Civ IV Hall of Fame Update

By | October 28, 2023
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The Civilization IV Hall of Fame has been updated – 16 games were accepted since the previous update.

Congratulations to jnebbe for the highest score of the update with a Tiny, Normal, Monarch, Domination game for 379,533 points.
Noble Zarkon was the most active player during this update, submitting 6 games.

Only one player was brave enough to take on Deity this update:

Conquistador 63 – 1320 AD, Small, Normal, Deity, Cultural game for 90,473 points.​

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New Number One Entries:
A number of players gained number one positions:

ruff_hi with a 1810 AD, Standard, Epic, Monarch, Espionage game for 51,409 points.
Noble Zarkon with a 2050 AD, Tiny, Marathon, Prince, Time game for 37,043 points.
Gr8scott with a 1400 BC, Large, Normal, Settler, Conquest game for 15,100 points.

One player gained composite table High Scores (i.e. Any Condition):
jnebbe with a 940 AD, Tiny, Normal, Monarch, game for 379,533 points.​

jnebbe with a 580 AD, Duel, Normal, Settler, game for 151,030 points.​

​This month both Conquistador 63 and Noble Zarkon became Elite Quattromasters – Immortal (BTS).
ruff_hi became an Elite Quattromaster – Monarch (BTS).

Congratulations everyone! Come and discuss the latest update with us here.

Millennia: Feature Breakdown – National Spirits

By | October 26, 2023
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A new video about Millennia has been released.
This video is about national spirits, essentially themes, which shape your nation, and give specific bonuses. So your nation will develop through the game to have a unique combiation of traits, which can determine your playstyle and make each game unique.

Come join us here to discuss this video.

Old World update #115

By | October 25, 2023
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Mohawk Games, the developers of Old World, have released the latest update for their game. This update gives you a new ability for zealot generals, regencies have been reworked, tile improvement recommendations can be disabled, and many more things.

Discuss this update with us here (and read the full list of changes too).

Old World is currently available in the Epic Store, on GOG and Steam.

Ara: History Untold – Dev Diary, Ep. 08 – Testing a 4X Game

By | October 24, 2023
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Today, the developers of Ara: History Untold have released a dev diary about Q&A testing a 4X game.
In this video they talk about what aspects to prioritize for testing, how the interconnection of mechanics make testing complex, how leaders and nations are balanced, the issue of land sharks and more.

The source is here and you can discuss the video with us here.

PCGamesN: Firaxis job advert for position with “wealth of knowledge about the Firaxis portfolio of titles, especially Civilization.”

By | October 23, 2023
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PCGamesN has posted a new article called “New Civilization 7 details hinted by Firaxis job listing”.
The advert rather obviously indicates that the next part of the series is in development (as we know), and that Firaxis this time has a rather long-term plan, trying to develop a marketing plan for the next game for up to 5 years. This is somewhat longer than for most previous titles, for which the continued development was finished before even 3 years, and agrees with the recent late-stage developments for Civ6, including the NFP, the leader pass and current updates.
More worrysome is the line “understanding of games-as-a-service, virtual goods, and emerging technologies and trends,” which in worst case can be attributed to block chain, NFTs and loot boxes, and in maybe (not necessarily) better cases to AI content (as e.g. the last GalCiv4: Supernova edition has with AI generated aliens). Or simply any other future, not yet foreseen trend.
In any case, it seems that the next title will have a more focused long-term development than previous titles.

Read the full article here, and discuss it with us here.

Colonization: New release of megamod “We The People”

By | October 23, 2023
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The very popular Civ4: Colonization mod “We The People” has now been released in version 4.1. This version comes with, among other things, a new map size named “massive”, updates to the Russian and French translation and more background music. Check here for the latest release.

Humble Bundle: Sid Meier’s Ultimate Collection – available again

By | October 21, 2023
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The Humble Bundle has made again the Sid Meier Bundle (repeat from last year), containing a lot of our favourite games!If you pay at least 14.20€, you get

  • The original Colonization
  • Civ3 complete
  • Civ4 complete, including Civ4: Colonization
  • Civ5 complete
  • Civ: Beyond Earth – The Collection
  • Sid Meier’s Starships
  • Civ6 and all addons and DLC (besides the NFP)

As other minor games included are the early games of Sid, Sid Meier’s Pirates, Sid Meier’s Railroads, Covert Action and the remakes of Ace Patrol, Sid Meier’s Ace Control and Ace Control: Pacific Skies.

All keys are available via Steam for Windows, some are available for Mac and Linux. All donations coming from this Humble Bundle go to Trees, Water, People, a charity which has started by planting trees, but is now doing a lot more. The recommended price for this Humble Bundle is 25€, and we can’t say this would be too much for all these games, it’s rather too little for all the play time you get out of it.
This humble bundle is avialable for the next 14 days, until November 3. But get it now, and contribute to the already 1187€ which have already been raised for charity!

Discuss this Humble Bundle in our forum here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/humble-bundle-sid-meiers-ultimate-collection.675540/

RockPaperShotgun: The Rally Point: Why Alpha Centauri kind of helped when I had a breakdown

By | October 20, 2023
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RockPaperShotgun has released a new article called “The Rally Point: Why Alpha Centauri kind of helped when I had a breakdown“.
The title implies a very personal story from the author, but at the end it is actually purely about Alpha Centauri. The author praises the factions, the story, and the underlying AI, which made the game so very sympathetic.

An excerpt:

Most unusually, even today, is how helpful allies can be. Truly aligned friends will actively aid you. I’ve had several games where my armies defended allied colonies while their leaders showered me with free technology without prompting, or I bankrolled an industrial power as they bombed our enemies. It encourages less gamey thinking.

Read the full article here.