Civ

[Malcador]

I've always been Rome in the games, and play on Earth. Limits the content I'm exposed to I suppose, but eh, feels more fun on the "world" map - even though whoever ends up in NA ends up a powerhouse, for the most part, as they're alone.

[Humanoid]

Absolutely, play at a level that's "fun" - it's not dissimilar to Diablo 3's difficulty really: I don't play it personally but it seems silly to me that people complain about the highest difficulty as if they needed to play at that level to enjoy the game. In the case of Civ4, I could play and on occasion, beat up to Emperor difficulty (not with any regularity, and also bearing in mind I haven't played for over a year now), but at probably a 10% success rate. Further, by that point it no longer feels like an empire-building game but just ceaseless micromanagement, and I wasn't particularly enjoying it (or the long long losing streaks ).

 

In the end, the vast majority of my play is just at Prince level because it's where I have the most fun playing in the style I prefer to: alternate phases of conquest and consolidation before employing air superiority to win a delayed conquest victory. I play the occasional game on Monarch but usually don't as it's probably too harsh on mistakes for my relaxed ways of playing (I lose more often than I win still).

[Delfosse]

Forget Civ, get Europa Universalis 3 with all add-ons and play it till you're dead cause nobody's ever gonna make a better grand strategy. Be man enough to follow your dreams in the best game in the universe. That's what I'm doing.

[Tigranes]

I'm far from a good Civ player - I usually cant get beyond the first 3-4 difficulty levels - but unlike other games, I like going at it with no prior meditation or research on optimal builds and strategies, just seeing how I go and working out my own wonky solutions. (That, and choosing leaders for how cool they are.)

 

Europa Universalis 3, indeed, is probably the best strategy game we're likely to have for a long time, with or without Magna Mundi mod (though they're working on a commercial version of Magna Mundi). But it is definitely more complex. If you just like the paper-scissors-rock dynamics and Civ's DIsney style history, it has enough things to keep you busy for a long time; but if you feel like you actually want to play a historical game or build a realistic ejmpire of any sort, Civ doesn't work at all - go to EU3.

[Humodour]

Civ 4 still contains more than enough history to make you think twice about a lot of things repeatedly. Maybe it's those quotes each time you research a tech. So cool.

[Enoch]

Humanoid's advice is all excellent.

 

When I was in practice, I was generally a Monarch player. I could get a Monarch game into an "I'm probably going to win this one" situation more often than not. (At which point I often lost interest and started over.) Although I tended to be selective in starting situations. (Not so much in selecting for ultra-advantageous starting positions, but for the type of start that I felt like playing at the time.)

Edited June 6, 2012 by Enoch

[Monte Carlo]

Have read all your comments and am grateful. It's a steep learning curve and the mish-mash of cultural ideas is, TBH, grating. I was expecting factions to have distinct flavours as opposed to the Bronze Age 'English' developing Buddhism.

 

But onwards and upwards.

[Monte Carlo]

Forget Civ, get Europa Universalis 3 with all add-ons and play it till you're dead cause nobody's ever gonna make a better grand strategy. Be man enough to follow your dreams in the best game in the universe. That's what I'm doing.

 

Thanks. I'll have a look at that too, am in a strategy mood to Ying / Yang my fun (but utterly mindless) Diablo 3 fixation.

[zero_or_more]

Lot of things already said...

But one more: you can customize games in civ4 to your liking.

I like the espionage mechanic in eg. alpha centauri better, so I tend to turn it off in civ4 games whenever I play.

[Zoraptor]

Europa Universalis 3, indeed, is probably the best strategy game we're likely to have for a long time, with or without Magna Mundi mod (though they're working on a commercial version of Magna Mundi).

Looks pretty likely Paradox is going to can Magna Mundi the Game though. Not particularly surprising as it's miles out of step with nuParadox's publishing philosophy of "reimagining" other people's classics and making Magickaesque MP oreintated DLC delivery vehicles. They've gone from having my interest in just about every title they were making to me having even above slight interest in only two of them, inside a year.

 

If considering playing Magna Mundi the mod note that the Chronicles version of EU3 (base game with all expansions) won't play it at all, and it's problematic to get running if you get a steam version of eu3 as you have to take special measures andor not buy the final expansion due to steam's special snowflake behaviour wrt Paradox games' expansions. EU3 is a bit more 'realistic' than Civ- everybody has their proper religions, there are specific ethnoreligious units and government types etc- but it's still a fairly 'cartoon' version of history.

