CivII - Best game ever.

Still learning GalCiv

~SDC~

Eh! Seems I forgot to mention GC, witch is in my top 2, can't decide if it's better than Civ II. But those two are the best, even though MoO2 has the best UI of them all.

chess is my fave

~SDC~

Fuels Chief - you seem to be playing many of the same games I do. I was a Civ junkie for years, beta tested civ3 and helped with 4 mods got totally burnt out on it. Civ 2 was the best empire game ever!!

I enjoy many types of games, Space Empires is one of my favorites besides Galciv. I like mainly empire building games for strategy gaming and racing games for the most enjoyment. RPG have always been a good time but require to much attention.

NeoTech Games Network http://www.neotechgaming.com galciv fansite where friends and players meet. If a game can be Modded it will be at NeoTech as that is what we are about Game Modding and Game News.
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First and Foremost and still on HDD:
- Battle Isle II
- Ufo: Enemy Unknown (Maybe also known as "Defiance")

Others I loved to spend nights on, most of them finished at least on "normal" (no particular order and by far not complete, I´m just remembering):
- XCOM: Apocalypse (other XComs bored me)
- Battle Isle Series + some Expansion Packs
- HOMM Series (except Part I) + some Expansion Packs
- M.A.X. I
- Civilization Series + some Expansion Packs
- Alpha Centauri + Expansion Pack
- Ascendancy
- Birth of Federation (though it bored me after a short time)
- ...

Plus tons of turn-based classics on C64 and Amiga, even RPG´s like The Bards Tale.

Never liked real-time "strategy". Never !
"You know where to click ? Be Quick" looool

The Bard's Tale was AWESOME on the C64. Played 'em all through completely. Unfortunately the PC versions were somehow made with a lot less love for detail.

I also liked Wasteland, although i never finished it. The Fallouts have not quite the same "feeling" (lack of words for what i mean).

I also enjoyed Ralph H.Reeds Mechforce on the Amiga. There is a PC compiler including a version of this game around, but this version is so full of bugs that it's not worth playing.

Sigh...

You got it ! Bard´s Tale is considered one of my all-time classics. I took a brief look into C64 Version of BT1, but then played all on Amiga Version, finished only the first one (part II and III I had to retire - not clever enough for the strange riddles I guess :p)

State-of-the-uncommon-art Hack´n´Slay *smile*


Oh... I forgot to mention another series:
Fallout I + II ! That rocked the ground. Anarcho-style RPG with turn-based strategic moves (fighting / lock-picking).

Yes, the Fallouts where great, too (though not the same as Wasteland)!

...as long as you played the english versions. The german ones were heavily censored (i'm told. And Fallout I was a bit short. BUT nevertheless they were great games. There should be more RPGs in a post-apocalyptic setting.

Right now i'm a bit in Restricted Area, but that gets boring pretty soon. The character development is really great, but there are not enough different enemies for my taste. It's more like a few basic gfx with different names, colours and stats.

I´ve to pretend I don´t know Wasteland nor Restricted Area. (:( Yes shame on me !

Sadly it´s common to have butchered german versions... anyhow there has been a slight shifting in the official´s opinion over the past years when to cut a game for our market. Still weird... some titles containing a bunch of violent impressions are free to obtain, others not :notsure:

Wasteland was around roughly the same time as Bard's Tale III on the C64. It was also from Interplay, and used the same combat system, but for movement you walked around like in the old Ultimas. It had an expansive skill system, very uncommon for that time. There were some hints at Wasteland in Fallout I.

Restricted Area is mainly Diablo in Shadowrun-/Neuromancer style. http://www.restrictedarea.de/news.shtml

Test Drive was on the index. Test Drive! Because you could outrun the police.... LOL LOL

I think if the game is butchered depends mainly on who of the officials gets to see it first. But some games are not worth playing anymore after censoring (e.g. Phantasmagoria).

Do not get me wrong, i do not need lots of blood and gore to like a game, but if a HUMAN has green blood i'd prefer if wounds are not shown at all.
Or if (like in Fallout II)whole missions or chapters are left out, because if you FAIL your quest (and who lets that happen?) something dreadful happens.
...or if your screen suddenly goes blank and a text is displayed "A werewolf gnaws on a corpse..." (instead of a movie or pic)and then the game resumes, or the screen just goes blank and the game crashes... (Phantasmagoria).


If i learn of such a thing in a game, it is reason enough for me not to buy it at all. Give me just numbers (...hits for xy points of damage...) and no blood at all - or the whole thing. But please nothing in-between with bugs included for free.
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ROFL ! LOL

Yeah I can understand you pretty well... that´s the reason why I recently bought the US Version of Resident Evil 4 and not the PAL one. It´s got nice guts flying around but not too exaggerated... however I thought... they NEVER release THAT Game uncut in Germany... I was right, in some extent... they took out some bonus games as well as they cut a few cut-scenes (Nomen est Omen loool LOL )

But Test-Drive is indexed ? Das verdient nen extra Tusch liebe Leute ! Ist ja nur Hammer !

