Forum Discusiion & Which Game to Buy

[JudgeDredd]

lol - good...now on your way [:'(]

[killroyishere]

ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

ORIGINAL: SS Hauptsturmfuhrer

ORIGINAL: Arsan


But with Civilization you learn a lot of history and culture!! [;)]
Okay, maybe not, but its a great strategy game [:)]

I have to argue against that claim. Strategy is the process of thinking deeply about your plans and how you will adapt to your opponent's moves. I doubt anyone who plays Civ has ever stopped and spent some quality time thinking about his moves before doing anything. You just build buildings, build units, move stuff and repeat for endless hours. I've tried Civ... briefly. I felt groggy and depressed after it so I got rid of it. After playing Kharkov or Tin Soldiers which are real strategy, I feel alert and ready to go out and have a good day.

That isn't exactly true, is it ss? Strategy is simply a process whereby you use your knowkledge and skill to outwit your opponent...and in Civilisation games, you can do that. Indeed you do have to make the correct choices. Just because the level of strategy isn't as deep (according to you) as in some other games, doesn't make it any less strategic in play?

As for this

I've tried Civ... briefly

That tells a story in itself. [8|]

And I totally agree with Judge here. Civilization games can take days when I play them because there is so much strategy in them. If you just click end turn end turn end turn every turn I suppose there isn't any real strategy to that. But, I look at everything and nearly every turn something new needs to be attended to. What to build for my immenent strike towards my foes, how many, should I group them up or sneak attack piecemeal? No sir you know nothing about the real strategy of Civilization and the whole Civilization series of games. They come with a lot of strategy to be had in them if one plays them for the strategy in them. Alien Crossfire for Alpha Centauri is one of my favorite civilization type games as well.

Now go back to playing your Warcraft game.[:D]

[Erik Rutins]

I understand the point being made above though. Civ does have strategy, but the games he mentioned IMHO have deeper strategy. Civ is a "mainstream" strategy game and probably one of the most beloved of all time. I've played many of its versions and had a blast with it and it definitely promotes strategic thinking. Alpha Centauri was a great variant Civ, as was Colonization.

However, I don't really feel "mentally exercised" by playing it _to the same degree_ I do the deeper strategy/war games, though I do have to think strategically in Civ and I do find it very entertaining.

[killroyishere]

Well deeper is subjective with the individual player. For me games like WitP and TOAOW are too deep and give me headaches. I find my mind is very mentally exercised playing Civilization type games vs playing those monster games. The concept of strategy is in all of them. None are lacking for sure. And entertainment is the name of the game in all of them as well. Basically what you as the individual enjoys.

[JudgeDredd]

Absolutely Erik...but to say Civilisation doesn't have strategy just isn't true. That's all I was saying.

[SS Hauptsturmfuhrer]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I understand the point being made above though. Civ does have strategy, but the games he mentioned IMHO have deeper strategy. Civ is a "mainstream" strategy game and probably one of the most beloved of all time. I've played many of its versions and had a blast with it and it definitely promotes strategic thinking. Alpha Centauri was a great variant Civ, as was Colonization.

However, I don't really feel "mentally exercised" by playing it _to the same degree_ I do the deeper strategy/war games, though I do have to think strategically in Civ and I do find it very entertaining.

I actually tried the Alpha Centauri game and didn't even know it had anything to do with that civ stuff. Some dude sold me his copy for like 5 or 10 bucks or something so I was like ya whatever. I think I played it just a few times but did like the customized units and the weed population growth. I think you could keep on with the usual factories and mines or switch over to weed production and be ecologically friendly. Those 2 concepts of custom units and weeds were some of the best I've ever seen in a game. Why does usual civ have the same boring generic units for every nation when they already made a radically better game some years ago? That kind of linear, standardized design is what turns me off of civ as well as the heavy repetitive element.

[Arsan]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
However, I don't really feel "mentally exercised" by playing it _to the same degree_ I do the deeper strategy/war games, though I do have to think strategically in Civ and I do find it very entertaining.

Probably that's because Civ have a better interface [;)][:D]

[SS Hauptsturmfuhrer]

I just dusted off my old Alpha Centauri disk after a brief search involving searching through boxes.  I installed it and the patch and it actually works.  I started up a game as the Gaia environmental trees faction cause that is probably the one I would choose in real life.  What difficulty level is usual?  I put it on Librarian which didn't sound too dangerous and I had a war against the evil United Nations who were trying to extort cash and tech from us.  I have a Green government so the wild worms are joining us and getting fat from chowing on the evil UN troops.  Some became mature boils.  The evil Morgan Freeman clan say they want to have a scrap with us too and they continue with their evil extortion so our worms are gonna be busy. I wanna get some tanks built too.

