And we are getting another interesting release – AlexanderBall: A Countryball Tale.
Also this game is a historical turn-based 4X game, where you play as Alexander the Great. As in other games, you also recruit armies, fight turn-based hex battles, build your cities and conduct diplomacy. But, the twist, all characters and units are not humans, but country balls! The graphics are accordingly nice 2D drawings, and look nicely comical as expected.
The game is currently available on Steam for 12.79€, and you can discuss it with us here.
Play the new Civ5 “Game Of The Month” #239
Ands you obviously also get a new Civ5 GOTM! This time you play as Askia of the Songhai on a standard size Sandstorm map on Emperor level. You need to win via culture victory to reign over Dune… er… this sand mass, we mean. The deadline is March 15. You can find all the info here.
Imperiums: Greek Wars – Rise of Caesar
Imperiums: Greek Wars is a historical turnbased 4X game, so the right thing for the Civ-fanatics crowd! You play (not surprisingly) in the era of the ancient Greeks, and you try to dominate the mediterranean with one of the Greek (or other) factions, by conquering, exploring, and building up your empire. This game has been released for a while already, but now the new DLC “Rise Of Caesar” is available, changing the setting to Rome, and giving you two campaigns to conquer Gaul and the British Isles.
The game is currently on sale, with the base game discounted by 66% to 10,19€, the new DLC is discounted by 10% to 17,99€. And there is a free demo available for the base game too!
Play the new Civ4 “Game Of The Month” #268
With the nearly-valentine’s edition of the Civ4 GOTM we’re sending you to England. You’re playing as Victoria on a standard size canals map on Prince level. This game has random events enabled, but you could pick the challenger options on Emperor level without. No matter what, the deadline is April 1. For more information please check here.
Millennia: Steam Nextfest demo available longer, until February 19
The dem of the new (semi) historical 4X game by Paradox games is available for 1 week longer, until February 19.
The demo will be single player, and you will be able to play at maximum 60 turns up until the 3rd age. This allows you to explore the age system of Millennia, which allows you get into alternative history, giving overall more interesting options for the game.
You can discuss the demo with us here, and also read more info at ParadoxPlaza.
New Civ6 monthly challenge: The Head Of Cyrus
For nearly Valentine’s Day Firaxis is giving us a new monthly challenge: The Head Of Cyrus. You play as Tomyris on a duel size hot and arid inland sea map. You get Barbarian clans, and you must win via Domination against an obvious foe. You have the option to play on Prince or Emperor level, and the challenge runs until March 12. For more information please check this thread.
Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri 25th Anniversary Celebration – Fan Film Series, Game Remake & More!
To celebrate Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri 25th Anniversary this week talented fans at CivFanatics have been creating some excellent SMAC content for us all to sit back and enjoy the read below!
Firstly UniversityBase has just released the start of a stunning short film series retelling the story of University faction leader Prokhor Zakharov’s journey to Alpha Centauri. The CGI & animation work is outstanding and Civilization fans will also get a kick out of this as the video begins with the Civ1 intro sequence that started it all for us all those years ago! This is only the first episode so there’s more to come too!More info here.
Secondly ZombiVoziKombi has created a lovely high quality audio & visual album of all of SMAC’s cutscenes, audio & visuals curated and presented under different categories (eg factions). More info here.
Thirdly Axis Kast & MysticWind are continuing their huge SMAC Fan Fiction Photo Essay project producing pages of fascinating info about the planet, the factions, and their leaders. Seeing all the cool images they collect often takes us right back to those first moments landing on planet. More info here.
Fourthly nj666 has continued work on his excellent open-source OpenGL/SDL2 reimplementation/remake of SMAC recently releasing a new version with functioning multiplayer lobby & connection, however despite his rapid progress there’s still a while to go before it’s fully playable. More info here.
Fifthly there’s been plenty of other cool SMAC related things going on over the last year such as the continuation of…
induktio ‘s Thinker Mod: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/682321/
bvanevery ‘s AI Growth Mod: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/687238/
SMAC Scenario Repository (curated by Darsnan ): https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/452400/
Damjan’s AI images: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/682859/
Lastly sadly the beloved AlphaCentauri2.info resource website for all things SMAC has been down for a few months now due to technical problems out of it’s owner Buster’s Uncle ‘s control. The decades of excellent content on that site is irreplaceable so we hope BU can get it going again eventually. In the meantime we’ve got a thread on CivFanatics keeping an eye on the situation.
More info: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/687822/
Well that’s everything we know about! If you know of something else awesome and SMAC related from recent times that we haven’t covered then please let us know in the comments and if it’s your project please make thread about it so we can follow your work! Happy anniversary SMAC fans! Join us here for the celebration!
Polycast episode 427: “First SMAC of the Year”
We’re back! After almost half a year of un-planned hiatus, the four-hundred-and-twenty-seventh episode of PolyCast, “First SMAC of the Year” is now available on streaming on YouTube. This episode features regular co-hosts CanusAlbinus. Stephanie “Makahlua”, Phil “TheMeInTeam”, and Jason “MegaBearsFan”. Topics for this episode include:
News
– 00h03m28s | Civilization VI Symphony in Korea
– 00h11m33s | December 2023 Challenge of the Month: The Seven Seas
– 00h16m02s | Open Source Alpha Centauri Remake
Forum Talk
– 00h21m00s | Alpha Centauri as a Self-Healing Tool
– 00h28m50s | The Best Civ 6 Wonders According to TheGamer.Com
We are currently having technical issues preventing us from updating the ThePolyCast.net website, so the most recent episodes are not available there (yet). We hope to have this resolved soon, and to get the website updated. Also, I want to apologize for the lengthy hiatus, and for the radio silence on our part. We kept intending on returning to our regular schedule, but factors outside of all of our control kept forcing delays. We hope that’s all behind us now, and we will do our best to maintain our regularly-scheduled programming.
NOTE: This Episode was recorded on 6 January 2024.
PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production recording live every other Saturday at 12 Noon US Eastern Time throughout the year, in an ongoing effort to give the Civilization community an interactive voice. You can discuss this polycast episode with us here.