Category Archives: General

General news items

Polycast episode 428: “Freedom?”

By | February 18, 2024

The four-hundred-and-twenty-eighth episode of PolyCast, “Freedom?” is now available on streaming on YouTube. This episode features regular co-hosts CanusAlbinus. Stephanie “Makahlua”, Phil “TheMeInTeam”, and Jason “MegaBearsFan”. Topics for this episode include: News– 00h01m54s | Ara History Untold game overview– 00h21m23s | Ara History Untold dev diary: “the 6Xs”– 00h34m54s | January 2024 Challenge of the Month: Robot Revolution… Read More »

Podcast: “Legacies of Ancient Persia” with Leyla Johnson

By | January 26, 2024

The Pourdavoud Institute for the studies of ancient Persia is running a podcast called “Legacies of Ancient Persia”. In their latest episode they have interviewed Leyla Johnson, and talk about her middle Eastern background and obviously Old World. Leyla tells how she loves history (and to talk with Soren about it), how the interviewer got her 84 years old father… Read More »

Ara: History Untold: Dev Diary, Ep. 15 – Insider Program

By | January 19, 2024

And we are now at the 15th dev diary for Ara: History Untold.This time the devs talk about gaming history, mostly of 4X. Apparently Oxide sits close to MicroProse, who developed the first Civ games, and many of their employees also once worked there! They also talk about that the term 4X is itself from 1993, coming from… Read More »

Happy new year from CivFanatics!

By | January 1, 2024

Happy new year from CivFanatics, we wish everyone a majestic year! Picture source

IGN: 2K Reveals Civilization Mobile Game, Moves to Calm Concern It May Impact Civilization 7

By | December 6, 2023

Fresh news from IGN, discuss with us here. The summary of the news article is that an already existing mobile game called “Conquests and Alliances”, a mobile 4X game, is being re-branded as “Civilization: Eras & Allies”. This does not affect the main work on the next Civilization title, which by a Firaxis spokesperson is explicitely not called… Read More »

On Being Stuck in Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Promise of Freedom in Historical Games

By | December 5, 2023

The Value Foundation, an academic research foundation focusing on research on gaming, has posted on Twitter that 2 researchers from Leiden University have published a new research manuscript about Civilization! The research is featured in the journal of digital games and associated phenomena (DIGRA), and titled “On Being Stuck in Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Promise of Freedom in… Read More »

RockPaperShotgun: Strategy games are no longer limited by the “stigma” of being “Smart Man’s Games”, says Ara developer

By | November 16, 2023

RockPaperShotgun has released a new article called “Strategy games are no longer limited by the “stigma” of being “Smart Man’s Games”, says Ara developer.” In this news article the author talked to the devs of Ara: History Untold about the history of 4X. They comment that in the earlier 2000s the strategy genre was more of a niche… Read More »

GameHistoryOrg: 87% Missing: the Disappearance of Classic Video Games

By | July 11, 2023

The video game history foundation has posted an article, which is not about Civ1 or Civ2, but still in the current context very relevant. The article describes that 87% of historic video games (range 1960-2009) are currently not available at all. While many games can be bought on online platforms like Steam or GoG, the vast majority, nearly… Read More »