What pisses me off on a fundamental level, is that I bought the Floppy Disk version for archival purposes. In 10 years, I was hoping to be able to pull out the disk and install it again to play... but that doesn't work anymore, does it, because firstly with hardware and software changes happening so often, who knows if the game will even install, and secondly the DRM needs to be kept safe and dry, or else I'll never be able to figure out what word 1 from paragraph 5 on page 8 is.
No wonder computer gaming is turning to casual games and social media. Nothing is made to last anymore.
I have many issues with your original post, but I don't quite have the words without it sounding like I'm biting your head off.
In summation: things change. If you want 'your' software to work in 15 (or 20, regardless) years, then I heavily suggest making copious use of the 'back-up this game' feature steam provides.
Ahahaha, I love your ninja fixes! Though I must inform you that I have almost my entire collection of Atari 130XE games still in my parent's garage, and the sentimental value provided by going through those old boxes is immense. I do have digital back-ups of the games (some that I even made myself), but it's not the same.
You are right of course, times change. This is the information age, but someone once wrote that information wants to be free, and I think that's less true today than back then. However, the other response I got is probably the ultimate solution, which I take full advantage of even today: The enthusiast community will find a solution.
eobet on
Heard the proposition that RIAA and MPAA should join forces and form "Music And Film Industry Association"?
I have the 2.66ghz MBP with 8gb ram and a 512mb 330M graphics card.
Have you met your first leader yet? It always freezes for me on that screen.
Also, have you attempted to set the shadows to high? If you have a 330M, that currently "isn't supported" from Aspyr.
2.66Ghz i7 w/ 4GB RAM and a 512MB 330M.
The first time I loaded the game it froze on the opening screen, but subsequent times have been fine.
I do think I set the shadows on high before, but the first game I started was a "whole world" game, and after exploring most of North & South America and Asia, I had to turn all the settings down as it was starting to chug.
I'm looking for (educational/historical) Civ V scenarios that could be tied into a college course (freshman level or below, nothing fancy). There isn't too much up at civfanatics yet. Is there a better place to find scenarios?
Game mehanics and the need to make it, well, a "game" mean that there's no real historical value to having people play civ. It would be like teaching people how to farm by playing Cataan. What are you trying to get people to learn? I think the only game i've seen with educational value is Stalin's Dilemma, because it forces people to understand the logic of forced collectivization and industrialization given scarcity and the international political climate. Besides some explanatory paragraphs it's also a dry spreadsheet interface.
What are you trying to teach? When you say "freshman level or below", what do you mean by "below"?
I'm looking for (educational/historical) Civ V scenarios that could be tied into a college course (freshman level or below, nothing fancy). There isn't too much up at civfanatics yet. Is there a better place to find scenarios?
Game mehanics and the need to make it, well, a "game" mean that there's no real historical value to having people play civ. It would be like teaching people how to farm by playing Cataan. What are you trying to get people to learn? I think the only game i've seen with educational value is Stalin's Dilemma, because it forces people to understand the logic of forced collectivization and industrialization given scarcity and the international political climate. Besides some explanatory paragraphs it's also a dry spreadsheet interface.
What are you trying to teach? When you say "freshman level or below", what do you mean by "below"?
I'm looking for (educational/historical) Civ V scenarios that could be tied into a college course (freshman level or below, nothing fancy). There isn't too much up at civfanatics yet. Is there a better place to find scenarios?
Game mehanics and the need to make it, well, a "game" mean that there's no real historical value to having people play civ. It would be like teaching people how to farm by playing Cataan. What are you trying to get people to learn? I think the only game i've seen with educational value is Stalin's Dilemma, because it forces people to understand the logic of forced collectivization and industrialization given scarcity and the international political climate. Besides some explanatory paragraphs it's also a dry spreadsheet interface.
What are you trying to teach? When you say "freshman level or below", what do you mean by "below"?
"Transitional" AKA "remedial" level. We'd be talking about a basic college skills course (attend, submit assignments on time, work in a group, etc.) with a video game flavor. It would not be an actual history/polisci/econ or whatever course.
But if I could dig up some well-done historical scenarios (like Rise and Fall of Rome, but for Civ 5), one could tie in some basic educational writing assignments. Stuff like: "Here's a map of Rome's actual territory over time; compare and contrast with your groups territorial expansion." The point wouldn't be to learn about Rome (much), but to learn how to write a compare and contrast essay.
Hopefully, you're getting my drift. I'm looking for scenarios with a strong historical flavor, not scenarios that actually teach history.
enc0re on
0
Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
I keep hoping every new post is the announcement that the patch is out
I'm looking for (educational/historical) Civ V scenarios that could be tied into a college course (freshman level or below, nothing fancy). There isn't too much up at civfanatics yet. Is there a better place to find scenarios?
Game mehanics and the need to make it, well, a "game" mean that there's no real historical value to having people play civ. It would be like teaching people how to farm by playing Cataan. What are you trying to get people to learn? I think the only game i've seen with educational value is Stalin's Dilemma, because it forces people to understand the logic of forced collectivization and industrialization given scarcity and the international political climate. Besides some explanatory paragraphs it's also a dry spreadsheet interface.
