Age Of Empires III (definitive edition) free trial!

By | August 4, 2023

As we just saw on Mastodon, it seems that Steam is giving us another free goodie: A part oft the definitive edition of Age Of Empires III is free to play on Steam. You also get one of the small DLCs for free, the cosmetic Lizzie pack. This trial does not contain the full game, but only 3 factions which will be rotating, as well as one of the campaigns and a part of the MP. Please check for details here, and discuss this trial with us here.

Play the new Civ6 “Game Of The Month” #164

By | August 3, 2023

And also for Civ6 we get you another summery GOTM with a tropical feeling! You play as Nzinga Mbande on a standard size wet and hot pangaea map on King level. You need to win this game by either culture or diplomacy, in the fastest way. You can sweat through this game until September 3.

For all details please see this thread.

City Growth in Ara: History Untold

By | August 2, 2023

The developers of Ara: History Untold have posted a blog post on Steam about city growth. They describe how cities grow and expand: You can build new buildings to increase growth, but you also must manage food and other resources to sustain the city. Depending on your management performance, either immigration or emigration will happen, leading to more or less citizens. For all the information please read the post here.

You can discuss this upcoming civ competitor with us here.

Play the new Civ5 “Game Of The Month” #226

By | August 1, 2023

We continue our summer GOTMs by going to a favourite holiday destination: Greece. This time you play as Alexander on a large continents map, on epic speed and on Prince level. You need to achieve a diplomatic victory, but all other victory types are enabled. You have until August 31 to unite the world.

For more information please see this thread.

Can you make an anti-imperial empire game? The 4Xperts behind Civilization, Syphilisation and Victoria 3 discuss eXperimental 4X design

By | July 29, 2023

Eurogamer has published a new article with the title “Can you make an anti-imperial empire game? The 4Xperts behind Civilization, Syphilisation and Victoria 3 discuss eXperimental 4X design“.
The mentioned “4Xperts” are Civ5’s Jon Shafer, along with Nikhil Murthy, the designer of Syphilisation, and Ryan Sumo, who is working at Paradox for Victoria 3 and Europa Universalis IV. And as it turns out, these three know each other and are friends, as it is not uncommon in the game dev scene.
In this interview, they talk about the challenges in 4X games, how some of the concepts are intertwined with ideology (especially of imperial/colonialist idelogy), and how 4X games don’t only have to be about strategy, but can also tell a story (not necessarily the Civ games, but e.g. the Paradox games, or as we know, Alpha Centauri).

An excerpt from the interview:

Jon: Edwin, you mentioned Endless Legend, and I think to compare that to Civ – in Civ, there are expectations for what a game about history should be. And if you start changing the script a lot, then you’re not really delivering on that, in the same way. Whereas in a fantasy game, or a science fiction game, as a designer, you can go wild with the rules, especially from the base Civilization formula. You can push that in certain directions, but making it so that, say, only certain civilizations can declare war, for what Civilization is trying to do, it doesn’t really make sense.

It definitely feels like on the historical side, there’s a lot of potential to explore human relationships and politics and the tensions between people trying to compete and cooperate, how that plays out. If you’re trying to stick to a more traditional formula, being a little bit more interesting in your setting or your themes, can kind of open up the space there. It’s interesting with a historical game, you get a lot ‘for free’ in a way, but also the expectations for what you’re going to do are more specific.

Nikhil: I’m actually gonna push back a little bit there. When I started making Syphilisation, I made it a group report instead of having you actually decolonize India, putting you into the game as the Indian National Congress or something. Because all of our history games are like alternate history games, right? It’s not like there’s a 6000 year old Gandhi, watching over you from 4000 BC, choosing everything the country does [as in Civilization]. The reason I didn’t implement it as decolonizing India directly is that then there’s a possibility space I didn’t feel qualified to implement. I don’t have an answer to the question of what if the Indian independence movement was more violent? What if Jinnah had taken over the ANC leadership in the 1920s? I just don’t have answers for this.

You can read the whole article here, and discuss it with us here.

Humankind Scenario Challenge 11: Aurigan Summer

By | July 27, 2023

Amplitude have posted a new scenario challenge for Humankind!
This time you get a cross-over from Amplitude’s space game Endless Space, and you must leave ravaged planet to find a new home.

The official description is the following:

The Aurigan Summer Scenario Challenge

Auriga, home to such iconic factions as the Vaulters, plays a key role in the unfolding story of the Endless universe. It’s a beautiful planet, but also a dangerous one. Wracked by cataclysms before, the world seemingly recovered, only to spiral towards destruction once more. Can you lead your people to find a way to escape or to survive the increasingly hostile environment, even without the help of the near-magical powers of Dust?

How to play the scenario:

  1. Download the save AuriganSummer.ctr
  2. Place the save in “/Documents/Humankind/Save Files”
  3. Load the save labeled “AuriganSummer” in game
  4. (optional) If you want to submit a score to the leaderboard, check this post

Scenario Conditions

  • Victory Condition: Most Fame at game end
  • End Condition: Space Race, Endgame Technologies
  • Game Conditions: Nation difficulty, Fast game speed, no DLC or mods
  • Leaderboard Submission Deadline: August 28th
  • Leaderboard Ranking: Fastest Victory, tiebreaker by Fame

We hope you’ll have fun building a glorious city full of wonderful structures!

For the official post please click here, for all information please click here, and join us here for the discussion.

Old World update #111

By | July 27, 2023

Mohawk Games, the developers of Old World, have released the latest update for their game. This update includes an option to set the city density on the map, an option to customize your leader, and many smaller things like bugfixes and UI improvements.

Discuss this update with us here (and read the full list of changes too).

Old World is currently available in the Epic Store, on GOG and Steam.

Civ IV Hall of Fame Update

By | July 26, 2023

The Civilization IV Hall of Fame has been updated – 8 games were accepted since the previous update.

Congratulations to @SittinDown for the highest score of the update with a Standard, Normal, Noble, Domination game for 111,172 points.
ruff_hi was the most active player during this update, submitting 3 games.

New Number One Entries:

A number of players gained number one positions:

Alexfin with a 980 AD, Standard, Normal, Monarch, Diplomatic game for 91,549 points.
Firmlife with a 1540 AD, Huge, Epic, Prince, Espionage game for 27,755 points.
ruff_hi with a 1838 AD, Small, Epic, Noble, Espionage game for 31,681 points.

New QM/EQMs

Congratulations to Firmlife for becoming an Elite Quattromaster – Settler (BTS) and a Quattromaster (BTS). Congratulations to ruff_hi for becoming an Elite Quattromaster – Noble (BTS) and a Quattromaster (BTS).

To discuss this update please click here.