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dry cereal
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Post by dry cereal » Fri Nov 04, 2005 9:46 pm

I played, for a LONG time, kingdom of drakkar:

free MMORPG: www.kingdomofdrakkar.com

Also played runescape for a while, but man is it BORING.

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mintcollector
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Post by mintcollector » Fri Nov 04, 2005 10:04 pm

Well looking at my copy in hand here in front of me I was happy to see that Firaxis did Civ IV, and since they did Civ 3, this has definite promise. I am really interested in the customization feature of the game. The game supports XML and Python mods. also having Religion introduced into the game should provide for some more political strife. Also customizing goverments is a really cool feature (civic options). A quote from the game box:
Imagine a communist regime with freedom of the press - or a republic without it.
Narration by Leonard Nimoy is also cool. I will be camped out on my pc tonight playing!!

Dilligalf: Those minor trinkets are not worth the wait...must play now!

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psrex
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Post by psrex » Fri Nov 04, 2005 10:07 pm

So, continuing with the Civ thread --

I haven't played (or seen) Civilization since the original Civilization game. Are the new versions significantly different or better than the original?

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Post by flatmatt » Fri Nov 04, 2005 10:22 pm

psrex wrote:So, continuing with the Civ thread --

I haven't played (or seen) Civilization since the original Civilization game. Are the new versions significantly different or better than the original?
I haven't played a Civ game in a long time, but I've played the original and Civ II. In my opinion, Civ I was actually more enjoyable. Civ II was indeed substantially different and more complex, but there was something about the simplicity of Civ I. Maybe I just like the game easier. :wink: Wish I still had the install disk...

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Post by mintcollector » Fri Nov 04, 2005 10:41 pm

flatmatt wrote:
psrex wrote:So, continuing with the Civ thread --

I haven't played (or seen) Civilization since the original Civilization game. Are the new versions significantly different or better than the original?
I haven't played a Civ game in a long time, but I've played the original and Civ II. In my opinion, Civ I was actually more enjoyable. Civ II was indeed substantially different and more complex, but there was something about the simplicity of Civ I. Maybe I just like the game easier. :wink: Wish I still had the install disk...
If you recall Civ I was from the MS_DOS days and the game will not run directly under Windows if I recall. You would need a DOS emulator to run it in.

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Post by flatmatt » Fri Nov 04, 2005 10:50 pm

But it could still be done, though the point is rather moot without the game in the first place. :(

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Post by Dilligaf » Fri Nov 04, 2005 10:58 pm

i got started on CivII
Civ III was like a whole new game, but partly because Atari bought the rights and created a practically all new engine from scratch.

After CivIII Firaxis bought the rights BACK from Atari for a cool million flat, now.. apparently.. Civ IV is the best game they ever made. It has everything that made CivIII amazing, with the simple complexity of CivII
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Post by mintcollector » Fri Nov 04, 2005 11:15 pm

psrex wrote:So, continuing with the Civ thread --

I haven't played (or seen) Civilization since the original Civilization game. Are the new versions significantly different or better than the original?
I feel that the newer Civs are greater than the original. Here are many points why:

Military is tied to the civilization overall and not a specific city: This feature fixed the problem where you might have one city that was able to produce a lot of units, but since they were supported from that city, unhappiness ensued as the units were moved away.

Civilzation Characteristics: Each civilization not only has a special unit that they and only they can produce (ie German Panzer), but also has charateristics that only apply to them. For example the Americans are industrious and expansionist. Industrious nations produce extra shields as cities grow versus non-industrious nations. Expansionist civs can build scouts which can move 2 tiles a turn versus 1 with a warrior (terrain movement scales apply). There is a pretty wide list of all the charateristics built into the game

Culture: As of Civ 2000, culture was introduced into the game. Structures like temples, universities, and cathedrals would also produce culture. The way culture works is that a new city will work only the tile it is built on and the direct surrounding 8 tiles. As a city's culture points hit 10, the city's influence area will expand allowing you work more tiles. The next level to expand is 100, then 1000 and so on. Only up to 2 tiles away in any direction can be directly worked on, but a city's infleunce will continue to expand. When opposing nations have expanding culture boundaries against each other if one is superior to another there is a chance for the inferior cultured city to rebel against the mother nation and switch sides. This diplomatic maens is another way to win the game. Culture also defines your civ's sphere of control. Enemy miitary units can enter this area, but do not get any road or rail bonuses. You also can ask an opposing government to remove forces or declare war. If a civ also declares war in this manor, they also loose face in the eyes of the global community.

Improved Diplomacy: They have added so many features to diplomacy like trading world maps, so batering technolgies for money and trade goods , and also allows more espionage type missions to be performed.