What are you trying to teach? When you say "freshman level or below", what do you mean by "below"?
"Transitional" AKA "remedial" level. We'd be talking about a basic college skills course (attend, submit assignments on time, work in a group, etc.) with a video game flavor. It would not be an actual history/polisci/econ or whatever course.
But if I could dig up some well-done historical scenarios (like Rise and Fall of Rome, but for Civ 5), one could tie in some basic educational writing assignments. Stuff like: "Here's a map of Rome's actual territory over time; compare and contrast with your groups territorial expansion." The point wouldn't be to learn about Rome (much), but to learn how to write a compare and contrast essay.
Hopefully, you're getting my drift. I'm looking for scenarios with a strong historical flavor, not scenarios that actually teach history.
I think EU3 or EU:Rome would work better for what you want.
So I played this game for the first week it came out and really didn't like it overall. Been a Civ fan since the original (as much as I could for a 10 year old) and have loved every iteration since apart from 5. The hexes were great, the animations were great, everything else I felt was neutered.
Main concerns;
Has the ratio of scientific progression vs production been balanced? I found cities couldn't build at a rate fast enough to make up for researching new tech
Is diplomacy actually worth looking at? Was terrible at launch.
Is information accessible yet? Can I see why a Civ doesn't like me? Is there greater transparency in the game mechanics?
They were the things that killed my enjoyment of the game. The lousy combat AI I can get over if the Empire building elements have been improved.
Uh the scientific progression versus production is probably more of a concious thing. It forces you to choose between military or economic. You can go pure economic and keep up but other civs will buttrape you in response.
I'm looking for (educational/historical) Civ V scenarios that could be tied into a college course (freshman level or below, nothing fancy). There isn't too much up at civfanatics yet. Is there a better place to find scenarios?
Game mehanics and the need to make it, well, a "game" mean that there's no real historical value to having people play civ. It would be like teaching people how to farm by playing Cataan. What are you trying to get people to learn? I think the only game i've seen with educational value is Stalin's Dilemma, because it forces people to understand the logic of forced collectivization and industrialization given scarcity and the international political climate. Besides some explanatory paragraphs it's also a dry spreadsheet interface.
What are you trying to teach? When you say "freshman level or below", what do you mean by "below"?
"Transitional" AKA "remedial" level. We'd be talking about a basic college skills course (attend, submit assignments on time, work in a group, etc.) with a video game flavor. It would not be an actual history/polisci/econ or whatever course.
But if I could dig up some well-done historical scenarios (like Rise and Fall of Rome, but for Civ 5), one could tie in some basic educational writing assignments. Stuff like: "Here's a map of Rome's actual territory over time; compare and contrast with your groups territorial expansion." The point wouldn't be to learn about Rome (much), but to learn how to write a compare and contrast essay.
Hopefully, you're getting my drift. I'm looking for scenarios with a strong historical flavor, not scenarios that actually teach history.
I think EU3 or EU:Rome would work better for what you want.
Wouldn't it just be faster to teach them a graduate level understanding of History, than teach them how to play Europa Universalis though?
I'm looking for (educational/historical) Civ V scenarios that could be tied into a college course (freshman level or below, nothing fancy). There isn't too much up at civfanatics yet. Is there a better place to find scenarios?
Game mehanics and the need to make it, well, a "game" mean that there's no real historical value to having people play civ. It would be like teaching people how to farm by playing Cataan. What are you trying to get people to learn? I think the only game i've seen with educational value is Stalin's Dilemma, because it forces people to understand the logic of forced collectivization and industrialization given scarcity and the international political climate. Besides some explanatory paragraphs it's also a dry spreadsheet interface.
What are you trying to teach? When you say "freshman level or below", what do you mean by "below"?
"Transitional" AKA "remedial" level. We'd be talking about a basic college skills course (attend, submit assignments on time, work in a group, etc.) with a video game flavor. It would not be an actual history/polisci/econ or whatever course.
But if I could dig up some well-done historical scenarios (like Rise and Fall of Rome, but for Civ 5), one could tie in some basic educational writing assignments. Stuff like: "Here's a map of Rome's actual territory over time; compare and contrast with your groups territorial expansion." The point wouldn't be to learn about Rome (much), but to learn how to write a compare and contrast essay.
Hopefully, you're getting my drift. I'm looking for scenarios with a strong historical flavor, not scenarios that actually teach history.
I think EU3 or EU:Rome would work better for what you want.
Wouldn't it just be faster to teach them a graduate level understanding of History, than teach them how to play Europa Universalis though?
EU3 isn't really that bad.
Now Victoria 2, on the other hand... I'm convinced from reading the mod subforum that all the people that truly understand Victoria 2 are mad.
Uh the scientific progression versus production is probably more of a concious thing. It forces you to choose between military or economic. You can go pure economic and keep up but other civs will buttrape you in response.
Which I see as a major flaw of a game that is supposed to have so many different ways to win.
Well, one silver lining for me from my disastrous experience with Civ5, is that I discovered Civ4 for the first time!
