TB Fun

[Annonchinil]

Well I got Colonization from Steam and despite some problems have been enjoying it. I am thinking of picking Civilization 4 and BtS or GalCiv2 and expansions. Just looking to hear of what I can expect from those two games.

 

[OSK]

Civilization 4 is the best in the series. BtS only makes it better.

I haven't played GalCiv2, but I've heard nothing but good things about it.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Civilization 4 is the best in the series.

There's 84% chance you own at least one console, and 76% chance you play jRPGs. Am I right?

 

[Trash]

Civ 1 is and will always be the best in the series. Civ 4 is just like 2 and 3 more of the same with better graphics and some different balancing. Civ 1 was revolutionary.

 

[YourConscience]

'course was Civ1 revolutionary. Yet, Civ4 is the first really elegant and polished implementation of it! (Very much unlike civ3, which was horrible)

I only wish they wouldn't have gone 3D.

Other than that, civ4 is one of those nearly perfect implementations of a specific game idea.

I wish the concept that's represented by the game Majesty would receive such a perfect implementation.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

No. SMAC. Civ 4 was idiotic in it's political correctness and "hahaha funnay" attitude. Plus despite being fourth game in the fucking series, it's still same shit, just 3D(Which is much worse than 2D for a strategy game in almost every case).

 

[JarlFrank]

Civ4 is good, BtS makes it better, and there are countless mods which make it really awesome. Rise of Mankind is one of my favourite game-enhancing mods, and Fall from Heaven is a great fantasy mod that changes a lot. Civ4 is worth buying for mods only.

Also, if you enjoy the new Colonization... Civ4 is pretty similar to it, so you'll like it.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Civ4 is worth buying for mods only.

So it's worth buying because the fans made free content for it which actually makes it good?

What next, will you buy a picure frame for two million bucks and hope someone paints you a fucking Mona Lisa for it?

 

[inwoker]

Civilization 4 is the best in the series.

There's 84% chance you own at least one console, and 76% chance you play jRPGs. Am I right?

There is 99% chance you like suck cock, yes/yes?

 

[someone else]

We needs more Civ 4 Nerd Rage!

*cough*
Civ 4 is pretty good, I like it the most of the 4 series(though I barely remember 1&2, 3 is the worst). SMAC is weak in its AI, but otherwise worth buying, might want to up the difficulty.

 

[JarlFrank]

Civ4 is worth buying for mods only.

So it's worth buying because the fans made free content for it which actually makes it good?

What next, will you buy a picure frame for two million bucks and hope someone paints you a fucking Mona Lisa for it?

It's also worth buying because of the game itself.
With "worth buying for mods only" I didn't mean that the mods are the only reason to buy it. I mean that the mods are reason enough to buy the game, even if you think the game itself is rather meh.

The mods just manage to make a good game even better. I had a lot of fun with Civ4 BtS before downloading any mods.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

With "worth buying for mods only" I didn't mean that the mods are the only reason to buy it. I mean that the mods are reason enough to buy the game, even if you think the game itself is rather meh.

Which is like buying a frame yadda yadda

 

[JarlFrank]

Which is like buying a really awesome frame that looks good on your wall even without a picture inside it.

 

[inwoker]

Jarl, that is very postmodernistic of you.

 

[Disconnected]

Jarl, that is very postmodernistic of you.

Not that I'd admit to having done just that (this is the Codex after all, besides I have pictures on the walls too, both with and without frames), but can one be unintentionally post modernistic?

 

[inwoker]

Considering your nickname you are very post-modern.
As for me, in USSR post-modernism becomes you.

 

[AzraelCC]

I'm going to say it again--those who 'hate' Civ 4 are people who haven't actually played it (or at least, on a decent difficulty level). It IS the best of the series. It is not a revamping of 2 and 3. To say that proves that one hasn't played the game.

When you say SMAC, it isn't of the series, and is really a matter of taste. They're two very different games. I remember a while back one Codexer saying at tacticular cancer that Civ 4 was 'dumbed down' only later to start a thread trying to find the mod Fall from Heaven.

Oh, and to say Civ 1 and Civ 2 are better thatn Civ 4 is just nostalgia speaking. The less said about Civ 3 the better.

 

[Disconnected]

Considering your nickname you are very post-modern.
As for me, in USSR post-modernism becomes you.

