Play the old Alpha Centauri “Game Of The Month” games!

By | March 2, 2023
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The “Game Of The Month” has a tradition in the Civ series, which even goes beyond it: Alpha Centauri once also had a “Game Of The Month” (GOTM)! Buster’s Uncle, the admin of AlphaCentauri2.info has been so kind to collect all of these savegames and their descriptions, and has uploaded them here to our Alpha Centauri scenario thread (created by Darsnan). So if you feel like trying out a classic challenge for a classic game, then have a look at the 15 newly added scenarios here. E.g. the image in this announcement belongs to the GOTM of December 2014, and you play sister Deidre, who starts with more landing pods than usual on a planet with dense cloud cover and abundant planet life. Your goal is to win via the Ascent to Transcendence Secret Project in the smallest number of turns.

Curious? Check out the thread!

Civ IV Hall of Fame Update

By | March 1, 2023
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The Civilization IV “Hall Of Fame” has been updated again! The Hall Of Fame is CivFanatics’ continuous competition for the highest score. You need to play with the “Hall Of Fame” interface mod, and then you can hand in any of your played games, and achieve the high score among all CivFanatics!

This time 19 games were accepted since the previous update.

Congratulations to Furchtbarer Halbmond for the highest score of the update with a Standard, Normal, Immortal, Domination game for 298,700 points.
SittinDown was the most active player during this update, submitting 7 games.
Only one player was brave enough to take on Deity this update: Noble Zarkon – 2755 BC, Duel, Marathon, Deity, Conquest game for 49,985 points.​

New Number One Entries:

A number of players gained number one positions:
Peteyboy with a 290 AD, Small, Quick, Prince, Domination game for 77,236 points.
donsig with a 2050 AD, Tiny, Normal, Warlord, Time game for 10,947 points.
Firmlife with a 1110 AD, Huge, Epic, Settler, Espionage game for 24,822 points.

You can discuss this update with us here.

Folk Emerging – a prehistoric 4X announced

By | February 27, 2023
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We got asked to help get out the word about this game, and we’re happy to do so, since it looks interesting.
“Folk Emerging” is basically game which brings you to the point where our beloved “Civilization” starts: At the point where Civilization starts.
This game is about controlling a band of hunter-gatheres on a turn-based hex field. You need to research new technologies like making fire, clothing or tents. You also need to deal with the hostile fauna, gather food, and develop societal norms. Your band of humans will need to develop the skills necessary for starting a civilization, and will need to explore the lands around them.
Overall this game looks like you should play first a round of this, and afterwards a round of Civ, since they look complementary, and should satisfy the urge of everyone who wants to go mammoth hunting. If you like Civ, then it might be wise to follow this game.

It has only been officially announced today, so it’s not yet ready. A steam page for “Folk Emerging” is here, in case you want to wishlist it, you can follow the developers on Twitter here and you can discuss this game with us here.

Play the new Civ4 “Game Of The Month” #249

By | February 25, 2023
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February is Black History Month, and we acknowlege this also in our GOTM! You therefore play as Mansa Musa of Mali on a small oasis map without world wrap on Emperor level. The other AIs on the map are African as well. You have time until March 15 to rule a black planet. For more information please see this thread.

Humankind Scenario Challenge 07: Flint and Steel

By | February 24, 2023
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Amplitude have posted a new scenario challenge for Humankind!
This time you get a more aggressive scenario, as you must do your best to subdue your neighbours with the power of gunpowder. You need to be leading in fame, and must achieve a victory fastest.

Full description from https://community.amplitude-studios.com/amplitude-studios/humankind/blogs/876:

We hope you had fun exploring antarctica (and the world, as the map was perhaps not quite what you expected) in the Terra Incognita scenario last month. After that peaceful pursuit of knowledge, this month we’re turning our attention back to more aggressive matters.

The Flint and Steel Scenario Challenge

The wide-spread adoption of gunpowder weapons has changed the face of war. As your neighbors see an opportunity to divide your lands between them, tensions are high. Armies stand ready to attack or defend. Can you weather the storm and overcome your enemies? How quickly can you defeat them and raise your banner over every city of this world?

How to play the scenario:

  • Download the save FlintAndSteel.ctr
  • Place the save in “/Documents/Humankind/Save Files”
  • Load the save labeled “FlintAndSteel” in game
  • (optional) If you want to submit a score to the leaderboard, check the guidelines in the contest section

Scenario Conditions

  • Victory Condition: Most Fame at game end
  • End Condition: Eliminate all other Empires
  • Game Conditions: Nation difficulty, Endless game speed, no mods
  • Leaderboard Submission Deadline: March 20th
  • Leaderboard Ranking: Fastest Victory, tiebreaker by Fame

Please note: While leaderboard entries will be ranked by how quickly they achieve victory (faster is better), they still need to be leading in Fame to be eligible for the leaderboard. For details on how to submit your scores, see the related thread.

We hope you’ll have fun facing the Janissaries and Conquistadores!

Discuss this challenge with us here.

RockPaperShotgun: These are your 50 favourite strategy games of all time (with Civ1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and Alpha Centauri)

By | February 23, 2023
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RockPaperShotgun has published an article about the 50 favourite strategy games of all time, as voted by the community. As a community vote, there was no collapsing of a series to a single title, so Civ made it into the list with 5 titles (1, 2, 4, 5, 6), as well as Alpha Centauri. We wonder though how Civ3 was missed.
There seems to not have been other types of curation for this list, as e.g. StarCraft and it’s addon Brood War made it separately on it.
The article doesn’t forget to mention that sadly Civ1 and 2 cannot be purchased online right now.

An excerpt from the Civ5 part in the article:

DWDuck: Many strategic options from early to end game, all classes’ units are effective for something but not too many to make it difficult to learn. Can micro a small army with great affect or play defensively and manage the battle field at large. Awesome stuff!

Don: Gaming comfort food. You can play in multiple styles in excruciating micromanagement or just coast through and watch history unfold. I never tire of playing this game even if the end-game is a bit of a slog at times. Just boot up history again with a new map, a new leader, and new opponents. A classic that keeps getting better.

quarrel: One… more… turn…

Come and discuss this article with us here.

Streaming older Civs: Live streams for Civ3 and Civilization: Call To Power

By | February 22, 2023
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The Value Foundation, https://value-foundation.org/, a foundation associated with Leiden University, the Netherlands, will be streaming Civ3 regularly on Tuesday evenings, 21h CET (3 PM East Coast, Noon Pacific time). They do research on games and history, and have already last year regularly (Tuesday evenings) streamed Civ2, seems this year they’ll be playing Civ3.
The announcement is here on Twitter, and you can find the stream later on Twitch here. We have a discussion thread for these streams here.

Furthermore the streamer Axel will be streaming Civilization: Call To Power. Call To Power is an Activision game (so not developed by Firaxis, who does Civ) from 1999, which heavily relied on everything Civ, but it’s not an official Civ. The second part of the series even lost the “Civilization” in the name. If you’re curious about this old game, then check in this Thursday at 6:30 PM Eastern time (Half past midnight CET, 3:30 Pacific time) at his channel here. You can discuss his stream with us here.