Civ3 shall never die. And sooner or latter people will start making new mods.
By the way, I was just playing Civilization V. I just had a yawn-worthy game as Hiawatha of Iroquis, whose main advantage is that he doesn’t have to build roads but can connect cities through forests. I made sure to play him on the Americas map, and luckily ended up on the New York side.
While this advantage was briefly interesting, it eventually is no big deal that you build roads and incur higher maintenance costs since you still get good enough trade anyway. See, Civilization V is not a bad game, but outside of Alexander, Ramkhaeng, Elizabeth, and a few others, most leaders have dreadfully uninteresting traits or advantages. So you are really just playing a generic leader one way or another.
Civilization II and IV were the best in the series, obviously.
PS: Yours truly once did a giant, full fledged Betrayal at Krondor Let’s Play thread on a particular message board long ago, but with silly fantasy nickname. I don’t know whether it can still be Googled, and mayhap it’s long buried in internet archives, but I had managed to get the best spells, the best weaponry, and the best armour. A single Firestorm, and all the ten Moredhel facing me were dead. Man, that felt GOOD!
Oh man, Civ 2…
By the way, I am playing Fallout right now.
My character is a Small Frame, Bruiser who just punched the crap out of three Raiders in the desert all by himself with barely a scratch on him. This game is so addictively fun. Stuck in a mission? Forget about it and find some other town to visit. And then stuck in something else? Forget about that too and do something else. Eventually, everything gets done.
In a way, it’s exactly like Planescape: Torment in that respect. Leaving something for now and doing something else instead always rewards you. Don’t know why that blindfolded zombie won’t talk to you in the Mortuary? Don’t know what that tattooed severed arm is about? Well, you are in luck, because both are connected. One of the tattoos indicates that your old friend once included a blind archer and you can use the zombie-trained language to speak to him…and he does indeed turn out to be the blind archer.
Torment and Fallout are very similar in their gritty, dirtied up look and feel, especially with all the junkyard slums in both games.
I liked Civ3 the best of the Civ series, though I did enjoy Civ2 immensely. Right now I am 4X’ed out so I am trying my hand at miniature strategy: Tin Soldiers: Alexander the Great. Good game, but it is kicking my arse. I have no idea how to deploy cavalry…I am so used to infantry-mongering.
3 is the one I probably put the most time, even beating it on deity (but those high levels arent that much fun to play), I own 5 but only played it once, 4was probably best though. 3 certainly has a spot in my heart. I don’t think I could go back to I or II ever again, though I put many hours in them as well,
Civ IV was my favorite in the series. V was a mixed bag for me, I LOVE the fact that re-vamped the combat, so that you actually have to gast stragize when you go to war, no more stacking a dozen units and marching straight througjh your enemy, plus cities can defend themselves. But I was annoyed that they ‘dumbed down’ a lot of the actual building aspects(including scrapping religion altogether, what the hell?)
I absolutely love every one of the Fallout games. I especially like the libertarian/anarchist themes to the series: 90% of the places you go, even things like law enforcement are handled by private agencies, with no government to speak of. And the few examples of government throughout the series have them portrayed as evil and corrupt(the lone exception might be the NCR, although New Vegas doesnt give an overly postive view of them either). Theres even a hint of the Austrian understanding of money throughout the series: Nuka-cola bottle caps are used as currency, not because theres any ‘Wasteland Central Bank’ forcing people to, but simply because thats what everybody accepts in trade.
Sucked all your free time like a black hole.
The movie and TV industry gives people what they want. I am a huge sci-fi fan but I must confess I struggle to remember the last time Hollywood gave me an enjoyable flick. It’s all about love stories, people mumbling about some mumbo jumbo and explosions, lots of them. District Nine, while offering little in the way of plot innovation, at least had a semi-coherent storyline and, despite featuring stunning visual effects, probably cost less to make than hiring a single overpriced Hollywood “star”. But if people want to snore while watching the horrible Solaris remake (not that the original was much better) or be dazed and confused by a Michael Bay action porn who am I to argue? I’ll just stick to my Doctor Who and Torchwood home videos, thank you very much.
By the way, I don’t know who recommended the show I, Claudius to me (based on the Robert Graves novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God) but I must seriously recommend it for anyone interested in historical drama or the Roman era. It’s not exactly spot on accurate, but the acting and writing is some of the best I’ve seen. Brian Blessed particularly does a stunning Augustus Caesar.