4101

I tried starting up a LAN game, and even that got nowhere. Ah, well.

4102

Apparently the Mac version ships in a couple of weeks. Anyone know if you already own the game on PC whether you can get the Mac version for free on Steam?

4103

That would be nice, but I’m going to bet on ‘no’. :P I guess we’ll find out eventually.

4104

The PC version of this game is currently $35 on Amazon Goldbox. http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=409566

4105

Ooo, tempting. I’ve been eyeballing this game but the reports of the flaws have been making me hesitate. I’m a lot more forgiving when it comes to $30 games vs $50 games.

4106

I may be in the minority, but I don’t know anyone personally still playing Civ5. It’s a $20 game for me, at best, but YMMV. There’s certainly a healthy group of people that liked it quite a bit. You’re in the US, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 50% Steam sale coming down the pipe.

4107

According to Steam, I have 146 hours in Civ 5. I may not be playing it now, but that’s certainly worth it in terms of time to me.

4108

Played plenty of online and LAN civ 5, had no problems whatsoever ,other than it runs slooow on a large map. Diplomacy and AI is working , but they don’t contact you, so you gotta do it instead, which is FINE as the spam was intolerable in Civ 4 when shit hit the fan :)

4109

Yup. I’m at 216 hours so even if I never pick it up again it will have been worth the price.

4110

Heck, I’m still playing it. I’m not sure how well the hours played stack up to really playing it (I have a tendency to step away from a TBS when I get distracted), but I’m at 126 and have no intention of letting it drift off my regular rotation anytime soon.

4111

I’m not dropping it yet either. At least not to any fault of the game, but more because I have so many other games piling up.

4112

It’s a very warty game, but a lot of the warts are there mainly because Civ IV was better in so many respects. Taken in isolation, it’s actually very good.

My biggest issue is the parts of the AI that aren’t merely not-good, but broken. How ships often fail to attack at all, and it advances ranged units (particularly artillery) into contact with melee units. Even so, there have been other games with bad-to-broken AI that have achieved legendary status, such as Master of Magic.

Right now it feels vaguely like Civilization I. I was one of those people who wrote online articles (when “online” meant Compu$erve) on how to get Railroad before 1 AD, which meant you crushed the AI players with the tech advantage even on the hardest difficulty. The metagame over at Civ Fanatics is similar right now, the games are all about how you can pull off far more research than the AI does on Deity, and how to survive the AI material advantage in the meantime. Yet despite the game being significantly easier than Civ IV, people are still enjoying it flaws and all, just as they enjoyed Civ I. Mainly because there’s nothing else really like the Civ series.

4113

It’s still up in the air: http://blog.gameagent.com/2010/11/16/call-for-comments-to-steamplay-or-not/

4114

Are you comparing Civ V to Civ IV without expansions? It is kind of a trap to compare Civ IV which was mature to Civ V which is not.

4115

Is anyone else seeing the bug where the leftmost trading panel on the diplomacy screen simply disappears after an hour or so? I hope they fix that in the next patch, too.

edit: I found one (1) other person who had reported this bug, and added my report to the thread.

4116

Just noticed that the change notes for the next patch have been updated yesterday. Nothing on the vanishing trading panel, sadly, but it looks like we’ll get a better tactical AI:

  • Never use ranged units to provide flanking bonuses. (Added 11/18)
  • Improve AI use of protected bombard attacks (melee in front, ranged in the rear). (Added 11/18)
  • Worker priority adjustments (prioritize pillaged tiles, etc.). (Added 11/18)
  • Further pathfinder optimization. (Added 11/18)

And TONS of balancing changes:

  • Science building track adjustments (cost, specialist slots, GP Points, etc). (Added 11/18)
  • Amount of damage caused during naval combat increased. (Added 11/18)
  • Melee horse units combat value lowered, and now receive a penalty when attacking cities. (Added 11/18)
  • Lowered bonuses received from Maritime city-states. (Added 11/18)
  • Removed maintenance from defensive buildings. (Added 11/18)
  • Multiple unit upgrade track adjustments. Most (but not all) units now have a full upgrade path from start to finish. (Added 11/18)
  • Open terrain penalty lowered. (Added 11/18)
  • Policies must be selected the turn they are earned. (Added 11/18)
  • Promotions must be selected the turn they are earned. If it’s as a result of combat, then the beginning of the next turn. (Added 11/18)

And the one missing worker option:

  • Added game option to disable automated workers from removing features. (Added 11/18)

I presume this translates to “don’t chop forests when automated”.

4117

No saving for Policies? Fuck that change, right in the ear.

4118

Hmm, I kind of like the change. Just means you’ll have to do a bit more planning with the policies instead of saving them all up until you reach the next age.

4119

Yeah, that’s a gigantic rules exploitation loophole that really needed to get fixed. You’re supposed to spend policy points on the trees as they open up, not hoard them all for when you get Cristo Redentor…

4120

I hate it becuase if I play a low culture civ, I like to save up policies for some of the industrial era perks. Now I can’t really explore those trees with low culture civs. Why implement this change without making it an option?