In Civ 5, it felt so weird seemingly starting out as an empire, but only have a single city for over a thousand years, and fighting barbarian horde after barbarian horde. The start of Civ 4 felt much better (and more historical), starting out as a tribe, fighting off wild animals (and absorbing tribal villages) and being able to expand quicker.
I guess once I'm done with Civ 4, Elemental might have its first expansion out, and then maybe Civ 5 will have its first expansion and so on... so maybe I can come back in a year or so.
eobet on
Heard the proposition that RIAA and MPAA should join forces and form "Music And Film Industry Association"?
ShimshaiFlush with Success!Isle of EmeraldRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
So I haven't played this game much since launch, I understand that there are still bound to be bugs at this stage but have the turn times improved at all? I read a thread over at the 2K forums weeks ago where some guy had figured out that the reason turns take so long was due to AI worker calculations. (Basically every worker would analyze every tile in the civ's borders to see if it should work it or not, leading to horrendous turn times)
So I haven't played this game much since launch, I understand that there are still bound to be bugs at this stage but have the turn times improved at all? I read a thread over at the 2K forums weeks ago where some guy had figured out that the reason turns take so long was due to AI worker calculations. (Basically every worker would analyze every tile in the civ's borders to see if it should work it or not, leading to horrendous turn times)
I'm only running a 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo and it's running smoothly now. I think the big roadblocks have been fixed.
Well, one silver lining for me from my disastrous experience with Civ5, is that I discovered Civ4 for the first time!
In Civ 5, it felt so weird seemingly starting out as an empire, but only have a single city for over a thousand years, and fighting barbarian horde after barbarian horde. The start of Civ 4 felt much better (and more historical), starting out as a tribe, fighting off wild animals (and absorbing tribal villages) and being able to expand quicker.
I guess once I'm done with Civ 4, Elemental might have its first expansion out, and then maybe Civ 5 will have its first expansion and so on... so maybe I can come back in a year or so.
Did you get the config files I sent you? No luck?
How is Civ 4 running on your MBP? Civ 5 chugs in the late game and I'm wondering if Civ 4 might be a better option for quick games if it's ever on sale on Steam for a reasonable price.
Today I am happy to announce that next week you'll be able to get your hands on some new add-on content for Civilization V: The Double Civilization and Scenario Pack: Spain and Inca.
The scenario is set in 1492, where you get to play any one of a number of civs eager to sail across the Atlantic in search of a western route to China and the Indies.
The first of the new leaders Isabella of Spain, who gets extra bonuses from discovering and settling near Natural Wonders. Early exploration will be extra important when playing as Spain.
The other new leader is Pachacuti of the Inca Empire. His units ignore terrain costs when moving onto hill tiles, and tile improvements on hills are free. Careful consideration of city placement relative to hills will be important.
The pack will be available on December 16th, and will cost $7.49.
Not sure if I'd pay that for just two civs and a scenario I'll only play once.
I'm 600 turns into a game and apparently there's a bug where you can only have so many cities.. now whenever I conquer a new city, the game crashes. It doesn't seem to matter which city.
The Civ5 DLC seems way too fucking overpriced for what they contain in general. We all know how much 2K lurves themselves some DLC, though.
Considering I've made Civ5 mods which introduce new Civilizations / change existing ones, it seems incredibly lazy. I could recreate Spain's racial ability with 5 minutes in a text editor.
And this is a pay-for DLC. Insulting.
zerg rush on
0
ShimshaiFlush with Success!Isle of EmeraldRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
What's worse is that a lot of people will actually buy this.
What's worse is that a lot of people will actually buy this.
I gave up when people were willingly and knowingly purchasing on-disc unlocks for games. Just sit back with a bottle of whiskey and enjoy the next-gen videogame economy.
I payed for the Babylonians. Made me feel dirty, but I payed all the same.
enc0re on
0
ShimshaiFlush with Success!Isle of EmeraldRegistered Userregular
edited December 2010
A comprehensive update has just hit Civ V, with tweaks and changes across the board. Major changes listed in the spoiler:
[AI]
[TACTICAL AI]
- Proper evaluation of which enemy units can reach my units next turn.
- Sorting enemy targets (within a class) by damage.
- Combine bombardment fire from cities with other ranged fire where possible.
- Never target a city for a ranged attack when they are already at (or going to be at) 1 health.
- Have the tactical AI be more aggressive about fortifying units that aren't moving anyways.
- Make all forms of guarding improvements the lowest priority tactical AI moves.
- Don't mark tiles adjacent to enemy at sea as good for flank attacks -- there is no flanking at sea.
- Update to tactical AI pillaging code - now prioritize enemy land resources and trade routes (never regular mines or farms). Always uses the check to make sure AI is not trying to pillage in an enemy dominance zone. Barbarians will still target everything.
- Never use ranged units to provide flank bonuses.
- Reduce chance of AI civs making "suicide" attacks.
- Changes to better protect the capital or any city with an enemy within 5 tiles.
[VICTORY]
- AI will be more aggressive about pursuing Diplo victory (bribing City States) if they are wealthy.
