SID MEIER'S SID MEIER

[MARS]

Let's talk about that Sid Meier and how he's ruined our lives.

[Believe]

I've only ever played Civ II. (and Pirates! But let's not go there...)

When I was younger I used to waste hours and hours on that game... I can only imagine how much better the more modern ones are.

[MARS]

I used to play RailRoads! a lot, years ago. Then I got Civ V. My life hasn't moved forward much since then.

[Dark Spark]

That latest Pirates! game gave us a patent example of how the smallest update can change a game.

In the game, age is a factor: the longer you play inside the game, the less capable your character becomes. Truthfully, your character can become so decrepit that he'll never win a swordfight against anyone wielding a rapier...

That's the kicker: you have three classes of swords to duel with— cutlass, saber, rapier. Ascending order in speed, descending order in damage. In version 1.0 of the game, every boss your encountered used a cutlass. Hard-hitting, but slow. Even as a 100-year grampa pirate, you had a chance to save your family, your wife, and your honor.

Version 1.2 made one simple change: all bosses used a rapier instead. If you could not find the big bad in any reasonable amount of time, you'll never see 100% completion of the game. Your guy just gets too slow to win.

This one simple update lit a fire under the seat of every player: race westward against the wind to the Yucatan, or never see your entire family reunited again.

Kind of a buzzkill if you wanted to simply puddle about in the Caribbean with your brig named 'Morrigan' for a century or two.

[Taters]

I was given Civilization for the SNES one Christmas way back when. I think if you combined the hours spent on that and the next four games, you'd find I've spent literally years playing Sid Meier's games. Totally worth it, though.

Fun note: A few years ago I bought a compendium of the first four Civ games for the PC, and when I tried playing Civ I, I found it so completely different from the SNES version I had no idea how anything worked.

[dzio]

My brother and I pestered our parents to buy a hard drive for our first PC (it didn't have one) because the two games we really wanted to play were too big to fit on a floppy disc. One was Wolfenstein, the other was Civilization I.

[Musicman247]

I bought Civ V but haven't played it yet.

I'm guessing the hours in the OP graphic are total over all of Steam, not just Mars' play time since that works out to just shy of 857 years.

[DorostheConqueror]

He's ruined a lot of things, alright. Not quite as many as Will Wright, but he's been trying.

What I want to know is, when he is going to stop [&@%!] up the memory of Civ and release Alpha Centauri 2?

If you could not find the big bad in any reasonable amount of time, you'll never see 100% completion of the game.

But this was also how Pirates! TOS worked. Your sea dog didn't really lose stats as time went on, but you only had ten, maybe fifteen years to work with if you took the right trait (less if you didn't want to incur a health penalty on your rating). Not that 100% completion is really necessary - one of the coolest things about that series is it's open-ended nature, where you can set goals for yourself. But if you wanted to get a 100 Rating and be appointed King's Adviser, you had to hunt down your family as quickly as possible.

And the ship is a frigate named "Almagest".

[Generalno1]

Pirates was the first Sid mier's game i ever played. it wass brilliant.

i played CiV V for a while, but then steam randomly uninstalled the game from my system. haven't re downloaded since then.

[deathm00n]

I've played a little of Civ V via a version-that-should-not-be-named-on-these-forums. Now I'm waiting for a complete collection or something like that to buy it and play it for real.

Edit: The new DLC is more expensive than the base game, this is why I want a complete collection

[DorostheConqueror]

Pirates! was my favorite game on the NES. I played it so much, I actually wore out the save battery, but it was OK - I still managed to get 100 ratings in single Iron Man sessions.

[leroybrown]

Mars I told you, this is Papas Game.

[MARS]

Hidden:

[Believe]

So I went ahead and picked up Civ 5 yesterday. Only gone through the tutorials so far, seeing how different it is from Civ 2.

I like it. It's very different of course, but enough things are the same, or similar to, that I don't feel like it's a completely brand new game.

(I was highly surprised when I tried to use a couple of hotkeys out of habit, and they still do the same thing!)

[Redguard OfTheEmpire]

I tried civ V...was too different to civ IV, IF IT AIN'T BROKE DON'T FIX IT i say. I still spend hours on Civ IV complete

[VirtualWeasel]

Summation of Civ V AIs:

Dido is a backstabbing [&@%!]
Pacal will always be the [&@%!] who thinks he's better than you (and guess what, he probably is)
Catherine is afraid of all diplomacy
Egypt is that civ you don't find until you discover Satellites
Bismarck can win any game, any way he wants
China will ally with you, give you things, then kill you with nukes in 1453
Polynesia will never fight you, unless you really, really [&@%!] them off
Number one goal: Kill Gandhi before the Atomic Era

[Derp53]

Number one goal: Kill Gandhi before the Atomic Era

EXACTLY.... [&@%!] Gandhi, they say he's supposed to be a peaceful leader, but that's [&@%!]. Historical accuracy went out the window with Gandhi's AI.

[Generalno1]

Right? The guuy almost always threatened my borders, if I didn't give him the tribute he wanted, War!

[Derp53]

I never backed down from Gandhi, the first time was a draw with both my armies and his wiped off the map. The second time, he unleashed death machines on me after took the city housing his nukes. I got clobbered too, Then Atilla decided now was a good time for a land grab and put me in a two front position. The only thing that kept me alive was Ethiopia's defense bonuses.

[Believe]

Oh my god... I hate all of you now.

I started playing Civ V at around 3pm. It's now 2am, and I've only just quit.

I didn't even notice the time at all until midnight.

I really, really hate you.

Also, screw those Polynesian scrote-bags. Getting all [&@%!] all the time for no reason. I'm glad I wiped you out first. Although seeing Maori Warriors gave me a good laugh. Probably a good representation of NZ's actual IRL army.

[Derp53]

Really? Their normally pretty amiable, at least you don't feel guilty when you nuke Washington though, it's a video game but it still feels a little awful nuking my country's capital.

[Believe]

Well, to be fair I DID keep stealing their City State-Ally's out from under them... But they gave me useful bonuses.

[Derp53]

That's honestly not that bad, a skilled opponent would have proceeded to take back those city states or play a game of claim the city state. I completely sympathize with you there, I hate it when an opponent gets all flustered when you start playing subtly and decides "[&@%!] it, war." Have you met Atilla though? His logic operates like this "A city that isn't mine? WAR!"

[Iamgoofball]

Who needs nukes when you can get a victory at the early to middle sections of the game?

AKA, the Turtle-poleon tactic.

Step 1. Go Napoleon.

Step 2. Build culture buildings.

Step 3. Build the Great Wall for defense just in case.

Step 4. Build [&@%!] of wonders.

Step 5. Win the game.

Also, in regards to Citystates, ever have those times where the citystates own ALL THE [&@%!] IRON?

Yeah, fun times.

[Believe]

No I havn't met Atilla, from what I've heard I got lucky in not having any of the agro-civs in my game.

I think the only reason that the Polynesians got so [&@%!] off is cos I bought the same City-State out from under them about 6 times. (It's my first game, and took me a while to get to grips with how to keep them allied).

Anyways, they were stupid enough to eventually denounce me, so I decided to give up on my turtling strategy and beat the absolute [&@%!] out of them. And the Aztecs. And the Koreans. You want to follow the leader? Have fun following them into oblivion, dickbags.

Crossbowmen and Pikemen/Legions rule.