New release: Ara – History Untold

By | September 25, 2024

4X fans and denizens of this forum have certainly followed the game, and today Ara: History Untold is finally availabe. It’s a 4X game very similar to Civilization, and while it has some features of the coming Civ7 (e.g. historical personalities as leaders with special abilities, and also an age concept), it makes many things different. It has nicely populated cites without a hex grid, production lines, and simultaneous turns. The reviews are in so far rather positive, with e.g. PCGamesN calling it “Overwhelming and enveloping, Oxide and Microsoft’s strategy game Ara: History Untold will steal hundreds of hours from you if you let it.“, although some note that it might not be something for beginners, as it can be rather complex. In general, it seems if you have played Old World, Humankind and Millennia, and you now want another fix until you get Civ7, then you should probably try it out.

The basic edition is available via Steam for 59.99, and we have set up a discussion forum for you here.

New Civilization guide – Han – Antiquity Age Civilization

By | September 24, 2024

Today we got some more info about the next civ in Civ7: The Han. The Han are a Chinese dynasty, with the Great Wall as unique improvement, the well known Cho-Ko-Nu as an unique unit, and they also get a civilian scholar unit, the Shi Dafu. Do you want to know more? Check our thread here!

Civ6 soon available at Netflix (yes, the game; no, not a movie)

By | September 24, 2024

As announced by various news outlets, e.g. The Verge, Netflix will be adding more games to their portfolio, including Civ6, among others.
Netflix has in recent years tried to get a foot into the gaming market, and has a small library of games, which they are slowly expanding. While many of them are casual games, they also include highlights such as “Into The Breach” and “Terra Nil”. The latest batch is certainly the most interesting ones for serious games, and it does not get more serious than Civ6! Discuss this new development with us here.

Which Civ VI natural wonder do you want to see in an upcoming challenge?

By | September 23, 2024

Firaxis is planning another monthly challenge for Civ6, and the next one will be including a natural wonder. And they want to know which one you want to see! Do you have an opinion? Then vote on Twitter, and discuss with us here.

Sullla’s AI Survivor Season Eight – Championship Game!!!

By | September 22, 2024

AI Survivor is an annual competition of all Civilization IV AI Leaders by long-time Civilization enthusiast and streamer Sullla.

Well Well, Herr Survivor himself, Winston Churchill of England, renowned for not winning but rather almost always not dying, won an unusually lengthy Space Victory. This game was two turns from hitting four hundred turns. Despite the length, the game had a lot of action and excitement as Churchill trampolined off the best starting position on the map to almost dominate the field. Domination appeared a certainty at one point, but Church gifted a bunch of cities from Mehmed back to their original owner, Sitting Bull. Interestingly, all three English leaders, Victoria, Elizabeth, and Churchill, won a game this season despite limited success previously, Lizzy and Church made the championship game. Qin of China backed into the second place spot advancing him to the championship. Qin did almost nothing of note in this game other than not die.

It’s that time folks! The Championship Game is here as Season 8 winds down to what should be a thrilling finish. This season has been fun and exciting, but certainly interesting too as we’ve seen unprecedented dominance by the more peaceful leaders. The championship game reflects that fact as only one leader, Qin of China, has a low peaceweight. Qin is the odd man out here with a high hill to climb to win and will likely be heavily favored as the first to die. For the final game, we get the pleasure of a unique custom map with mirrored resources, which means the leaders have identical starting resources. The map is shaped like a starfish with a large central area that eventually will be contested for expansion. Mansa Musa is the #1 seeded leader in AI Survivor. He should be favored in this game as well considering the balanced starts. However, a successful leader like Gandhi should be in play for victory, especially considering the overwhelmingly peaceful lineup here. Who will grab the spoils in China first? Can China actually survive here? Will we see a first-time champion? Or will Mansa solidify his overall dominance in Survivor? Be sure to make your picks in the picking context.

Sullla’s AI Survivor Season 8 concludes this Friday, September 27th on Sullla’s Twitch Channel at noon EST.

We welcome you to join the fun by discussing here.

Latest videos from the Civ7 streamers

By | September 20, 2024

Next to all the new information we got yesterday, also three different streamers have uploaded videos with some interesting information, which our moderator Eagle Pursuit has summarized.

Ursa Ryan has interviewed Ed Beach and Carl Harrison. In the interview, they mention that e.g. in multiplayer you do not have any restrictions which civ to pick for the next age. MP will also only have 1 map size (probably due to restrictions on some consoles), and hotseat is gone, although it may come in the future. We also got to know that some civs will be in all ages during the release, whereas some others will only get filled up in later DLCs.

Also boesthius interviews the both. Carl apparently misses the great people from Civ6, but thinks the civ-specific great people in Civ7 will be a great addition. Firaxis has also put a lot of work into flavouring the ingame narrative, with more than 1000 narrative events. And apparently Firaxis started with a prototype in Civ6, but could not do navigable rivers there, but this has lead to some code from the Civ6 gossip system being used for the narrative events.

Also PotatoMcWhiskey tried to squeeze some info out of the both guys. It seems that Sid himself is still involved in the work, so we can expect again a great Civ game! The diplo system was apparently very difficult, as they tried multiple implementations, but only the 4th one was satifsfactory. They also told some things about modding, that the basis is still XML files, and that we will get modding tools close to launch.

To get all the info, have a watch through the videos. You can discuss them with us here, althoug the one from boesthius has its separate thread here.

Old World update 128

By | September 20, 2024

Mohawk Games, the developers of Old World, have released the latest update for their game, and it is a pretty big one! This update includes 24 new events and 11 new items, two premade maps for 1-on-1 duels, a rebalancing of the tech tree and of the laws, updates to the AI and the Hall Of Fame, and polishing of the Carthagian and Agaean campaigns.

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, Steam, and on Stove.

Today’s Civ7 news: First look for Augustus, Oracle close-up look, and the first dev diary

By | September 19, 2024

Many Civ7 news today!

As first item, we now got an official first look for Augustus. As traits he is cultural and expansionist. He gets production in the capital for every town, cheaper purchases in every town, and better relationship with his own towns, but worse with the towns of every others. He does not have a starting biases. Check this thread for the discussion.

We got also a first close-up look for the Oracle, with all the graphical steps for its construction. Check the video here.

We recently also got the first dev diary! This first rather well written dev diary covers the biggest and most heavily debated topic of them all in the Civilization 7 community, Civ7’s new ages system!In the article they break down the reasons why they’ve made such a huge change change with the foremost being player disengagement in the late game (revealing an interesting statistic that more than half of all Civ6 players never finished a game), what changes per age, and what doesn’t change per age (ie what of your original Civ stays with you). Check our discussion here.