Steam News: PC Gamer UK podcast

[Morningcalm]

On Steam under Civ 5, there was news that this podcast talked about the Civ 5 AI. I've been listening for a while, and finally heard them talk about Civ 5 near the end (about 3/4 through, after they announce they will discuss Twitter questions and one of them says "yay" in response).

Podcast here:
http://mos.futurenet.com/video/pcgamer/podcast/PCGamerPodcastNo45.mp3

The podcasters have nice English accents, but sometimes it can be hard to hear what they're saying due to their habit of talking over each other and muttering.

They do ask how Civ 5 compares to Civ 4, "does it feel as important as Civ 4" and how Civ III wasn't as well loved as Civ II.

They also mention:
-Civ 5 is fun.
-Hexes rather than squares was a "smart decision"
-They do find the game very easy (they mention the AI). "AI is so fundamental to everything they do" that it will probably be fixed/patched/etc by Firaxis, they assume. But they also mention that Total War and Civ's AI in multiple installments "hasn't been perfect" and that it sometimes felt like the AI had not played the game they were designed for--casual fans notice AI flaws more now than they did in previous years they said.

Given the podcast is around 2 hours long, they barely mentioned/discussed Civ 5, but there you go. Thoughts? Comments?

 

[PieceOfMind]

Can you please give the exact time of the discussion in the podcast? Or was it not possible because you were streaming it?

 

[Morningcalm]

I couldn't see the minutes when I was hearing the podcast, and yes, I was streaming it. When I clicked "Download" it just went to a separate webpage with the QT version. :S

I think a podcast that might be better to highlight is Tom Chick's Quarter to Three podcast discussion which is dominated by Civ 5 for the second half: http://www.quartertothree.com/fp/2010/09/30/qt3-games-podcast-slantz-and-civilization-v/

Basically after the discussion he said he'd give Civ 5 a B not a C. Scott Lantz, who he was talking with, mentioned how the Social Policies were not supposed to be tech tree esque but a mixture of a collectible card game with RPG-style talent trees, which I think was interesting.

Tom Chick was fair enough about the game to discuss both the good and bad with Scott--he said he LOVED the city-states, and strategic resources, and how they gave the map life, while nitpicking on the UI and the AI.