The third update for Millennia has been released. This update brings some convenient changes, like having a restart option in the game, custom game settings, including the strength of barbarians, a new map type, one new nation, and a raft of other things. For all the changes please check our thread here.
Today, Mohawk Games has released the latest DLC for Old World, “Behind The Throne”.
This DLC brings new characters, 350 new events, new projects, and most interestlingly new gameplay mechanics. This includes characters who might be competing with you as a leader, a grand vizier who manages your cities better (or doesn’t he?), new political eras, civil wars, and much more.
For the release, the DLC has been discounted by 10%, from 9.99 to 8.99.
The base game, as well as the bundle with all DLCs, is also on sale, for 27.99 instead of 39.99, and 57.14 instead of 94.94.
Get the base game at Steam, Epic or GOG, and the new DLC here at Steam, Epic or GOG.
Discuss the new DLC with us here.
Also curious to know more about the background of the DLC? The latest edition of the Mohawk podcast features developers Jeri and Dale along with superfan Emergent discussing the new Old World DLC Behind the Throne.
Give it a listen at Spotify, and discuss this podcast episode with us here.
AI Survivor is an annual competition of all Civilization IV AI Leaders by long-time Civilization enthusiast and streamer Sullla. Each AI leader is seeded based on past performances. The competition occurs over several weeks. Each AI competes in the early round phase with the top two finishers of each game (usually 6 leaders) advancing to the playoff round. Additionally, surviving leaders enter a wildcard competition to fight for remaining playoff spots, a particularly interesting game with raging barbarians. The playoff rounds proceed until the championship finale where this season’s top leader is crowned.
Sullla’s AI Survivor Season 8 begins Friday, May 31st on Sullla’s Twitch Channel at noon EST.
We welcome you to join the fun by discussing here
It’s Sid Meier’s Colonization’s 30th anniversary and CivFanatics have put together a big tribute covering some of the best fan projects going on at the moment including Col fan mods & remakes, Col fan communities, Col scenarios for Civ, similar games to Col, and lots of other Col related stuff. Be warned it’s a big read, but a good one for Col & Civ fans. Check it out here.
IGN has today published an article about a recent study, called “Gamers Are Becoming Less Interested in Games With Deep Strategy, Study Finds”.
This study, which was performed by a market research institute, was focused on the motivation of gamers, and has recorded data over the last 9 years. This data is based on a 5 minute survey, which more than 1.5 million gamers have filled in. It contains 12 “motivations”, such as following the story or the joy of destruction. Most of them have stayed stable over the last 9 years, but the strategy part took a big dip. This means that compared to 9 years ago, the average gamer takes now less interest in components of games which require you to think ahead or to tackle difficult challenges. This trend seems to apply to men and women, and is visibile world wide (besides China, which was excluded during the analysis).
The study points out that it’s not possible to determine the cause of this, but that in the meantime the average attention span of people have decreased. They also mention as alternative explanation that the state of the world got worse, and that people rather prefer to relax than to be challenged.
They also ask the audience at the end a few questions, namely:
What Do You Think?​
- Why do you think gamers have become less interested in strategic thinking and planning? Are there other potential causes that come to mind?
- Do you feel your attention span and ability to think deeply has changed since the emergence of social media and/or smartphones?
- Are there other documented changes in our media-consumption habits or cognitive metrics that you think might be related to this?
- Have you seen similar or related findings specific to gamers and games research?
You can read the article by IGN here, the original study here, and obviously we want to know what you think here.
The mid-month Civ4 GOTM brings you messages from the far east: You play as Qin Shi Huang of China on a standard size Earth2 map with tropical climate and high sea level on Prince difficulty. The sea levels are rising on this planet, and you have until June 30 to escape it. For more information please check this thread.
As various outlets such as Polygon and GamingOnLinux have reported, the title “Endless Legend” is currently free on Steam until May 23. This includes the base game without DLC, which are currently discounted.
Endless Legend is a turn-based 4X game, so definitely something for us, and was released in 2014. The setting is not historical, but in a fantasy world, where you do the usual 4X things such as building cities, infrastructure and armies to conquer the world. The fantasy races have all their own unique play style, so this game definitely offers some variation. Get it now, and conquer a fantastic realm!
Our moderator EaglePursuit has closely checked the quarterly report of Take-Two games, and has noticed an interesting detail, which has been further supplemented by social media: On June 7 Take-Two will announce another title from the Take-Two core titles, which belongs to one of its most beloved franchises. While this could mean Civ7, the fan base of the Mafia games is expecting an announcement of Mafia 4 as well. If it is now not Civ7, then the earliest possible release will be in 2025. For the discussion please read here.