Trade Goods: Sometimes special items will exist on tiles on the world map, like grapes (wine), gems, spices, etc that allow cities built and/or connected to them to gain the abilities they provide. Luxuries help quell civili unrest. Certain production type goods like iron, coal, or uranium are needed to build certain units or terrain mods like railroading. These goods can be imported and exported as part of diplomatic negotiations.

Small Wonders: Like great wonders of the world, small wonders will give a civ bonuses based on the type produced. The big difference is that each civ can build one and there is not the one limit per world for small wonders like on great wonders.

Unit Hit Points, Experience, and Generals: As units survive combat they have a chance to gain experience and gain increased statuses of combat experience. Also all units have hit points associated with them and a 'regular' unit wil have 3 hit points on it. Higher combat ranks will add hit points to a unit to represent their combat seasoning. As combat ensues units will fight one another comparing attacks and defenses to calculate the battle outcome. Units can either come out unscathed, damaged, or destroyed. Like Thunderdome, one man enters and another leaves, only one unit will survive combat. Damaged units can pass on movement and self repair where they are or enter a city and repair quicker or even fully in one turn if a barracks is present. Ships are special though as they need to enter into a city that has a harbor to be repaired. Expert units also have the chance to produce great leaders. A great leader can be moved into a city and hurry a non-great or small wonder or be used to create an army. Armies can have 3 regular units added to them to create one larger uber force, or army as the name really fits. Armies can lay waste on a city much quicker than separate units can and can usually get past entrenched hard to kill defensive units common in Civ 1. Armies also add all units hit points together to create a larger 9+ hit point bar.

There are so many more features, but I noticed the time and have to go.

I highly suggest in getting the game if this seems intriguing at all as you WILL have a blast. It did not wein game of the year for no reason.

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Post by psrex » Fri Nov 04, 2005 11:30 pm

Thanks very much for the reply about the differences. It sounds very interesting and I may have to pick it up. I absolutely loved Civ when it came out, but then dropped out of computer games as Quake and some of the multi-player shooting/strategy games never got me interested. Some of my all-time favorites are Lode Runner, Ultima IV and Civ. This sounds like a good way to spend some cold winter days -- which will be coming all too soon.

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Ralph Herold
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Post by Ralph Herold » Sat Nov 05, 2005 3:44 pm

I have played hundreds of games in their entirety, and a lot more without completing them which was common for games back in the time where I played on my Commodore 64. Many games were endless, but I defined for myself that I had beaten them when they restarted themselves or when they stopped getting any harder. In general, role-playing games thrilled me the most. For example, I played and finished the entire Ultima series, including both Underworld parts, most parts of the Might & Magic series, and the vast majority of (A)D&D games ever made. (TerraFrost: I liked the first part of the Krynn trilogy, Champions of Krynn, best.) There are lots of vivid game moments, and I can not seriously pick out the one I enjoyed best, but for example I will never forget the intense apocalyptic ending of Final Fantasy VII which was beyond any measure. Nowadays, I rarely play. Magic has become too dominant a hobby to leave enough time for the very time-consuming hobby computer game playing is.

Since Civilization has been a topic here, I can share that I played part 1 and 2 many times. I was more interested, though, in playing Master of Orion part 1 and especially part 2. It is a shame they ruined part 3.

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Post by TerraFrost » Sun Nov 06, 2005 1:25 am

Ralph Herold wrote:(TerraFrost: I liked the first part of the Krynn trilogy, Champions of Krynn, best.)
I would have liked to have played that one, but the only ADND 2nd ed PC games I was ever able to find (back when I was playing them) were Secret of the Silver Blades, DKK, and DQK. I've since bought a CD anthology off of eBay that contained 9 ADND games, but haven't yet had a chance to play them.

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Post by Ralph Herold » Sun Nov 06, 2005 1:54 am

TerraFrost: If you feel really nostagic, you can still give it a try. There are good emulators for most game systems available online.

By the way, I remember Secret of the Silver Blades. It was the third part of a Forgotten Realms quadrilogy: Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, and Pools of Darkness. The best part was that you could transfer your party from game to game. Even though your equipment was seized every time, you had quite powerful characters to start with. Out of these, I liked Curse of the Azure Bonds best. It continued the storyline from Pool of Radiance, and you were again confronted with Tyranthraxus (spelling might be slightly off), a demon of sorts which was somehow bound to the Pool of Radiance. Secret of the Silver Blades had a rather independant story, so you should not have missed anything by not playing the prequels.

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Post by Dilligaf » Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:41 am

my copy of Civ 4 came today.. so see you all next week.
Never argue with an Idiot, they will drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.
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