Is there still people playing civ 4?

[Mec AntiKythera]

I like the way those last two post work together, a high degree of QEDness in there.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Well, I still play civ IV also, and reasonably often. Its depth is sufficient and other TBS sufficiently bad that I haven't found a good TBS replacement for it. I was hoping civ V would be better, but it instead went the opposite direction.

So what do I play instead? HOMM VI? Is there any current competing TBS that doesn't *also* have control/rendering issues also?

 

[lymond]

Is there any current competing TBS that doesn't *also* have control/rendering issues also?

Although a different animal than than HOMM and CIV, I encourage you to try Silent Storm Gold, Phil. (GOLD being both vanilla game and expansion "Sentinels") More in the Jagged Alliance and XCOM vein, but unique in it's own right and probably more straight forward. The mechanics of the game are just superb and the graphic engine holds up quite well today for being a 2003 game. GOG just added to its catalog recently.

The base game is awesome and Sentinels is just wow! and very challenging.

 

[Drakarska]

Although a different animal than than HOMM and CIV, I encourage you to try Silent Storm Gold, Phil. (GOLD being both vanilla game and expansion "Sentinels") More in the Jagged Alliance and XCOM vein, but unique in it's own right and probably more straight forward. The mechanics of the game are just superb and the graphic engine holds up quite well today for being a 2003 game. GOG just added to its catalog recently.

The base game is awesome and Sentinels is just wow! and very challenging.

Ohhh! another one to add to my sticky note collection of "games to investigate". My thx

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'll be looking into that for sure! I'll probably still do civ IV also though . Dropping the madden garbage freed up some time for me.

 

[lymond]

I'll probably still do civ IV also though .

I certainly hope so

I used to play Madden until they dropped PC. I don't do consoles. I did have an Xbox (original) years ago but sold it to Gamestop after a year. (I was amazed at how much money they gave me for it)

Another note on Silent Storm. The game was developed by Russian Nival Interactive. Same folks who did HOMM V. However, it basically came in totally under the radar in the US back in 2004. The only reason I bought it years ago was that Gamepot.com voted "Best Game No One Played" back in 2004. I'm sure glad I did. It's basically the last great TBS game of that JA/Xcom/Commandos ilk, and I think better than those as well.

I'd really love to see someone reboot Commandos type games. Pyro Studios totally bombed turning that into FPS. Which brings me to another absolutely brilliant must play game in the Commandos ilk:

"Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive" (effing awesome game) GOG has it too.

 

[lymond]

By the way, if you are interested, I ran an introductory LP of Silent Storm on my YT channel (link in Sig), if y'all are interested in checking it out a bit.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I used to play Madden until they dropped PC. I don't do consoles. I did have an Xbox (original) years ago but sold it to Gamestop after a year. (I was amazed at how much money they gave me for it)

They essentially catered to idiots, assuming that most players couldn't figure out the strategy in the game.

Every year play revolves around a couple (glitchy) offensive plays and oversimplified reads, which overcentralizes the entire process (much like civ V's long-standing 4 city tradition opener they're getting to get rid of). To add an extra layer of "fun" to the equation, the morons in that company added unrealisticly high %chance of fumbles, tied fumbles to "big hits" (which isn't realistic OR balanced, considering the CPU big-hits automatically), and made defenders drop interceptions 4 times as often as happens in real life so that sucky players who memorize glitched plays generally aren't punished even when they do screw up their over-centralized reads. The end result is that I could (and multiple times, did) beat people in the top 100 by getting lucky (or in a few cases, out playing them, depending on who) or lose to a random person who is complete trash because I dropped nine...NINE interceptions in one game (most teams don't have that in 16 games!) and fumbled.

Glitchy, imbalanced, and unrealistic. Yes, when civ IV is compared against THAT disgrace, it's no wonder I still play civ IV despite its flaws. When a simple pass lead inside allows 4 verticals to consistently beat cover 4 (and I could name a dozen other cases of counters not working), you have a problem. In civ IV, when a chariot attacks an axe in the open, it gets excellent odds. It does not display 90% odds but actually win 45% of the time like the equivalent in some OTHER games.

Although sadly EA *is* actually better with performance and UI/controls than Firaxis. It has to hurt that EA is better than someone at anything, except of course milking since that's their #1 top skill.

 

[lymond]

I used to have a lot of fun with Madden back in the day. I actually had an xbox controller for pc at one point just for that game. Heck, my early gaming was pretty much all about sports early on anyway. I was pretty ticked when they stopped PC, but now I don't play sports games at all. I could not imagine what Madden is like now. The last one I played had Vick on the cover. All I know is that if a company gets exclusive rights to a property then its often downhill from there.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I used to have a lot of fun with Madden back in the day. I actually had an xbox controller for pc at one point just for that game. Heck, my early gaming was pretty much all about sports early on anyway. I was pretty ticked when they stopped PC, but now I don't play sports games at all. I could not imagine what Madden is like now. The last one I played had Vick on the cover. All I know is that if a company gets exclusive rights to a property then its often downhill from there.

I feel like that's what happened with civ V. Unless Europa Universalis III or whatever is actually stiff competition, TBS offers no well known competition for civ that isn't long-dead (IE HOMM III and Warlords type TBS which smoked the civs of their concurrent times in many regards...heck warlords II has quite a few UI conventions better than Civ IV OR V, and it was released about 20 years ago!). Civ IV didn't have much competition either I guess, although at the time they were developing it they didn't know that I suspect. What if HOMM IV and V had been as great as III? I'm sure they asked themselves that at least once while making civ IV . Now, what did they ask while making civ V ?

 

[lymond]

It amazes me that V has been a financial success. Ofc, I preordered the darn thing, so there were a lot of suckers. A large portion of the fanbase jumped into it blindly spending 50 or 60 bucks and, ofc, were the ones most disappointed.

Ha, I mention Silent Storm and Desperados today as well as GOG.com (Good Old Games, if no one is familiar), and I swear GOG just announced their Summer Sale within the last hour. Those games are on sale as well as everything else. All DRM free. GOG is a great site to pick up the great oldies. I got HOMM III on their not long ago. Actually after watching your LPs. I had played HOMM V several years ago. I actually enjoyed it...well, the base game was pretty good to me, but the expansions were a bit lackluster.

(Oh..and if you create an account on GOG you can get Torchlight for free until Thursday. I don't care much for it myself, but heard it is a great modern Diablo clone)

 

[plastiqe]

Remember the 2nd expansion for Civ III, Play the World? That's when I stopped buying Civ games until all the expansions (and the good mods) come out.

We should just start a Civ Fanatics game company. Karadoc as lead programmer, lymond can design the tutorial and TMIT as Minister of Propa... in charge of marketing. Honestly if Jon Shafer can raise $100,000 we could get more. Or somebody tell Stardock to make a historical game next. They could call it Civilisation instead of Civilization.