[madgamer2]

In the case of AGEOD civil war game to me it is simple. the last patch (there have been many) made much of the game so different than the original which was hard enough to play what with the large number of areas and the interface and the way the information was presented...and patch....after patch.....after patch....after patch..well you get the picture.
Check out there own forum. You just get used to or understanding something and they change it. In its own way the scope is just to large given the the way the interface works or doe not work depending on your view point.
I also think that a game that sells on matrix but has its own web site may not get as much traffic here. In either case it has nothing to do with if the game is popular. There web site does a brisk business at least the last time I was there several months ago LOL.

Madgamer

[madgamer2]

Not so fast there Judge.......Civ 1 was a ground breaker a bit weird when arrows could do in battleships. Then came the Split with MP going one way and Good ol'Sid the other and we had 2 Civ 2 games both of which I still like but then came 3 which proves the old saying "if it ain't broke.....fix it anyway" Now we had Cavalry doing a number on tanks and Mech units. One of the worst games ever and finally we have the crown jewel Civ 4 what a laugh. I am not saying there ain't strategy in there (there is I guess) but the game is designed so badly. I mean after Civ 3 how could you trust the series. I even heard that Sid had nothing to do with 3 & 4 which would explain a lot of things.

Madgamer

BTW I do love your posts they are very .....uh.....refreshing so keep at it for another 1L or so.

[JudgeDredd]

Madgamer

They did have ridiculous situations. I wasn't really standing up for gameplay, simpy pointing out that the statement was incorrect. There is strategy to it. Having to build the right buildings and the right units...make the right decisions at the right time. They are strategic decisions.

Gameplay is a different kettle of fish. I loved the game and hated it both at the same time. I found it "held your hand" too much, although there is probably a setting somewhere to say don't hold my hand...I found some of the choices the computer was suggesting ridiculous. I also found some (most?) of the AI a little on the daft side.

It may have been strategically different to other games we play, but strategicless it wasn't.

And I do love your retortes...group hug

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: killroyishere
Personally for me I look at the Tech Support numbers. If I see high traffic numbers in Tech support I normally stay clear of that game and most of the time until after several patches this was the proper thing to do. When you have thousands of posts/replies in tech support something is wrong with the game. People don't goto tech support to common chat for the most part in my experiences.

Of course, the hole in that metric is that games that are more popular and sell more copies may end up with more tech support posts, even if the incidence of tech support problems is lower per copy than for games that sell less... I think forums can be useful in determining whether a game is right for you. That's part of why we have them, but I think it's difficult to really use them in that way without just getting involved and reading and posting. Counting posts or activity is IMHO not a great indicator of anything.

Regards,

- Erik

It's a valid point however that a high percentage of posts in tech support vs. other forums might indicate a game with a lot of technical troubles. It might also indicate that the game is too sophiticated for it's target audience.

[Ron]

A lot of what passes for strategy in wargames is simply micromanagement, sometimes to the nth degree *cough* TOAW, WITP *cough*. It is mentally fatiguing to say the least. Creating a more streamlined design/interface where you must still make definite choices and decisions that affect the outcome, without getting bogged down in minutaie, is where many wargames lag behind games like Civ IV, which has strategy in spades, ie a variety of choices and decisions to be made. Micromanagement, details, complicated interface, number-crunching doesn't necessarily equate a strategy game made. A lot of people comment from nostalgia or second-hand it seems, Civ IV imo is one of the better designed strategy games of all time, definitely the most refined and balanced in the series. I mostly play single player now and again imo the AI in Civ IV is one of the best and delivers the most rewarding and challenging gaming experience.

[06 Maestro]

There is one sub forum that I think is very useful in judging a game-opponents wanted. It seems likely that a game that has an active players group has something going for it vs a game that has none searching for a opponent. So, IMHO, one could just glance at the number of posts in the "opponents wanted" section to determine if a game is any good. Of course, if the game is brand new on the market, this is not a good method. Likewise, judging a game by the number of posts in an AAR section can be useful. AAR's is the first thing I look for when checking out a new game-reading those and checking out screen shots. If there are no AAR's at all after a few weeks on the market, the game looses some luster in my book.

The numbers of posts in a tech section are not as important as to the issues brought up, and whether there is prompt support from the dev.