- AI will be more aggressive about building Spaceship parts when going for Science victory.
[CIVS]
- Tweak a few leader settings to be more likely to use their traits.
- Adjust Napoleon to make more likely to go for culture.
[COMBAT/UNITS]
- AI will not use Horse as defenders on hills as much.
- AI will often build more defensive troops.
- AI will more aggressively hunt barbs in the early game.
- Slightly more naval units.
- AI will now build ranged and mobile units more in line with the flavor settings for the team - in general, this means more mobile units.
- AI now builds, deploys, and uses air units more effectively.
- Allow AI to build more units if above Prince.
- AI will be more likely to build and bring siege units in a city attack.
- Better nuke targeting by AI.
- Won't build AA if no air threat.
- Allow AI or automated human explorers to move to edge of sight range and then explore again.
[EXPLORATION/EXPANSION]
- AI will emphasize getting an Ocean going explorer unit when the time comes.
- AI slightly more likely to settle off home continent.
- AI should colonize other continents regularly.
- AI second wave expansion more aggressive.
- Improve the AI's chances of setting up protected bombard attacks.
- Settlers: should handle watery maps better.
- AI will grab goody huts on other land masses.
- AI will grab empty barb camps more often.
[WORKERS/CITY AI]
- Large Cities should be more willing to build happiness and gold buildings.
- Workers prioritize repair builds higher than other builds.
- AI will be more likely to build a wall on any city that was an original capital.
- Builder tasking now calculates yields appropriately during golden ages and weighs tiles according to how much stuff they provide overall as well as their maximum yield of a certain type.
- More likely to build up economy early.
- Multiple worker AI improvements.
[MISC]
- Factor GS into flavors more.
- Disband obsolete units even if not losing money.
- Upgrade units a bit more.
- Tweak flavors of policies a bit.
- Have AI factor Grand Strategy into picking policies.
- AI will factor grand strategy into tech choices a bit more.
- AI don't send a barb expedition if defenses are critical.
- AI less likely to pick a city on an inland sea for serious naval production.
- Additional pathfinder optimization.
[GAMEPLAY]
[CITY/BUILDINGS]
- Added "National Treasury" national wonder, which requires Markets in all cities. Provides +8 Gold per turn to the city in which it's built.
- Added "Circus Maximus" national wonder, which requires Colosseums in all cities.. Provides 5 Happiness.
- Library now has no specialist slots.
- Wat now has two specialist slots.
- Public school now has 1 Science per pop, +1 free Great Scientist point, +1 Culture for 3 gold maintenance.
- Observatory now has 1 specialist slot.
- Research Lab has two specialist slots.
- Public school now provides 1 beaker per pop for 3 gold maintenance.
- Watermill now provides +2 good and +1 production for 2 gold maintenance.
- Paper Maker now has no specialist slots.
- Circus now has +2 happiness and no maintenance.
- Theatre now has +5 happiness.
- Stadium now has +5 happiness.
- Reduced production cost and maintenance for the Courthouse.
- Courthouse can now be purchased in a city (although it is expensive).
- Removed maintenance from city defense buildings (Walls, Castle, Military Base).
- City defense buildings now help cities heal.
- Increased city strength ramp-up based on technology.
- Reduced effects of Forbidden Palace and Meritocracy (Happiness per city).
- Reduced amount of food needed for cities to grow at larger sizes.
- Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this).
- Ironworks now gives 10 hammers instead of a % bonus.
- National College now gives +5 science in addition to the % bonus.
- Hermitage gives 5 culture in addition to its previous bonus.
- Raze/Unraze exploit fixed.
- Cities being razed are unhappy about it (only during the razing process).
- Cities heal more quickly.
[UNITS/PROMOTIONS]
- Cavalry can now go obsolete with Combustion.
- Stealth bombers cannot use carriers.
- Only allow one upgrade per unit from a goody hut.
- Add second embarkation promotion ("Defensive Embarkation").
- Amount of damage done during naval combat increased.
- All melee horse units get penalty attacking cities.
- Increased city attack penalty for mounted and armor units to 50% (from 40%).
- Lancers (and Lancer UUs) upgrade to helicopter.
- Lowered combat value of Horseman and Companion Cavalry.
- Promotions must be picked the turn they're earned.
- Can no longer promote a unit that has fought during the turn (instead, the promotion comes up the beginning of the following turn).
- Catapults and Trebuchets now weaker against units but stronger VS cities.
- Reduced effectiveness of Archers & Crossbowmen (and their UUs) VS cities.
- Reduced some combat bonuses: flanking (15 to 10), Great Generals (25 to 20), Discipline (15 to 10), Military Tradition (2x to 1.5x).
- Remove requirement for aluminum on Mobile SAM.
- Lower open terrain penalty to 10% .
- Marsh is now 3 moves to enter (Chariots do not move quickly through it anymore).
- Cavalry now upgrade to tanks.
[CITY STATES]
- Reduced bonuses from Maritime city-states - Friends: +2 food in capital, +0 food in other cities - Allies: +3 food in capital, +1 food in other cities
- Only the first 3 units gifted to a city-state will earn Influence now.
