http://www.joystiq.com/2010/11/11/civili...arrives-2/

Looks like they've finally remembered that they mentioned this ages ago and have decided to pick it up again.

After the poor reaction to Civ5 it well turn out to be just as bad, if not worse, but I thought I'd best make people aware of it at least!

Hi,
I was reading through the old MOO write-ups here at RB and it got me all nostalgic. Unfortunately MOO is rather dated and it's sequels suffer from many of the same flaws that are plaguing civ 5.

Anyway, I've been hankering to play a "4x" game in the vein of MOO (but not MOO). I had some fun with Galactic Civilizations but the lack of tactical combat was a factor in diminishing replay value.

Can anyone recommend a good 4x strategy title in the vein of MOO? I specifically take note of "Star Reign" and "Gratuitous Space Battles", both by Stardock. The screen-shots are attractive but I wanted to know if any of my strategy-game-nerd-brethren around these parts had any firsthand experience with either of them, or perhaps some other good one I haven't discovered yet?

Thanks!

Here is the game page.

And, because the game description made me think of it for some reason, here is the Star Wars Gangsta Rap video.

http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/gotd_bracket.html

As you can see in this bracket, Civ4 is taking center stage in the GameFAQs "Game of the Decade" contest at 12am in a few hours. It has a 10 seed, and its opponent is Persona 3.

We can do it, right?

I've played a bunch of fun games with the cheesy runemaster+artificer combo (which I'm trying to eradicate in Catnip :P), and there's a bunch of different ways to do it. I like getting either Alchemy or Archmage in place of 5 Sorcery books for Magic Immunity, and I usually get Life (for Heroism or Just Cause) and Chaos (for Flaming) as supplementary colours.

But I just realized that there's an obvious combo I've never tried with it! If you go with just 2 books in each of those 3 colours, you can start on Myrror And since the combo is all about economy, using dwarves for it is a godsend. I have to pass up on Flight, but on Large land mass it's no big deal once you have 6-8 moves per turn with your heroes. Not to mention dwarves are awesome at plowing roads everywhere in no time.

I'm going to rush expand into all the sweet spots I can find with a bunch of minerals while my heroes walk around tormenting neutral cities for XP and cash. I think this might actually be stronger overall than the other artificer combos, Myrror is just that good.

This thread is for discussion of I Like Serena's excellent combat simulator on his website. Which is, however, sadly flawed at the moment :P (or so I claimed). This discussion was from another thread, decided to move it here. Please use the thread for any other feedback and comments as well.

Since no one with any power seems to object. I'm making this thread. We will probably do the first X-COM: UFO Defense AKA Enemy Unknown.

X-COM: How to Get
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/964/
Patch it with this:
http://xcomutil.scotttjones.com/

X-COM: Background
(from Wiki)
X-COM is a series of video games, started by Mythos Games and MicroProse in 1993. The first three titles in the franchise were tactical games while the fourth was an action-based space combat/strategy game. All titles were developed for the PC, with a few ports to the Amiga and PlayStation. The first three games were originally developed to run under DOS, and have subsequently been ported to run under Microsoft Windows.

The first installment, UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe (also known as X-COM: UFO Defense in North America) was written by a team led by Julian Gollop. MicroProse quickly had an internal team create the sequel X-COM: Terror from the Deep. Subsequently, the Gollop brothers went straight to work on X-COM: Apocalypse, which would end up being the third in the series when released in 1997. Soon after Apocalypse, MicroProse was bought by Hasbro Interactive, which released two more X-COM games.

In 2010 2K Marin announced the official reboot of the series, entitled simply XCOM.

The premise for the original series is that hostile extraterrestrials have begun invading the planet Earth. A clandestine, international military organization Extraterrestrial Combat Unit (variably abbreviated X-COM or X-Com through the series) is set up in 1999 to counter the UFOs, capture and research the alien technology, unveil the mystery behind the attacks, and ultimately stop the threat. Inspiration for this setting was drawn from the TV series UFO, and Timothy Good's book Alien Liaison.[1]

X-COM: Gameplay
X-Com is somewhat like 4X where you must procur funding for your organization, create, customize, and specialize bases to control area, research new technologies, and fight enemies. There are also RPG elements related to training your men.