Galactic Knight,

if you're thinking about joining an empire, the Dark Moon Empire is always open to you.

Ja, unsere FSKler übertreibens halt manchmal...

Bei Filmen sind sie in der letzten Zeit allerdings nicht mehr so scharf.
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I appreciate your invitation, but don´t want to take action yet.
Besides Mr. Spook already asked me to join their´s, right at his first reply to my introduction - seems to be competition here collecting newbies.

What´s the special functions and advantages of Empires anyway, except for just competing against each other ? Special hints, Bonus material or more ?


Naja, die Jungs von der Prüfstelle haben halt Ihre Vorgaben, und die haben sich ja vor 2-3 Jahren auch noch mal geändert. Ich denke aber schon dass die mittlerweile wissen was die zu tun haben, obwohl ich nicht immer deren Meinung bin aber sicherlich häufiger als unsere 14-Jährigen kleinen Compi-Helden.

Apropos Compi:
Ich koof´mir heut nen neuen
Dann kann ich auch mal endlich die "neueren" PC-Games anspielen die n bisken mehr Leistung benötigen und bin auch schon gewappnet für GCII
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As far as i know there's no special benefit concerning the game itself if you're in an empire.

Apart from that you have the benefit of getting to know some of the other players better, to be in a community so to say.

That there are other empires recruiting right now is more like a coincidence i believe. The Dark Moon is a newer empire, it has not been around for long. StarFleet is one of the biggest here (if i'm right).

I also watched the empires for some time and then deceided to give it a try on my own.

The idea to actually invite people to join came just a few days ago...

Yep. A new machine.... Sigh...
Mine came to it's limits with Doom3, i could play it on highest gfx fluently, except for the levels with ground fog, where i had to change the gfx setting.

Mine even came to it´s limits with Fallout2... And going out with my office laptop isn´t ever the best solution.

Concerning empires: Let´s handle this in the other topic (think about the subject of this topic and how it evolved now... )

Did you try that Fallout Strategy game? Don't know it's name right now...

No I did not. But I know what you mean. But as I´ve been told, it ain´t got the quality as it´s predessors.

As it is often the case with sequels....

MOO 2
CIV 2

Didn't like MOO3 or Civ3

I think Civ3 was spoilt because the developers listened to a vocal, minority.

Looking forward to Civ4 with mixed feelings.

SOUNDS LIKE Ap & gc2!

BTW, hello Dark Lady!

Hello all old-timers!

Was thinking my question should probably go into a separate thread but I don't think you guys will mind.

Which of your turn-based strategy favourites have really impressed u with respect to AI?

I'm going to replay GC but are there other TBS strat games that have outstanding AI?

Unfortunately, sooner or later you find AI glitches to exploit in every game...

But i liked that of Alpha Centauri (although it was sometimes a bit on the passive side...)



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Hello Ray,

as you know the AI always reacts to the same pattern in every game, in that case you quickly find methods to exploit it´s "weaknesses". In most cases a harder difficulty results in an advantage for the AI by having more items right at the beginning (which you have to research or build at first), and there will be a more advantageous multiply factor for the different calculations.

As for that instance I recommend you to test "Battle Isle II", which does not follow this rule since there is only one difficulty level. Surely you will find out rather soon how the AI reacts in common depending on the situation given. Anyhow, since there is a lot of military stuff the AI MAY always react different. If you do a mistake, the AI will let you see it. Fortunately the maps are default and you can learn if you screwed.

Of course, you need to like those kind of strategy games, it´s quite chess-like...

I know I've played either Battle Isle or Battle Isle 2 (and History Line IIRC) from Bluebyte and I did enjoy it.

Like you said, it's like a chess/puzzle game. I seem to recall that on some maps, you need to make a particular move with a particular unit to crack that map.

Yeah, "artificial intelligenge" is rather limited at the moment so my expectations aren't that high.

I had a lot of fun recently with Romance of the Three Kingdoms IX from Koei (only available in Chinese and Japanese). When I started, I chose max difficulty (opponent gets x3 firepower) and was delighted when I was crushed within 5 turns. But after playing for a while, I'm able to cope comfortably with this level by learning the AI's patterns.

As long as the AI of a strat game is able to mount some kind of a coordinated attack on me and threaten to clean me out, I'm happy.

That´s the point, puzzling how to solve a certain "problem" might be fun if everything is well organized and you´re up to it.


Well, Battle Isle 1 and "History Line" followed the same pattern (History Line´s setting was 1st WW), with split screen where one was "moving" and the other one taking various actions, always changing turn by turn. And BI 1 had nice adrenaline-pushing soundtrack

BI 2 had a completely different console, and they abandoned the split screen so that in one turn you could first move and directly take actions with every single unit. There were far more improvements implemented like resupply chains for fuel, building resources and ammo, several wheather conditions which may change often during the game (heavy impact!!), different heights (special jets and subs), various minor default "factions" which may cooperate with or against you and and and...

I can recommend Battle Isle 2 in any case !

Another interesting game to test might be M.A.X. (Mechanized Assault and Exploration). That´s a mixture of B.I. 2 and some elements of any "civilization" game.