- Killing a barb inside a city-state's territory now gives a 5-turn buffer where there is no Influence intrusion penalty.
[HAPPINESS]
- If an empire reaches -20 Happiness, it goes into revolt, and rebels start appearing throughout the empire, based on the number of cities.
- Amount of Happiness needed to trigger a Golden Age reduced.
- Amount of Happiness needed to trigger a Golden Age now increases as the number of cities in the empire goes up.
[POLICIES]
- Landed Elite (Tradition Branch) now reduces culture cost of border growth by 2/3.
- Monarchy (Tradition Branch) now provides +1 Gold per 2 pop in the Capital..
- Liberty now provides a Settler training bonus to only the capital, and not every city.
- Tradition now provides +50% growth in the capital.
- Theocracy now reduces Unhappiness by 25% .
- Reformation now gives a 10-turn GA.
- Adopting Rationalism now gives a 4-turn GA.
[TECH TREE]
- Add link between Military Science and Dynamite.
- Add link between Civil Service and Education.
- Add link between Economics and Scientific Theory.
- Add link between Chivalry and Acoustics.
- Research overflow now works correctly (extra beakers after completing a tech will rollover to the next tech).
[GENERAL]
- Fixed bug where clicking on a city plot wouldn't select the garrison.
- Natural wonders now award culture (if worked) and happiness (if in border) if that trait is assigned to a wonder in XML.
- Players must now always adopt Policies immediately, and cannot defer picking until later.
- Have culture cost for policies never go down (trading away cities to reduce culture cost exploit). Razing cities will not raise your policy cost ceiling.
- Reduced culture needed for first plot acquisition from 20 to 15.
- 3 new Natural Wonders and rarity code for both base game and New World scenario.
- Reduced points from Wonders (40 to 25) & Cities (10 to 8), increased points for pop by 1 (3 to 4).
[DIPLOMACY]
- AI's attitude towards you is now visible in the diplo screen and diplo drop-down.
- Added info tooltip for an AI leader's mood. Lists things that are making an AI player happy/upset.
- New diplo system: Declaration of Friendship (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
- New diplo system: Denounce (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
- New custom leader responses (Serious Expansion Warning, Aggressive Military, Luxury Exchange, Borders Exchange, Gift Request, etc.).
- Not agreeing to a friend's request now results in a relations hit.
- Third party AIs can now respond when a player makes a DoF or denounces someone. What they say is based on the situation - e.g. if you make friends with someone they don't like, they'll scold you.
- AI leaders will now sometimes ask their friends to denounce one of their enemies as a show of support, and refusing to denounce someone when an AI asks can now make them very upset.
- AI is now capable of denouncing friends (aka, backstabbing) and added backstabbing info to diplo overview screen.
[UI]
- Add XP bar for air units, do not allow XP for air units attacking a city that is already down to its last hit-point.
- Change ActivePlayer's name to "You" in single player in score list.
- Added game option to disable automated workers from removing features.
- Fixed bug where Happiness from garrisoned units wasn't being listed in Happiness info tooltip.
- Load Map function will now display correct size and type of saved map.
- New "Angry Genghis" loading screen (replaces the "fluffy-bunny Genghis" loading screen).
- Added setup options to allow players to defer choosing Policies and Promotions right away.
- Show the river penalty when attacking city across river (the penalty was there but was not being shown in the preview).
- Global politics screen updated to reflect new diplo system.
- Can no longer Force End Turn (shift-enter) through blocking notifications. CAN now use it to skip over units which need orders.
- Multiple tweaks and bug fixes.
[MISC]
- Fix small bugs with adding long roads around existing features.
- Fixed bombard arrow across world wrap.
[MODDING]
- Parent category counts now include counts of child categories.
- Selecting/deselecting a category now automatically selects/deselects it's children and its parent.
- Tweaked category name truncation to better fit names.
- Hide categories w/ no children and a count of 0.
- Added support for fallback languages (if mod is not translated, fall-back to English so text keys are not showing).
- The pager for the installed mods tab of the mods browser is now displayed in the correct location.
- Long values for properties such as "Special Thanks" will no longer extend past the edge browser frame.
- Categories refresh much faster now in the mods browser.
- Multiple additional tweaks and fixes to the mod browser.
- Support for mods that perform major restructuring of the tech tree including adding, deleting, and updating techs, buildings, and units.
- Added GameEvents system for overriding Gameplay DLL specific functionality.
- Fixed "Reload Landmark System" mod flag to now refresh landmarks defined in "ArtDefine_Landmarks".
- Multiple SDK updates (new version to go live shortly).
[SERIALIZATION/SAVES]
- Fixed save format which causes saves to increase the memory footprint of the game drastically when loading frequently over the course of the game. This heightened the risk of late-game out of memory crashes significantly.
Posts
Ahahaha, I love your ninja fixes!
You are right of course, times change. This is the information age, but someone once wrote that information wants to be free, and I think that's less true today than back then. However, the other response I got is probably the ultimate solution, which I take full advantage of even today: The enthusiast community will find a solution.
