Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

Incursion is a roguelike that is heavily based on D&D. It's more about creating and powering up your character than most roguelikes. It has a very complete D&D character system, with over a hundred feats fully implemented, and I'd guess 20ish skills. Somehow the developer found a way to make almost every skill useful in a dungeon crawl too. It also has birth perks that make a very big difference to the character. One of my favorites is clairvoyance, which lets you peak around the nearby dungeon for free at any time. But there are lots, and many are very nice. The religion system is similar to many roguelikes, but I find that it is more fun in incursion because of the way the god granted abilities can complement the already complex characters. The god favor/conduct system is very cool, although last I played, it had a lot of tweaking and bugfixing left to do.

The dungeon is fairly typical roguelike. Probably the coolest unusual feature is all the detail that has gone into non-hostile creatures. You can attempt to trade with and recruit almost all of them. Which is especially nice when they pick something up that you want; you have the option of demanding it or buying from them instead of killing them. I don't think anyone will ever write an NPC system that eliminates annoyance completely, but this one is relatively good.

I'd say if you like complex character design and random dungeon crawls, you'll like this game.

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun is its full name.
It is a game of grand stratagy set in 1836-1920. You choose a nation (literally any nation in the world at that time) and make all thier econiomic, military and political decsions. You accumuate prestige, which is how you win teh game. Basically it its a huge world map with every nation in the world on it.
Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victori..._Under_the_Sun

I think you can find it used on amazon for like $10. Totally worth it.

The downsides:
its real time (but you can pause)
weird popup system of notification
There are a fairly limited number of military units
Nasty "civilized" and "uncivilized" titles to nations(this is to reflect the laguage of the period, I hope)

Up sides:
Play any nation
real historical events
change history
47 separate resources
indepth political and economic systems

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

Sounds interesting, but is this a PC game or board game?
I looked on the wikipedia, yet no pics/screenshots.

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

Alpha Centauri, IMHP the best of the Civ type games, was made by Brian Reynolds, who now runs Big Huge Games. I think there is a conflict between him and Sid, as to who actually owns the right to the game. That said, I don't know if we will ever see another Alpha Centauri game.

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

PC game, but there are no graphics.
ADOM screenshot

Several Incursion screenshots

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

The next big project at Big Huge is a RPG, slated for release in 2009. Maybe then AC2 in 2011? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I'm not sure if a question of rights would figure into it. Both he and Sid co-wrote the game, and there are quite a few other notables who helped shape the design. Ultimately I wonder if it's a question of economics. Sure, people who love the game REALLY love it, but overall I have to wonder how many units it actually moved? I'm guessing that if it really did well we would have seen AC2 long before Civ III, or Rise of Nations...

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

For all those who love NetHack, Rogue, or any version thereof
http://www.thefump.com/lyrics.php?id=93

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

/me insists on hailing Master of Magic again!!

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

I think somebody contacted Firaxis about the rights when they were working on a Civ4 Alpha Centauri mod and they said EA owned them.

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

I don't know if we are still talking about Dom III, but here is how I "play" it:

I don't really have the self-discipline for multiplayer, so I only play hotseat MP (when I have a friend around).

Otherwise I check the forums now and again. People are always discussing something completely new. The only topics which are repeated are newbie problems (like how does the game work, how do I avoid insta-death, etc...) and are fun to read because everyone is nice and has some good, often new tips, or people asking if they should buy Dominions. If I see an interesting strategy/unit/NEW PATCH(should I say expansion?) I rush to my game and try it.

Sometimes I will think of a new nation/spell/item/unit/strategy I want to play with, so I go to my game to try that. And I haven't even found time for mods yet.

...I think Dom III is worth it.

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

You have to admit, as a gamer, that civilization was one of the paramount reasons to own a computer years ago. (Pun intended)

But to be honest, I didn't buy Civ IV, but I did learn about Dom 3 thru the GC2 game, and well... I expect I'll have more playability from this based on comnents here, than I had ever expected.

In fact, I'm so excited I waited outside for the postman today.

T.Sr.

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

Since we're talking great games for hardcore gamers, I'd like to mention Empire of the Fading Suns. Now that game had some serious potential (mind you, it had massive flaws too, but to me it possessed the qualities of elegance and genius that only the best board games ever approach-it just needed a lot more TLC, and as a gaming experience, it was a lot richer than Civ 1 upon which it was based.).