[Gorth]

If considering playing Magna Mundi the mod note that the Chronicles version of EU3 (base game with all expansions) won't play it at all, and it's problematic to get running if you get a steam version of eu3 as you have to take special measures andor not buy the final expansion due to steam's special snowflake behaviour wrt Paradox games' expansions. EU3 is a bit more 'realistic' than Civ- everybody has their proper religions, there are specific ethnoreligious units and government types etc- but it's still a fairly 'cartoon' version of history.

I haven't played MM since it was released for vanilla EU3 or some such a long time ago. At least I think it was the mod. In it's current form, I doubt it adds significantly to the game. Not saying it doesn't add value, but the game with expansions is already pretty darn good. Only thing from top of my head in really dire need of reworking is naval combat. Seriously, a sea battle taking 6 months of constant mutual shelling to resolve? I know artillery wasn't quite as good in the past, but seriously.

 

Not sure where the Magicka hate comes from. The game is awesome. So is Victoria 2, Crusader Kings 2 and Hearts of Iron III.

[Tigranes]

Magna Mundi does add significantly do the game, at least in its latest version for the game with expansions. I can't imagine playing EU3 without it now - there are so many more events, the game is so much more difficult, and in general it's no longer a question of blobbing and blobbing further carried on by your own momentum. I guess that's only the case if you've played EU quite a bit, but yeah, when you're pretty good at it, your empires start to behave more like an incarnation of Capitalism in its relentless expansionism unless you give yourself artificial house rules and checks.

 

Anyway, Crusader Kings 2 is awesome, but EU3 unmodded is probably best to start off on.

[Zoraptor]

I haven't played MM since it was released for vanilla EU3 or some such a long time ago. At least I think it was the mod. In it's current form, I doubt it adds significantly to the game. Not saying it doesn't add value, but the game with expansions is already pretty darn good.

EU3DW is just too 'cartoony' for me. It's a massive improvement from original release EU3 to be sure, but i just get rather sick of its negatives- things like Bohemia conquering its way to the Urals just about every game as it squashes the GH. The horde mechanics were a nice idea but the implementation showcases the worst of Paradox's patented 'stampede' gameplay. Without MM I'd never have bought any of the expansions for EU3, given the ludicrous state of EU3 at release I was about a day away from uninstalling it and using the install CD as a coaster despite loving EU2, but I installed the mod and suddenly Ming wasn't a gigantic blob invading France/ France wasn't a gigantic blob invading Ming/ the premier colonial power was not the Papal States and the other stuff vanilla original EU3 came up with.

 

On the other hand the mod tends towards clunkiness and heavy handedness (partly due to engine limitations and other uncontrollable aspects), and has more determinism than I like. That doesn't bother me personally because I've tweaked a lot of stuff to be more to my liking but it would certainly be a potential concern.

 

Not sure where the Magicka hate comes from. The game is awesome. So is Victoria 2, Crusader Kings 2 and Hearts of Iron III.

I don't hate it in much the same way I don't hate Halo, it's just a game and game style I'd never consider buying and fundamentally have zero interest whatsoever in. It's a convenient label for a type of game where the base game is clearly intended for cheap bulk selling to nondiscerning plebs as wide an audience as possible and as a hook for future dlc purchases. But yeah, grain of salt, Jilted Bioware Fan Syndrome.

 

The other three are paradox developed and two are older titles from before Paradox became nuParadox. Persoanlly I prefer CKDV to CK2 in its current state though CK2 still has all the potential in the world and (potentially) an absolute killer mod for GOT.

[Gorth]

Heh, my first Paradox purchase was the original Victoria from the bargain bin in a store. Paid $5 for it. Took a long time to get the hang of it. The EU games are masterpieces of userfriendliness and polish compared to that first experience

 

Never tried EU2 or earlier, nor the CK games before Tig's enthusiasm for CK2 rubbed off, so I don't know what they were like.

 

Rule #1 when playing EUIII is to disable lucky nations. Otherwise you end up speaking French before you can say "Pardonnez Moi?"

 

My first experience with EUIII (before the NA expansion) was quite positive. Only major turnoff was the very clunky merchant system (no auto send merchants to markets). Bought that one and EUIII: Rome as physical boxes at full price. Loved both despite their quirks.