The most memorable aspect and meat of X-Com however is the horrendously unforgiving Turn Based combat mode. Even the basic enemies one or rarely two shot your men. Later on you combat increasingly ridiculous and overpowered enemies. There is a creature that can run across 1/2 the map, one hit kill melee, take insane amounts of damage, and create more of itself is just the 3rd or 4th enemy you encounter out eight or so.

Even your most highly leveled and skilled characters will still drop like flies if you aren't careful. To succeed at this game, you must play carefully, and strategically especially in the early stages.

So, who is up for the challenge
Don't be too intimidated, it is a fun game and you can quickly learn how to play well. Who wants to play?

Player List
antisocialmunky
uberfish
Ug the Barbarian
haphazard1
dazedroyalty

Rules
No Offensive Psionics
No Laser Pistol Training

Index
Mission 1
Mission 2
Mission 3
Mission 4
Mission 5
Mission 6

The Real-Time Game Tweaker gives you an inside view into the kitchen of MoM.
Many questions about how things work can be answered by the Tweaker.

1. For instance, how does suppression work exactly?
Does a hit without damage count?
Does a ranged hit with or without damage count?

2. Or which spells stack and which spells do not?
Does Prayer stack with High Prayer? Or with Holy Bonus?

3. If flyers attack through a City Wall, do the defenders get a shield bonus?
What about a flyer, or Phantom Beast (illusionary), or Wraith (non-corporeal)?
What kind of bonus does the gatekeeper get?
ANSWER: Given in the post below this one.

4. Can you and if so, how much you can defend against direct damage spells like Fireball (other than Magic Immunity).
Shields and crosses don't seem to help, but apparently there is a random effect involved, which suggests that there may be bonuses that apply.

5. Sprites can hurt a Wyrm in a Node. How is that possible? Statistical analysis dictates that the damage they do is 0.0.
ANSWER: The To Defend bonus of the Wyrm is +0 and not +3 which is its To Hit bonus. That gives the Sprites the opportunity to do actual damage (0.5 +/- 0.9 per round).

6. What does the Difficulty Table do?
These are 40 numbers that look like percentages and they define the advantage the AI has for the various difficulties.
But what do these numbers stand for?

7. What does the "Cavalry" movement attribute do?
Kyrub suggested it might do something if all members of the group have it...

8. What are the chances of getting a hero.
It seems that sometimes this chance is unreasonably low. Is that new with Insecticide 1.40h?
Who else has ideas whether or not these chances are off?
ANSWER: Given in the post below this one.

9. How does the random generator work?
It seems that saving / reloading doesn't always change too much.
And how is it possible that we can reproduce bugs? Shouldn't the random effect prohibit that?


I dedicate this thread to questions about how things work.
And also to stories of explorations that answer these questions.

Do you have any questions? Or answers?

This is just a list of suggestions, please help me refine it.

1) Take screenshots!
Screenshots really help bring your report to life and let the reader visualize your game.
2) Don't take too many screenshots!
I find that you easily end up wasting a lot of time and space with excessive screenshots, so be sparing. I like screenshots giving me tactical or strategic information personally, but people's tastes vary.
3) Do a summary of your game status every 4 years.
This helps a lot when comparing our progress in tournament games. I'd find it really useful if we agreed on a template for things to include, such as:
- list of cities and their size
- list of heroes, their levels and their items
- overview of your army
- power base and casting skill
- spells researched since last update
- cash income, mana income, tax level, mana settings
4) Let us know what you're thinking.
Whenever you're making important decisions, let us know what your alternatives were and why you went with the one you picked.

This will be a brainstorming thread, I haven't thought much about this and don't even really know what's possible. Use it to discuss changes to effects for existing spells as well as ideas for reworking useless spells into completely new spells. I hope kyrub will be a frequent visitor here

UPDATE: Decided to make this the sole thread on spells. Use this one for discussion of cost tweaking as well.