I have noticed a going to be fixed in the first real patch I am sure, One being units dying funny in ways and sounds still going on or the repeater type bug that makes the unit repeat it's previous move(s) before continuing on like it should when you hold the Shift key down and program the unit to move/build several things at once without needing you to tell it every step.
On the other hand, if you like strategy games as a whole then you'll need to annalize what about civ4 original might still be there even with warlords or BTS X-pacs. It is nothing but addon material as far as BTS is concerned but there is a lot of it for an expansion. I like it because it made the AI more challenging at times (unless your playing on the lowest couple levels).
I do not see how the Corporations or Espionage parts are broken as some others are saying in this thread? I have yet to have any relavent problems with getting them to work fine for me on most levels of play that I use.
The only things I have noticed a going to be fixed in the first real patch I am sure, One being units dying funny in ways and sounds still going on or the repeater type bug that makes the unit repeat it's previous move(s) before continuing on like it should when you hold the Shift key down and program the unit to move/build several things at once without needing you to tell it every step.
jeffreyac
Mostly Harmless
My favorite part of this style of thread is the varied responses:
Poster a: "This rocks! Go buy it now!"
Poster b: "This sucks. Not worth it even if it's free!"
Moral of the story: It's totally subjective, and based solely on your own likes and desires. Personally, I really enjoy the whole Civ scene, and have since I first discovered a copy of Civilization in a discount software bin like 20 years ago. My all time favorite games are complicated turn-based strategy games, so this is about as perfect a game as you can get for me.
However, for you - only you can say!
One note - if I recall right, there's a downloadable demo off the website; why not download it and give it a shot to see if you like it? When I can, this is my favorite way to evaluate new games - in my opinion, gives you a better idea of how well you'll personally like the game rather than wading through reviews and opinions....
Good luck!
Poster a: "This rocks! Go buy it now!"
Poster b: "This sucks. Not worth it even if it's free!"
Moral of the story: It's totally subjective, and based solely on your own likes and desires. Personally, I really enjoy the whole Civ scene, and have since I first discovered a copy of Civilization in a discount software bin like 20 years ago. My all time favorite games are complicated turn-based strategy games, so this is about as perfect a game as you can get for me.
However, for you - only you can say!
One note - if I recall right, there's a downloadable demo off the website; why not download it and give it a shot to see if you like it? When I can, this is my favorite way to evaluate new games - in my opinion, gives you a better idea of how well you'll personally like the game rather than wading through reviews and opinions....
Good luck!
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