PolyCast 412: When We Thought It Was Over

By | February 6, 2023
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The four-hundred-and-twelfth episode of PolyCast, “When We Thought It Was Over“ is now available for streaming on ThePolyCast.net. This episode features regular co-hosts CanusAlbinus. Stephanie “Makahlua”, Phil “TheMeInTeam”, and Jason “MegaBearsFan”. Topics for this episode include:

News
– 00h03m39s | Civilization VI Leader Pass Announced.
– 00h17m14s | November 17th Developer Livestream with Focus on Julius Caesar
– 00h34m15s | Amplitude Announces Together We Rule Expansion for Humankind.

Miscellaneous
– 00h41m11s | Soren Johnson Tweets About Being a Civ Designer.

NOTE: This Episode was recorded on November 19, 2022.

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.

Play the new Civ3 “Game Of The Month” #162+189

By | February 5, 2023
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And also our Civ3 “Game Of The Month” is still going on!

As usual, you get 2 different GOTMs, one for the “Conquests” expansion and one for the “Play The World” expansion.

For the “Conquests” GOTM you play as queen Elisabeth of the English on an Archipelago map. The Pyramids have been replaced by Stonehenge, and you get dragoons as UU, and more defense for the Man-o-War. You have until March 31 to navigate the H.M.S. Britannia to glory. For more information please see here.

For the “Play The World” GOTM you play as Temujin of the Mongols on a large pangaea map with raging barbarians. There are several small rule changes, e.g. granaries now being named yurts. Also here you have until March 31 to lead the Golden Horde to world domination. For all info please see here.

Civilization 1 – “Yet another clone” offers Civ1 functionality on modern PCs

By | February 4, 2023
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Long time Civ fans already know the problem: You cannot get the original Civ1 anymore, and using the original on a current PC will be very hard, due to the changed requirements.

But there is someone to the rescue! User dom111 has been working on an implementation which you can use on your current PC (or smartphone, as it seems). The project is a work in progress, many things are buggy, some are not implemented, and obviously this is a hobby project, so progress on these things isn’t always fast.

In addition to this you will need to own the original Civ1, because the graphics are sadly not freely available, and “Yet another clone” will use the graphics from the original Civ1 installation.

If you want to read more about this project, then please join us in this thread.

Sequels in Strategy Gaming, Part 1: Civilization II

By | February 3, 2023
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Jimmy Maher of The Digital Antiquarian has written an article on the emergence of game sequels breaking them down into two categories, the fiction-driven and the systems-driven, using Sid Meier’s Civilization II as a good example of the later. Jim then deep dives into telling the story of how Bryan Reynolds created Civilization 2 and how he overhauled each core aspect of the original Civ1 game such as combat mechanics, AI behavior, significantly increased techs/units/buildings/govs, as well as adding new features such as scenario support, the cheat system, and the live action video high council. He also discusses Civ2’s legacy and how it lives on today as some peoples favourite Civ game still, the famous “Eternal War” savegame that went viral a few years back, and how you can still run Civ2 on modern systems in any resolution you want.

Read the full article here, and discuss it with us here.

Thanks to blake00 for the summary.

Play the new Civ6 “Game Of The Month” #152

By | February 3, 2023
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And also February gets another “Game Of The Month”! This time you play as Catherine de Medici (Magnificence) of France on a huge “continents & islands” map on King level. The map is wet, with abundant resources and a legendary start, but you need to deal with barbarian clans. You also need to achieve a culture victory, and prevent anyone else from achieving another one.

You have until March 1 to bring French glory to the globe! For all information, please see this thread.

Inkulinati – When Dogs Had Swords – released today (February 1, 2023)

By | February 2, 2023
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A strange curiousity in the world of turn-based games has been published: Inkulinati.
This game is set in a medieval setting, drawn like medieval paintings, and features turn-based battles with all kinds of animals-gone-knight figures.
This game is not a 4X, and features exclusively battles in a crazy medieval world. It might be of interest for some of our tacticians, who like unconventional settings.
The video above is a review from TurnBasedLovers, and you can also read a review from GOGConnected here, which concludes with:

But I wasn’t counting on how strong the actual strategy game is. This is the first release from Yaza Games, but they seem like a team with some fresh ideas and the vision to implement them. Daedalic Entertainment publishes a lot of novel strategy titles that fail to hold your attention for long. Inkulinati earns its place in your library with its depth.

Inkulinati is currently discounted, down to 22.49.

Let us know here in this thread if you have it, and how your opinion from a civ-fanatics point of view is.

PCGamer: Civ 6 streamer figures out how to win without founding any cities in ‘extremely impressive’ video

By | February 2, 2023
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Twitch streamer boesthius has taken up a very special challenge: Play as Qin, and don’t settle any cities. This was obviously a crazy and tough game, but he succeeded! This has even caught the attention of PCGamer, who wrote an article about this here.
A blurb from the article:

The whole video is worth watching. Boesthius made the challenge look easy, but it really wasn’t, it required speed, knowledge of the game, and more than a little luck. It was so formidable, in fact, that the official Civ 6 YouTube account even commented “ok I’m not gonna lie this was extremely impressive” under the video, while the rest of the comments are split evenly between amazement at boesthius’ feat and horror at his apparent masochism.

So… what do you think? Crazy? Interesting? Are you up for the challenge? Discuss with us here.

Civ4 Hallf Of Fame update

By | February 1, 2023
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The Civilization IV Hall of Fame (a collection of the best user played Civ4 games for any setting) has been updated – 6 games were accepted since the previous update.

Congratulations to @Peteyboy for the highest score of the update with a Standard, Normal, Noble, Domination game for 138,767 points.

@Peteyboy was the most active player during this update, submitting 4 games.

No player was brave enough to take on Deity this update.

Congratulations to NickTrofimuk for winning G-Minor 268 with a date of 1580 AD.

​** New Gauntlets Starting **

G-Major 185 – Domination, Monarch, Ancient, Small, Any Speed, Pangaea, Egypt (check options)
G-Minor 269 – Space Colony, Warlord, Ancient, Standard, Normal, Terra, (check options)