Alpha Centauri was indeed the finest Sid Meyer-style game ever made, especially with the expansion pack. I'd have very much liked to see a second expansion and a sequil-I've never ever heard any serious gamer give a bad review of the game, my experience has been universal applause.

If Illwinter really chooses not to persue Dom 4 (which would make all the poor starving orphans in the world really, really sad) then ideally, I'd love to see them take the same Dominions concepts and apply them to a Steampunk sortof game, something like Europa Universalis (which I bought but never got to play, since my computer wouldn't run it, even when my hard-drive was still alive-same goes for Civ4), only with real world mythological and Lovecraftian concepts set from say 1492-1945.

You've got everything from the Conquistadores to the Thuggee Cult. Real live Pirates of the Carribean, opening up China and Japan to the rest of the world-and the tragedies of the opium wars. Religious schisms, Nazi Occultism, witch burning, the golden age of Science Fiction. Everything from the Inquisition to the Victorian age of fairies to the spiritualist movements and subsequent supernatural horror of the 19th and early 20th century. And ofcourse, you've still got all the myths to play with that are present in Dominions.

The game could include such things as the British Empire allied with Faerie-both seelie and unseelie, the Nazis turning their backs on both Christ and Odin, and in league with Cthulhu, Norse Ice Giants alongside Arabian Djinn, Jewish golems and African zombies being sold into slavery as physical machines and components of industrialization, and the power of blood magic only accessible by real-world serial killers, such as Jack the Ripper, Elizabeth Bathory, Giles De Rais, H H Holmes, the Lalauries, etc.

The goal would be to take what innovations Dominions has already made, and advance them one step further beyond the normal midieval fantasy concept, into a time when mythological and traditional beliefs were in direct competition with science, innovation, and evolving social mores. I think it would be a lot of fun to both make and to play, and wouldn't require totally scrapping Dominions, since it could draw from the basic game already in place.

You'd see your sword-weilding infantry gradually adopt crude pistols, rifles, the bayonette, better fortresses, cannon, ships, diplomacy, a trade economy, colonization, cures for disease, and eventually things like tanks and planes, with magic and myths evolving right alongside.

The focus would shift from the Pretender-the source of all magic-to the Prophet, in charge of leading the nation, who may or may not ultimately choose to become independant. And the more changes the nation adopts, the more difficult it would be to preserve the relationship between the Nation and the Nation's patron Pretender. And maybe your Prophet is a real live historical figure. Maybe he's Leonardo Da Vinci or Rasputin or Abraham Lincoln.

All sorts of moral questions would present themselves, with real impacts in the game-well, do I want to put a maniacle serial-killer on the payroll, just so I can summon demons? If anyone finds out, it's going to be a major scandal-and in this game there *would* be coups and rebellions, competing religions and major societal shifts.

Do I want to improve my technological level so I can outfit my armies with rifles, but in the process alienate and ultimately wipe out my magic-user base, or do I want to research magic exclusively, oppress my people back into the stone-age, and turn my back on a dynamic, technological society in favor of an agrarian utopia?

I think one of the major reasons that the middle ages (really, the dark ages, atleast until the invention of the printing-press) are so often used as a backdrop for fantasy tropes is because they're a "safe" area.

There aren't *that* many questions to ask. Society's evolution and the unpredictability of technology, new forms of government, religion, etc. didn't come into it, and even if they did, we don't know that much about them anyway, because it was so long ago-but not so very long ago that we can't paint an acceptable picture and do some reasonable conjecture.

The poor downtrodden people in your typical fantasy story don't want or need major upheavals and reforms, they just need a strong, competent king with a magic sword and a few less dragons eating their kids. Diseases weren't going to be cured for a couple hundred years, and only Jews and Muslims bathed. Hardly anybody read, and there was only Catholicism to worry about, so getting rid of the big bad ogre is a nice immediate bandaid on the plague sore, and it makes everyone feel better about their miserable lot in life.

A pure, simple, stupid land, in to which never need enter any messiness of real-life complexity or human pathos.
And, ofcourse, human beings were simply technologically incapable of systematically destroying the Earth, which is also very comforting.

