And the new round for the mid-month GOTM for Civ5 is starting now! You play as Ramkhamhaeng of Siam on a large continents map on King level, and you must win via a domination victory. You have until December 15 to get through this challenging start! For all the details please check this thread.
Due to the popularity of our monthly “Game Of The Month” and our Hall Of Fame, it seems that Firaxis has decided to copy the concept and will provide a monthly challenge for a while now also on Steam (our monthly game is also available for Epic store customers though), where you can earn Hall of Fame badges. The first challenge is called “The Age of Abundance” and you play on a standard size continents map as Pericles on Prince level. You start with 2 cities and 1000 gold, and you get abundant resources. The deadline is 1 month away, December 12.
The game ZEPHON looks like another rather interesting scifi ‘Civ like’ 4X turn based strategy game on the way due to for release in 2024. It’s being created by Proxy Studios who made the popular ‘Civ like’ Warhammer 40K: Gladius and Pandora: First Contact games and similar to those games you start out on different alien planets giving it a bit of a cool Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri & Civilization Beyond Earth feel, and perhaps a bit of a Age of Wonders Planetfall feel too. These worlds are apparently filled with “eldritch horrors and cyberpunk monstrosities” which sounds fun, and there’s already a playable demo out too.
Links & more info: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/686436/
The strategy streamer GamerZakh has made a new video, about all the amazing new 4X games which have been released this year.
The video covers many games of interest for us, e.g. Songs Of Conquest, a HoMM like game, Revival: Recolonization, a post-apocalyptic Civ game, Yield, a cute-looking post-Roman-Era 4X, Ara, Millennia, and many others. He also speculates about Civ7.
Do you agree with Zakh, that one of them could be the new king of 4X? Let us know!
Our moderator Eagle Pursuit has dug up another curiosity: The Civilization Youtube account lists a “video is hidden” among its trailers (see here, on top). What does this mean? New content for Civ6? An announcement trailer for Civ7? We don’t know! Come speculate with us here.
And we are now at the 10th dev diary for Ara: History Untold.
In this episode the devs talk about the AI behind Ara, and they talk about software engineering, that the AI in 4X games is among the hardest, how randomization, e.g. the availability of resources play into how the AI behaves, and way more details.
Check it out, and discuss it with us here.
For this month’s GOTM we strive for great things: You play as Rameses II on a standard size inland sea map on Prince level. Your goal is to win via a culture or diplomatic victory, but you need to avoid the biblical plagues (disaster level of 1). You have until December 2 to build the pyramids and all other wonders!
For more info please check this thread.
Our moderator bite has again taken up the humongous task of creating a full map for another game, this time for Old World. On his site he has noted down all cities, tribes, natural features such as mountains, rivers, volcanoes, etc, to create an all-encompassing map of this game. If you want to see how big the “Old World” is, then check out his website here and discuss with us here.