2.66Ghz i7 w/ 4GB RAM and a 512MB 330M.
The first time I loaded the game it froze on the opening screen, but subsequent times have been fine.
I do think I set the shadows on high before, but the first game I started was a "whole world" game, and after exploring most of North & South America and Asia, I had to turn all the settings down as it was starting to chug.
I'll give shadows a shot now and let you know.
PM sent... but I just thought about something... you don't happen to be running 10.6.4 instead of 10.6.5 by any chance?
(I don't have a MBP and have no experience with Mac-related issues, so I have no idea what might be causing it in your case)
Game mehanics and the need to make it, well, a "game" mean that there's no real historical value to having people play civ. It would be like teaching people how to farm by playing Cataan. What are you trying to get people to learn? I think the only game i've seen with educational value is Stalin's Dilemma, because it forces people to understand the logic of forced collectivization and industrialization given scarcity and the international political climate. Besides some explanatory paragraphs it's also a dry spreadsheet interface.
What are you trying to teach? When you say "freshman level or below", what do you mean by "below"?
High School dual-credit courses, I imagine.
"Transitional" AKA "remedial" level. We'd be talking about a basic college skills course (attend, submit assignments on time, work in a group, etc.) with a video game flavor. It would not be an actual history/polisci/econ or whatever course.
But if I could dig up some well-done historical scenarios (like Rise and Fall of Rome, but for Civ 5), one could tie in some basic educational writing assignments. Stuff like: "Here's a map of Rome's actual territory over time; compare and contrast with your groups territorial expansion." The point wouldn't be to learn about Rome (much), but to learn how to write a compare and contrast essay.
Hopefully, you're getting my drift. I'm looking for scenarios with a strong historical flavor, not scenarios that actually teach history.
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
I think EU3 or EU:Rome would work better for what you want.
Main concerns;
Has the ratio of scientific progression vs production been balanced? I found cities couldn't build at a rate fast enough to make up for researching new tech
Is diplomacy actually worth looking at? Was terrible at launch.
Is information accessible yet? Can I see why a Civ doesn't like me? Is there greater transparency in the game mechanics?
They were the things that killed my enjoyment of the game. The lousy combat AI I can get over if the Empire building elements have been improved.
Keenly awaiting a positive reply;
Oceanic SWTOR Guild - Voidstalker Brigade
Wouldn't it just be faster to teach them a graduate level understanding of History, than teach them how to play Europa Universalis though?
EU3 isn't really that bad.
Now Victoria 2, on the other hand... I'm convinced from reading the mod subforum that all the people that truly understand Victoria 2 are mad.
Which I see as a major flaw of a game that is supposed to have so many different ways to win.
Oceanic SWTOR Guild - Voidstalker Brigade
I think that's too deep for a pre-freshman course.
In Civ 5, it felt so weird seemingly starting out as an empire, but only have a single city for over a thousand years, and fighting barbarian horde after barbarian horde. The start of Civ 4 felt much better (and more historical), starting out as a tribe, fighting off wild animals (and absorbing tribal villages) and being able to expand quicker.
I guess once I'm done with Civ 4, Elemental might have its first expansion out, and then maybe Civ 5 will have its first expansion and so on... so maybe I can come back in a year or so.
I'm only running a 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo and it's running smoothly now. I think the big roadblocks have been fixed.
Did you get the config files I sent you? No luck?
How is Civ 4 running on your MBP? Civ 5 chugs in the late game and I'm wondering if Civ 4 might be a better option for quick games if it's ever on sale on Steam for a reasonable price.
http://www.civilization5.com/#/community/dlc_december Not sure if I'd pay that for just two civs and a scenario I'll only play once.
Yeah, im not thrilled about the price but at least its not at the map level.
I'm 600 turns into a game and apparently there's a bug where you can only have so many cities.. now whenever I conquer a new city, the game crashes. It doesn't seem to matter which city.
Ugh.
Considering I've made Civ5 mods which introduce new Civilizations / change existing ones, it seems incredibly lazy. I could recreate Spain's racial ability with 5 minutes in a text editor.
And this is a pay-for DLC. Insulting.
I gave up when people were willingly and knowingly purchasing on-disc unlocks for games. Just sit back with a bottle of whiskey and enjoy the next-gen videogame economy.
[TACTICAL AI]
- Proper evaluation of which enemy units can reach my units next turn.
- Sorting enemy targets (within a class) by damage.
- Combine bombardment fire from cities with other ranged fire where possible.
- Never target a city for a ranged attack when they are already at (or going to be at) 1 health.
- Have the tactical AI be more aggressive about fortifying units that aren't moving anyways.
- Make all forms of guarding improvements the lowest priority tactical AI moves.
- Don't mark tiles adjacent to enemy at sea as good for flank attacks -- there is no flanking at sea.
- Update to tactical AI pillaging code - now prioritize enemy land resources and trade routes (never regular mines or farms). Always uses the check to make sure AI is not trying to pillage in an enemy dominance zone. Barbarians will still target everything.
- Never use ranged units to provide flank bonuses.
- Reduce chance of AI civs making "suicide" attacks.
