I remember at launch a lot of people were upset at how flaky Civilization Revolution's online seemed to be and were majorly disappointed since that was one of the big selling points of the game (a Civilization game that was fast paced enough to work well in multiplayer). Well, the latest patch of the game just came out (yesterday for the 360, a few days ago for the PS3) and hey, as coincidence would have it, I just got my first XBox Live Gold membership. If my latest few online matches are any indication, online multiplayer is pretty solid now. Also, it was pretty easy to find games to join both times I played (Friday night & Saturday morning) so I imagine the patch has drawn various people who had given up on the game back into the game.
You can find a complete list of changes for the latest patch here -
http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23576 - but I'll summarize the most important ones.
- Various bug & exploit fixes along with optimization & stability improvements including "We have fixed a number of bugs that had reduced the ability for players with different network connections to join the game. Improved NAT negotiation handling and the addition of a temporary failed connection blacklist will allow players to connect to Ranked or Quick match games more reliably."
- New Game of the Week leaderboards that divide players based on their victory type (so if you like non-military strategies, you can compare your scores without worrying about all the 10 turn Domination victories cluttering up your board).
- In the modern era, if you set a city's focus to Gold or Science, it'll convert your hammers to trade.
- Combat animations are faster in multiplayer.
- A.I. improvements (AI's are now more likely to fight amongst themselves instead of only focusing on attacking the player)
So let's share stories, discuss strategy, and the like!
I'll admit my two online matches to date weren't the most thrilling (although I had fun). Played as Spain both times. In the first, I managed to get the free wonder artifact which gave me the Great Wall. From that point on, the other civilizations ignored me and fought amongst themselves allowing me to get an Economic Victory without much trouble. In the second game, I got off to a slow start (and discovered that the free Militia unit exploit if you settle next to a barbarian hut has been removed), but my first two cities were nice food powerhouses & I was able to settle a few good island cities so in the end game, I had a very powerful civilization. Everyone ended up quitting a few turns before I got an economic victory.
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stable multiplayer sounds like a good incentive to give it a shot.
If I'd known they were fixing this in particular I wouldn't have sold my copy a few weeks back. I don't feel bad about it, though. So many oversights dragged down the experience.