 

...and yes, I also bought Magicka, Dungeon Defenders and Warlock - Master of the Arcane. The humour of the former two appeals to me and Warlock is a very neat little strategy/empire building game.

[Tigranes]

EU2 is excellent, and certainly as good as EU3 in a different way. I should reinstall it - it plays out quite differently from EU3 despite so many similarities. I think you'll like it Gorth.

 

I think EU3 In Nomine was very good - Paradox titles take a few patches to work things out and IN made some notable headway. I do remain ambivalent about HTTT and DW (xpacks 3 and 4), which I think dumbed things down a bit. (In HTTT you could use the 10-to-1 mechanic + succession % feedback for anything.) My favourite is probably EU2 modded up, or EU3 IN + MM.

[Delfosse]

By the Old Gods and New, apparently there's a total conversion mod for Crusader Kings 2 that converts the game to a Game of Thrones - the territory becomes Westeros and tons of other conversions. You start 15 years before the first book..... I'LL SAVE YOU NED!!!!!!

[Zoraptor]

I've mentioned that mod twice at least, including three posts ago. You won't have any luck saving Ned, it's set during the Robellion.

 

On EU2 it would be important to go into it with the foreknowledge that it is very deterministic in some aspects (eg Moscow will get sacked by the Poles in the C17th because that is what happened historically) and has a fundamentally different way of dealing with army reinforcement that will completely throw an EU3 style approach.

[Orchomene]

I think personnaly that EU2 is better than EU3, whatever the number of expansions or mods.

I don't know why, maybe because I've first played EU, then EU2 and when time came for EU3, the game wasn't that different and at the same time, lost most of the historical appeal to it : like non historical monarchs, leaders and events.

[Delfosse]

I've mentioned that mod twice at least, including three posts ago. You won't have any luck saving Ned, it's set during the Robellion.

Sure I can. Make Ned king and **** Lannisters up. That should do it.

 

On EU2 it would be important to go into it with the foreknowledge that it is very deterministic in some aspects (eg Moscow will get sacked by the Poles in the C17th because that is what happened historically) and has a fundamentally different way of dealing with army reinforcement that will completely throw an EU3 style approach.

 

While certain things happen, others don't. Paradox needs to hire historical phds and stop relying on history school teachers. Found 2 major historical errors just yesterday and I'm not even a historian.

[Undecaf]

After reading this thread, I had to re-install civ IV. And I cannot tell how much fun it is (both compared the V, and as standalone) - I have a recollection that I had burned myself out of this, but it seems I haven't. Fun thing is, I can't really name what's better in this than in V, but the difference in interest is staggering; I went 5 hours straight in IV while I had gotten bored in 1.5 in V.

Edited June 8, 2012 by Undecaf

[Zoraptor]

I think personnaly that EU2 is better than EU3, whatever the number of expansions or mods.

I don't know why, maybe because I've first played EU, then EU2 and when time came for EU3, the game wasn't that different and at the same time, lost most of the historical appeal to it : like non historical monarchs, leaders and events.

I probably prefer vanilla EU2 (and certainly EU2-AGCEEP/ FTG since it modifies/ provides plausible alternatives to a lot of the 'this happens now because it happened now!!!!' type determinism) to any vanilla EU3 as well, but going from EU3 to EU2 is potentially quite a significant change in philosophy for someone who likes EU3.

[213374U]

So little love for Victoria ITT. P'dox weekend on Steam means 50% off so I think I will finally get around to giving Vicky2 a try.

[Zoraptor]

Vicky II is good, it's a fair bit more streamlined than R/Vicky though that is certainly not a drawback for a game that was as complicated (and unnecessarily so, really) as the original. I'll be picking up the expansion from Gamersgate as they have a matching sale to the Steam one and getting blue coins plus avoiding The Great Satan are extra bonuses.

[Gorth]

Vicky II is good, it's a fair bit more streamlined than R/Vicky though that is certainly not a drawback for a game that was as complicated (and unnecessarily so, really) as the original.

The original was a bit like an exercise in strategy and cryptology

 

I never got the hang of that one, but it didn't stop me from buying EUIII when I spotted it one day a long time ago walking past an EB Games store.

 

Not sure if it was the interface or just the lack of introduction that didn't prepare you for the learning curve. I bought V2 not that long ago and just grabbed A House Divided during Paradox's current sale. It can line up in the queue of games that waits for me to eventually get around and play them