- Changes to better protect the capital or any city with an enemy within 5 tiles.
[VICTORY]
- AI will be more aggressive about pursuing Diplo victory (bribing City States) if they are wealthy.
- AI will be more aggressive about building Spaceship parts when going for Science victory.
[CIVS]
- Tweak a few leader settings to be more likely to use their traits.
- Adjust Napoleon to make more likely to go for culture.
[COMBAT/UNITS]
- AI will not use Horse as defenders on hills as much.
- AI will often build more defensive troops.
- AI will more aggressively hunt barbs in the early game.
- Slightly more naval units.
- AI will now build ranged and mobile units more in line with the flavor settings for the team - in general, this means more mobile units.
- AI now builds, deploys, and uses air units more effectively.
- Allow AI to build more units if above Prince.
- AI will be more likely to build and bring siege units in a city attack.
- Better nuke targeting by AI.
- Won't build AA if no air threat.
- Allow AI or automated human explorers to move to edge of sight range and then explore again.
[EXPLORATION/EXPANSION]
- AI will emphasize getting an Ocean going explorer unit when the time comes.
- AI slightly more likely to settle off home continent.
- AI should colonize other continents regularly.
- AI second wave expansion more aggressive.
- Improve the AI's chances of setting up protected bombard attacks.
- Settlers: should handle watery maps better.
- AI will grab goody huts on other land masses.
- AI will grab empty barb camps more often.
[WORKERS/CITY AI]
- Large Cities should be more willing to build happiness and gold buildings.
- Workers prioritize repair builds higher than other builds.
- AI will be more likely to build a wall on any city that was an original capital.
- Builder tasking now calculates yields appropriately during golden ages and weighs tiles according to how much stuff they provide overall as well as their maximum yield of a certain type.
- More likely to build up economy early.
- Multiple worker AI improvements.
[MISC]
- Factor GS into flavors more.
- Disband obsolete units even if not losing money.
- Upgrade units a bit more.
- Tweak flavors of policies a bit.
- Have AI factor Grand Strategy into picking policies.
- AI will factor grand strategy into tech choices a bit more.
- AI don't send a barb expedition if defenses are critical.
- AI less likely to pick a city on an inland sea for serious naval production.
- Additional pathfinder optimization.
[GAMEPLAY]
[CITY/BUILDINGS]
- Added "National Treasury" national wonder, which requires Markets in all cities. Provides +8 Gold per turn to the city in which it's built.
- Added "Circus Maximus" national wonder, which requires Colosseums in all cities.. Provides 5 Happiness.
- Library now has no specialist slots.
- Wat now has two specialist slots.
- Public school now has 1 Science per pop, +1 free Great Scientist point, +1 Culture for 3 gold maintenance.
- Observatory now has 1 specialist slot.
- Research Lab has two specialist slots.
- Public school now provides 1 beaker per pop for 3 gold maintenance.
- Watermill now provides +2 good and +1 production for 2 gold maintenance.
- Paper Maker now has no specialist slots.
- Circus now has +2 happiness and no maintenance.
- Theatre now has +5 happiness.
- Stadium now has +5 happiness.
- Reduced production cost and maintenance for the Courthouse.
- Courthouse can now be purchased in a city (although it is expensive).
- Removed maintenance from city defense buildings (Walls, Castle, Military Base).
- City defense buildings now help cities heal.
- Increased city strength ramp-up based on technology.
- Reduced effects of Forbidden Palace and Meritocracy (Happiness per city).
- Reduced amount of food needed for cities to grow at larger sizes.
- Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this).
- Ironworks now gives 10 hammers instead of a % bonus.
- National College now gives +5 science in addition to the % bonus.
- Hermitage gives 5 culture in addition to its previous bonus.
- Raze/Unraze exploit fixed.
- Cities being razed are unhappy about it (only during the razing process).
- Cities heal more quickly.
[UNITS/PROMOTIONS]
- Cavalry can now go obsolete with Combustion.
- Stealth bombers cannot use carriers.
- Only allow one upgrade per unit from a goody hut.
- Add second embarkation promotion ("Defensive Embarkation").
- Amount of damage done during naval combat increased.
- All melee horse units get penalty attacking cities.
- Increased city attack penalty for mounted and armor units to 50% (from 40%).
- Lancers (and Lancer UUs) upgrade to helicopter.
- Lowered combat value of Horseman and Companion Cavalry.
- Promotions must be picked the turn they're earned.
- Can no longer promote a unit that has fought during the turn (instead, the promotion comes up the beginning of the following turn).
- Catapults and Trebuchets now weaker against units but stronger VS cities.
- Reduced effectiveness of Archers & Crossbowmen (and their UUs) VS cities.
- Reduced some combat bonuses: flanking (15 to 10), Great Generals (25 to 20), Discipline (15 to 10), Military Tradition (2x to 1.5x).
- Remove requirement for aluminum on Mobile SAM.
- Lower open terrain penalty to 10% .
- Marsh is now 3 moves to enter (Chariots do not move quickly through it anymore).
- Cavalry now upgrade to tanks.