It would be wonderfully refreshing, after Illwinter has already thumbed it's nose at all the plastic dragon/elf masturbatory fantasy and given us our rich, glorious, human mythology back, to now go forward with it into a setting that is still romantic, still mysterious and capable of containing anything the imagination might require, but has a little bit more flavor than the backwards armpit of ignorance and infection that was the middle ages.

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

I liked your post but I think Illwinter will be overwelmed by the scope of this project.

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

Well, it's not exactly like Dominions is a tiny little game.

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

Alpha Centauri was the only Civ series game I did not like. And I truly disliked it. It was visually revolting and totally unintuitive.

On another point: Victoria..Yeah! I am one of the 6 people that really thought is was Great!!

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

Interesting, you didn't like Alpha Centauri, solops? I'd like to chime in and say that I agree it's the best Civ-game out there. The game itself was great, certainly, but what made it really shine to me, anyway, was the backstory and the basic sci-fi concept of it.

I know it sounds odd to praise a game's "backstory", but you can tell that they really put a lot of work in Alpha's backstory, voice acting, characters, etc. They showed a lot of knowledge of actual and near-future scientific advances, intertwining that with sci-fi elements to make a very belivable tech tree for humanity's next 200 years or so (assuming we don't kill ourselves, which is a big caveat). The movies for the wonders were superb, and were emotionally moving at times (anyone remember the one for 'Self-Aware Colony'?).

Basically, I think the game moves beyond merely a "game" and progresses to something that really has to be considered a work of art. In the same way, I think that Dominions in a sense can also be considered to be more than just a game -- it's also a great compilation of humanity's myths across cultures. You can learn a lot from playing both games, imo.

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

Alpha Centauri was nice, but it had some very serious problems.

First:
Deliberate limitation of "Victory Options"
Military Victory made extremely tedious:
The only way to win "militarily" was to wipe everyone else out. But of course if you have conqueored half the planet, then a "diplomatic" victory should be easy, right? You have half the votes already! NOPE!

Diplomatic Victory made almost impossible!
Decision to basically stop any group except the "Peacekeepers" from having a diplomatic victory. In fact, they were apparently trying to stop a diplomatic victory entirely. The requirment of needing 75% ! of the votes in your favor to win, with the peacekeepers having twice as many votes per population unit was ridicilous. With 7 groups, if the Peacekeepers were very slightly larger than "average size"(1/7 the population), then they would be able to stop another race from achieving diplomatic victory ALL BY THEMSELVES! Also, because they have twice the votes of everyone else per population point, unless they have been wiped out, they will always be one of the canidates and will always vote for themselves! Thus you need EVERY SINGLE OTHER RACE ON YOUR SIDE, even if they only have four cities, in order to counter the Peacekeepers. Or you have to wipe them out. If the peacekeepers are on the other side of the map, then to bad.

Also:
For a "technological" game made by a computer programmer, the nasty descriptions of Cyborgs and certain other projects was unnecessary. IF it could be done, Cyborgs would be awesome and a "step up" on the evolutionary ladder. Forget typing, go straight to "thinking" it in. Oh, and surgery? Through electronic eyes and with mechanical hands both extremely strong and extremely precise? But all we get is some crude limeric.

Also, the planet may be tough, but it isn't dealing with some "clever cow" that happens to be able to resist it's pyschic attacks. It's dealing with aliens from another world with advanced technology and the will to use it. R'yleh! R'yleh!

I believe the need to DEMAND the technological "planet contact" victory is why all the other victory conditions were crippled. I don't like being forced to follow one path to win.

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

I really liked the AC gameplay - especially multiplayer. I've never found the problems listed in the posts above (or at least nothing that wasn't also present in the normal Civ series).

The graphics were pretty bad though.... even for the time. A bit too garish with the colors.

Re: Comparing it to Civ 4..
 

Lord-Bob : the various factions all had a specific advantage, and being able to block other civs was the only real bonus you had playing peacekeepers.
Not able to wipe them out ? What about the awesome vehicle chasis you had late game ? Ever played Spartans or Ruche or those religious fanatics? They were able to crush anyone anywhere.(especially those ridiculous peacekeepers)
Comparing to civ 4, military victory was a real pleasure.(cultur...)