Warning: Do not play Civilization IV

Sweet, I hadn't heard about that expansion, I'll have to check it out.

I thought the setting on the old Civilisation games for Cheating was just a check next to cheat mode in a pull down menu.

Rome Total WAr is probably the best strategy game ever released, not counting Chess.

I love it so.

LF

Well, to be fair, the real-time battles in the Total War series are not the same species as your RTS games. They play out... well, like real battles. You can't "zerg rush" or "outproduce" your opponent, and it usually takes a few minutes for your armies to get close enough to fight... and if you don't have the bulk of your tactical planning done by then, you're in deep trouble.

Culture Dominance in 1923 @ Prince Level for the ultimate challange. Hell of a game I just played, didn't have a single confrontation, five other civs in here too.

Heh, its good if you can get it to run correctly.

Actually, the game I find highly addicting right now is "The Movies".

Hmm, that might be okay then, as long as its strategy and not twitch based. I just don't like the idea that most RTS games employ the need to "twitch faster" to win tough fights.

Rome Total War is definitely the thinking man's strategy game. After playing it, you get really sick of the other games in the RTS genre, what with the endless treadmill towards the endgame, or the "rushes", or whatever. It all boils down to pure strategy; very zen and Sun-Tzu.\

Whereas traditional RTS games usually employ simple rock-paper-scissors techniques to counter strategies, RTW can be infinitely more nuanced.

Great example: A traditional Greek army during the Roman period was comprised mostly of quick, weak calvary and line after line of heavily armored pikemen (the classical Phalanx position). Greek city strategies were generally slowly moving in formation up to the enemy, then stabbing them from their 20-foot pikes until one side or the other was dead. Very boring. Their only weakness is being flanked from behind, as they become totally vulnerable.

But! If you add in a pile of archers behind them, their flanks protected by more pikes, you can have a veritable walking fortress on the battlefield, assuming you can keep it together in formation.

This has worked for me forever... I rarely lose with that formation, unless the odds are stacked heavily against me (hello, elephants).

As to lightning reflexes... the fastest I've seen an engagement happen was 30 seconds after the round started, but that was only because they were positioned accidentally close to one another.

A typical battle takes anywhere from 3-4 minutes to actually get the engagements going; prior to that it's mostly positioning and jockeying for position.

I gotta tell ya, the Total War series of games has probably the more tense moments in my gaming career... playing a 2-on-2 seige battle, having your ally get run off the field, and still managing to save the day with a few extra horsemen and some archers is a rush not to be missed.

I cannot sing enough praise of RTW. We should start an online tourney or something.

LF

There is only one Civilization... the original 1989 PC version. I still play it, and although I haven't tried Civ IV yet, it's still my favorite. Civ II plays like a bloated, unbalanced expansion pack... Civ III is just crap.

I've never really liked those types of games. I guess I don't have the patience to play it.

Most of Eggy's posts can be summarized as "IT WAS BETTER IN THE OLDEN DAYS"



LF

Master of Magic > oldschool Civ.

it's like, "take all the unbalanced silly stuff in Civ, and do it all ON PURPOSE."

invisible flying War Galleons for the win!

Mine did that without cheating.

and by the way.. Civ IV is on my Christmas list.. I CAN"T WAIT!! WOOHOO!!

Well yeah. I like ancient VGA games. Sue me
I am also quite fond of a 1999 game called Sacrifice... anyone here ever heard of that?

LOL! MoM rocked. I was quite fond of those champion halfling slingers super-hyped up with white magic spells.

Speaking of old games, i've been playing Earthbound on my snes emulator. (I was too stupid to buy it when it came out ) Oh I love it so much... I hope they hurry up with the sequel, and bring it over here when they finish it in Japan.

Earthbound was really cool... the final battle scared the crap out of me.

I guess none of you have played the Civilization board game?

I tried it once in college. At the 17 hour (straight) mark, it was fairly clear that this one guy was going to win, so, as the 3rd most powerful country, I forfeited and gave all my holdings to a weaker opponent. This drastically changed the balance of power and the game went on for many more hours (I won in my mind because I got to go to sleep).

Darn! I didn't want to play it until I read that!

I bought that for ten bucks once. Interesting game, kinda hard to control though. I liked the concept of fighting over souls.

LF

I like Sacrifice. It is really cool. I was on the last level and then my system crashed. I never reinstalled it on my new system, but now I think I might dig it out. It's not so hard to control once you get used to the camera controls and the formation keys.

I'd forgotten about Civ4 until I saw this thread--I wasn't expecting much from it, but it sounds pretty good. The only game that still keeps my attention is Alpha Centauri, and that's something I'll play for 2 or 3 days, put away for two months, pull out again, and so forth.

Maybe Civ4 can tide me over until Spore is released.

I REALLY want to buy Alpha Centauri w/expansion, but it isn't in stores anymore and I never remember about it unless I'm walking through video game stores (otherwise I'd order online-- and no, I won't right now because I don't feel like that would be a good move for my sanity).

I ALWAYS choose the fascist regime. I love how the theocratic regime has a technology penalty from the get-go. I always try to kill them off first because they are effing psycho.

I think what I like most about that game are the cut scenes they stole from Baraka.

Me too!!
I can't believe I missed that game when it came out. I've never played it and people tell me it's really cool.