[CITY STATES]
- Reduced bonuses from Maritime city-states - Friends: +2 food in capital, +0 food in other cities - Allies: +3 food in capital, +1 food in other cities
- Only the first 3 units gifted to a city-state will earn Influence now.
- Killing a barb inside a city-state's territory now gives a 5-turn buffer where there is no Influence intrusion penalty.
[HAPPINESS]
- If an empire reaches -20 Happiness, it goes into revolt, and rebels start appearing throughout the empire, based on the number of cities.
- Amount of Happiness needed to trigger a Golden Age reduced.
- Amount of Happiness needed to trigger a Golden Age now increases as the number of cities in the empire goes up.
[POLICIES]
- Landed Elite (Tradition Branch) now reduces culture cost of border growth by 2/3.
- Monarchy (Tradition Branch) now provides +1 Gold per 2 pop in the Capital..
- Liberty now provides a Settler training bonus to only the capital, and not every city.
- Tradition now provides +50% growth in the capital.
- Theocracy now reduces Unhappiness by 25% .
- Reformation now gives a 10-turn GA.
- Adopting Rationalism now gives a 4-turn GA.
[TECH TREE]
- Add link between Military Science and Dynamite.
- Add link between Civil Service and Education.
- Add link between Economics and Scientific Theory.
- Add link between Chivalry and Acoustics.
- Research overflow now works correctly (extra beakers after completing a tech will rollover to the next tech).
[GENERAL]
- Fixed bug where clicking on a city plot wouldn't select the garrison.
- Natural wonders now award culture (if worked) and happiness (if in border) if that trait is assigned to a wonder in XML.
- Players must now always adopt Policies immediately, and cannot defer picking until later.
- Have culture cost for policies never go down (trading away cities to reduce culture cost exploit). Razing cities will not raise your policy cost ceiling.
- Reduced culture needed for first plot acquisition from 20 to 15.
- 3 new Natural Wonders and rarity code for both base game and New World scenario.
- Reduced points from Wonders (40 to 25) & Cities (10 to 8), increased points for pop by 1 (3 to 4).
[DIPLOMACY]
- AI's attitude towards you is now visible in the diplo screen and diplo drop-down.
- Added info tooltip for an AI leader's mood. Lists things that are making an AI player happy/upset.
- New diplo system: Declaration of Friendship (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
- New diplo system: Denounce (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
- New custom leader responses (Serious Expansion Warning, Aggressive Military, Luxury Exchange, Borders Exchange, Gift Request, etc.).
- Not agreeing to a friend's request now results in a relations hit.
- Third party AIs can now respond when a player makes a DoF or denounces someone. What they say is based on the situation - e.g. if you make friends with someone they don't like, they'll scold you.
- AI leaders will now sometimes ask their friends to denounce one of their enemies as a show of support, and refusing to denounce someone when an AI asks can now make them very upset.
- AI is now capable of denouncing friends (aka, backstabbing) and added backstabbing info to diplo overview screen.
[UI]
- Add XP bar for air units, do not allow XP for air units attacking a city that is already down to its last hit-point.
- Change ActivePlayer's name to "You" in single player in score list.
- Added game option to disable automated workers from removing features.
- Fixed bug where Happiness from garrisoned units wasn't being listed in Happiness info tooltip.
- Load Map function will now display correct size and type of saved map.
- New "Angry Genghis" loading screen (replaces the "fluffy-bunny Genghis" loading screen).
- Added setup options to allow players to defer choosing Policies and Promotions right away.
- Show the river penalty when attacking city across river (the penalty was there but was not being shown in the preview).
- Global politics screen updated to reflect new diplo system.
- Can no longer Force End Turn (shift-enter) through blocking notifications. CAN now use it to skip over units which need orders.
- Multiple tweaks and bug fixes.
[MISC]
- Fix small bugs with adding long roads around existing features.
- Fixed bombard arrow across world wrap.
[MODDING]
- Parent category counts now include counts of child categories.
- Selecting/deselecting a category now automatically selects/deselects it's children and its parent.
- Tweaked category name truncation to better fit names.
- Hide categories w/ no children and a count of 0.
- Added support for fallback languages (if mod is not translated, fall-back to English so text keys are not showing).
- The pager for the installed mods tab of the mods browser is now displayed in the correct location.
- Long values for properties such as "Special Thanks" will no longer extend past the edge browser frame.
- Categories refresh much faster now in the mods browser.
- Multiple additional tweaks and fixes to the mod browser.
- Support for mods that perform major restructuring of the tech tree including adding, deleting, and updating techs, buildings, and units.
- Added GameEvents system for overriding Gameplay DLL specific functionality.
- Fixed "Reload Landmark System" mod flag to now refresh landmarks defined in "ArtDefine_Landmarks".
- Multiple SDK updates (new version to go live shortly).
[SERIALIZATION/SAVES]
- Fixed save format which causes saves to increase the memory footprint of the game drastically when loading frequently over the course of the game. This heightened the risk of late-game out of memory crashes significantly.
Zeboyd Games Development Blog
Steam ID : rwb36, Twitter : Werezompire, Facebook : Zeboyd Games