Well shit. I thought my handle was funny.

 

[Desmodus Rotundus]

Considering your nickname you are very post-modern.
As for me, in USSR post-modernism became you.

fixed

Stop living in the past, the pile of shit that was the USSR is no more, and good riddance to bad rubbish I say

 

[OSK]

Civilization 4 is the best in the series.

There's 84% chance you own at least one console, and 76% chance you play jRPGs. Am I right?

I own a Nintendo DS. Does that count? And no, I loathe JRPGs.

There's a 95% chance you haven't played Civ 4 for any reasonable length of time. Am I right?

 

[PorkaMorka]

I've played Civ 4 for a looong time.

It's not that great.

SMAC and Civ 2 are better games.

SMAC is still arguably a better game, it's not close IMHO.

Civ 2 was arguably better when it came out, for improving the gameplay of the franchise. Civ 4 is pretty much only notable for refining the same old formula.

Civ 4 is really just more of the same; having already spent 100s of hours building very similar cities, the builder game was very stale by the time of Civ 4, and unlike SMAC, Civ 4 didn't introduce anything particularly new or interesting to building. Same old same old.

Civ 4 is also almost too realistic on the war front. Because of alliances and strong enemy defenses, it's rare to be able to have a limited war, if you want to war, you need to commit to it heavily. While that's all well and good when you're playing a warmonger, it pushes people who want to play a semi builder nation into going full builder, which is again boring as hell. In every other game I played a nation that built a lot but had some limited wars to keep things interesting, but in Civ 4 I typically did better just building and having only 1 war max. Boring.

I will give credit to Civ 4 for being the most refined version of the basic Civ gameplay, but that gameplay could use some new stuff to keep it interesting, stuff like SMAC had.

Plus, 3d is terrible for this kind of game, instead of neat pixel art for every new building, I got hideous polygons, that probably contributed a lot to me disliking 4's builder game.

 

[AzraelCC]

Civ 4 is really just more of the same; having already spent 100s of hours building very similar cities, the builder game was very stale by the time of Civ 4, and unlike SMAC, Civ 4 didn't introduce anything particularly new or interesting to building. Same old same old.

Maybe there wasn't any radical changes in the micro-level (improvements, buildings, etc) building aspect of Civ 4, being an amalgam of SMAC and Civ 2. Nevertheless, I think the real improvement for the builders that Civ 4 brought was that you actually have to time and place cities carefully, as opposed to the city-spamming inherent in the previous games. All the previous games in the series reward those who expand fastest. But with Civ 4, there is always the decision of whether to expand or not, and if the expansion is for a new city that has excellent potential for growth or a city that will secure resources (not only for the military, as opposed to Civ 3, but for health and luxury as well--which I think were given more priority than in previous games and a good decision overall). I think that is an important improvement, being it actually changes the core game design.

I will admit the late game still ends up being monotonous, and I think a problem you ahve with the game that I agree on is that cities do end up looking the same. But compared to Civ 2, I think there are a lot of improvements. Hence, being the most "refined" game in the series. Maybe for me, this is already equivalent to a better game. I tried playing Civ 2 again and I found it tedious, the AI weak, the diplomacy shallow. All in all, Civ 2 doesn't have too many options.

As for SMAC, maybe it is a better game in some respects to Civ 4. I still play it and unlike Civ 2, it holds up damn well. But then, SMAC isn't really limited by real-world allusions, so it can incorporate great gameplay elements such as customized units and social engineering. Meaning, the setting contributes a lot to its excellence. But for what Civ 4 tries to achieve--to give you the power to pretend you're guiding a real-world civilization from the dawn of time to the space age, I think it succeeds more than its predecessors.

I just hate it when dumbfucks like Emotional Vampire so easily say "it's more of the same shit" when it clearly isn't.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

I own a Nintendo DS. Does that count?

As two, actually.

And I played Civ 4 for quite some time. Amazing what you will do when you're trapped somewhere without Internet for prolonged periods of time.

 

[JarlFrank]

Akallabeth is a better dungeon crawler than Wizardry 8, because Wiz8 just refined the same formula while Akallabeth was really fresh and new when it came out. Clearly, Akallabeth has to be the better game.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Akallabeth doesn't have furries.