Of course, it is still wise to look over the whole game forum to make a clear choice-unless you just like to buy games for decorations-some apparently like that. There are so many variables and preferences that it is difficult to judge a game by any criteria other than actually playing it. For instance, I have one game that I cannot even have an MP game with (yet), but it is still a good game. Had I known that was going to be an issue, I may not have bought it-the drawbacks to buying off the drawing board.

[TonyE]

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.

It's a valid point however that a high percentage of posts in tech support vs. other forums might indicate a game with a lot of technical troubles. It might also indicate that the game is too sophiticated for it's target audience.

I'm finding the thread interesting, offshoots and all [:D]. Your comment made me chuckle, just how does a publisher make sure only the target audience buys a game? [;)]. I'm the volunteer programmer for a game of which I'm not even in the target audience (beats the heck out of me too!).

[Prince of Eckmühl]

Interesting topic.

The Battlefront forums were very busy back in the day, or should I've said "forum?"

First, there was the CMBO forum. Then 95% of the traffic moved over to the CMBB forum when it was released. This worked well enough until CMSF, which a fair number of the old crowd despised. That was a pretty weird scene, the migration to the new digs, I mean. Even the Peng-posters moved to the new forum. Suffice it to say, the unhappy campers cast a long, long shadow over the new game.

From an anthropological standpoint, this suggests that the posters and their ruminant had, on some level, become divorced from the obvious subject-matter. The BF forums were about them as much as they were about the game(s). It's also worth noting that the CMSF forum traffic appears far lighter than in days gone bye. And if the developer/publisher is to be believed, they're still selling games and making money, sans so many of the old-guard.

PoE (aka ivanmoe)

[Hertston]

ORIGINAL: Prince of Eckmühl

And if the developer/publisher is to be believed, they're still selling games and making money, sans so many of the old-guard.

They certainly claim sales were actually much better than expected and I have no reason to disbelieve them.. if sales had been poor we might have seen Marines, but never British Forces (assuming that actually arrives in due course). I suspect, as it turned out, virtually everyone who had ever enjoyed the CM1 games ended up buying CMSF anyway, together with a lot of new and possibly younger buyers. Long may it continue; I'd happily lap up another couple of modules (IDF in particular would be great) before a return to WW2 that really doesn't excite me much.

[JRodda]

Sid Meier's Civilization Series - This game is the bane of my existence.  I did OK with CV2, but have not been able to win a victory at a respectable difficulty level (at least in the standard games) with Civ's 3 and 4.  Every 4-5 months I give it another crack and end up going down in flames.  It seems I do well enough up through the Middle Ages, but then start falling behind in the 1600-1700's, and by the time the modern age dawns the game has totally gotten away from me.  I think one thing that really annoys me about the game is that the AI cheats, especially at the higher difficulty levels.  Also, in the Sid Meier system it seems that bigger is always better.  Still in all, as simulations go there is nothing quite like it.  I like the fact that it has elements other than just war.  BTW, for some odd reason I had much better luck with Sid's 'Alpha Centauri', even though it is based on the Civ system.

AGEOD Napoleon - I tried the demo last weekend (1806 Campaign), and although it looks pretty, I just couldn't get in to it.  Although I admit that I probably didn't fully flesh out the demo, I think I would probably prefer 'Empires in Arms' as it allows you to control tactical battles.

Julius Caesar: Tin Soldiers - Thanks for the info on this game.  I've had my eye on it for some time.  Think I'm going to have to put it on my wish list.  BTW, I loved Caesar's Gregovia battle in Rome: Total War.  It was a blast! 

[Jeffrey H.]

ORIGINAL: TonyE

ORIGINAL: Jeffrey H.

It's a valid point however that a high percentage of posts in tech support vs. other forums might indicate a game with a lot of technical troubles. It might also indicate that the game is too sophiticated for it's target audience.

I'm finding the thread interesting, offshoots and all [:D]. Your comment made me chuckle, just how does a publisher make sure only the target audience buys a game? [;)]. I'm the volunteer programmer for a game of which I'm not even in the target audience (beats the heck out of me too!).

Yeah, that's kind of funny. I guess we'll have to chalk it up to the usual brainfart activity.

[Qwixt]

ORIGINAL: JRodda

Sid Meier's Civilization Series - This game is the bane of my existence.  I did OK with CV2,...

The thing that really bugged me about Civ was that spear guys could take out tanks. I played Civ2 so much that I still cannot stomach any Civ like games such as GalCiv or even Civ4. Got Civ4 and didn't even play a whole game of it since I am still so sick of the game play.