What games are you playing now?

Woo-hoo, I won my first Prince-level Civ IV game!

Yet around 1750, I thought I'd be lucky to make it to the endgame, never mind win. It was an almost completely bloodless victory -- I only ever fought barbarians, and was only attacked once, an invasion that I repelled without ever firing a shot or landing a blow.

I played as Peter of Russia. Started on a continent with Saladin to the south, Lincoln to the north-west, and Suleiman to the south-west. I had a lot of bad luck in the beginning; lost a few 80% fights, and fell significantly behind. The thing that saved me was that I founded Christianity and built the Apostolic Palace: when Suleiman attacked me, I managed to pass a resolution ending the war before he had time to do any damage.

I figured that there was no way I'd win a war against my bigger and more advanced neighbors anyway, so I went for economy and science. I managed to conclude a defensive pact with Saladin and then Lincoln, which made me pretty safe from attack, so I could then effectively ignore the military side of things. I never did build anything more advanced than two prop fighters there, as it happened.

Traded tech aggressively; took any deal I could, and built up both. And... inch by inch, discovery by discovery, I pulled ahead. Russia's special building, the Research Institute, helped a lot, for sure. Then I figured the Space Elevator was almost within reach; I did everything I could to get it. I did. And that pretty much cinched it -- I got the spaceship flying well before anyone else. Lincoln was pushing a massive cultural assault on me (I lost Ekaterinburg to him that way), and he got two cities to Legendary cultural status, but I got to Alpha Centauri first.

Whew.

I don't think winning a computer game has *ever* felt quite this good. Civ IV at this level does not pull any punches. Damn!
 
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Well, I'm very much enjoying Drakensang on the PC, and bunch of DS games (Fire Emblem, Dragon Quest V, Legend of Y's, and Blue Dragon ...of which Fire Emblem is my fave)
 
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Oct 18, 2006
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Replaying some of my old games atm.
Just completed The Witcher and mass Effect again.

Got a MM6 game running, lvl 50s and just got through the council quests. Though haven't played it for some time now.
Got a Planescape Torment run going aswell, just about the enter the Fortress but kind of put it aside aswell.
Then I just started playing BG2 again, with a ranger (Drizzt look alike) and will probably continue with that.
Just started playing Mafia again, will probably keep that going along side BG2.

And then I keep raiding in World of Warcraft, but not much else, so thats only a few hours few days a week.

Just killing time untill some of the games I want come out. Though they all seem to come in the last half of 2009.
 
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Aug 30, 2007
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These days I'm rediscovering Dominion 2. This game is really addictive. Late-games, however, get painful with so many things to manage, units to summon/recruits, spells to manage, etc.
 
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Nov 4, 2007
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I just received a specimen of the URU collector's edition - I'm going to install it soon. :)

It was a really neat thing: 5 Euros inclusive shipping, and very, very good communication with the seller.

If all ebay sellers were so ... :rolleyes:
 
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At the moment im playing F.E.A.R 2 and I am about half way through. The game is a very ordinary first-person shooter. It looks very good and it packs a solid first-person shooter engine, but the game offers nothing new when it comes to story or gameplay.
 
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Oct 26, 2006
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Duke Nukem 3D with High Resolution Pack. Still fugly but runs flawlessly under XP and no longer look like a pixel collection. Hail to the king, baby!
 
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Football Manager 2009. Now I get to see how my defenders cant handle tall strikers in 3D! :D

Hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to handle tall strikers and make my defenders mark properly in this version (I vow to do this with every version, with mixed success)...
 
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Duke Nukem 3D with High Resolution Pack. Still fugly but runs flawlessly under XP and no longer look like a pixel collection. Hail to the king, baby!


Still awesome, isn't it? :) Duke Nukem 3D will always be one of my all time favorite shooters. I discovered the HR pack last year, it made me play it again for the first time in years.
 
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Oct 21, 2006
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It's time to kick ass or chew gum... and I'm all outta gum.

Seriously, D3D rules. The fact that the dev team is apparently too stoned to ever manage to publish the sequel only adds to the mystique.

As for me, I'm still continuing with Civ IV. Despite my first win, I'm still finding new ways to lose. What I learned from the latest one: if the AI wants one of your cities in a war of attrition, give it with a smile and a wave. Then build up a massive stack and kick his skinny imperialist ass across the continent. A sure way to lose is to get caught in a war of attrition that goes nowhere either way; the non-belligerents will pull a tech lead so far that it's not even funny. I just realized this too late, as Tokugawa really, REALLY seemed to want one of my cities; by the time I got frustrated and tried this strategy, I had fallen so far behind Genghiz Khan that his keshiks ran roughshod over my empire. Pity, too; it was a big one and I'm fairly certain I'd have done well if only I had done that sooner.
 
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Oct 19, 2006
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yeah, bloodlines is a great game. There's so many standout setpieces, took me forever to play because i was exploring every nook and cranny of everything!

Santa Monica really does look and feel like a coastal SoCal town at night, I really liked that location a lot. The clubs, I can almost smell the stale booze and clove cigarette. Ocean House, all that, goes without saying - pure gold. Not going the hulking brute, force-first style, I played a pretty and charismatic Toreador and had a really good time w/ the game that way.
 
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Oct 18, 2006
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Well, I think that was it.

I played a little bit further into Tabula Rasa, and just seconds after my last screenshot (never made it far into the game, despite what I has planned), the server was cut.

My last screenshot shows my character with a pet one could find within the game (taken from fallen enemies).

Now that's a game I really wished it would've been single-player ...
 
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Hm, surprisingly, "Hydra" ("US East") isn't tagged "offline" right now anymore ...
 
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Astonishingly, I could play until now on "Hydra", and the server is still alive.
But since it is now 5 in the morning (local time), I'm going to bed, finally. ;)
 
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Walp, I think I have Civ IV (Prince) figured out.

And it's kinda... boring. I think I'm dialing back down to Noble and trying to go for some of the more challenging victories instead.

(1) Get an edge in the early game (which, for me, finishes at the early Medieval era). Any one of these will do:
* Found at least three religions (Hinduism -> Judaism -> Christianity -> Islam, or Hinduism -> Confucianism -> Taoism -> Islam)
* Fight at most one series of short, victorious wars that nets you some of your neighbor's juicier cities, but ONLY IF you also have cultural dominance -- otherwise they'll just rebel and be a constant PITA.
* Grab more land than your rivals, by building settlers early and often, the budget be damned. (Caste System with lots of Merchants helps for this one.)

(2) Once well in the Medieval era, NO MORE WARS. Not against any way serious opponents anyway; if you're lucky enough to have a couple of tech levels advantage over a smaller neighbor, by all means annihilate it, but if that happens, it's a fluke.

By this time, wars are a lot more grueling and last longer, and because of the cultural strength of your rivals there's not all that much to be gained. However, you *will* fall permanently behind in research, which means you're FUBARed no matter which victory you try for. So, at this point, build enough military to be able to deter invasions, but no more. If invaded anyway, repel it quickly and, if necessary, buy off your invader with tech or even a city (if you can spare them).

(3) The rest of the game is essentially research, research, research. You have a choice of shooting for a Cultural Victory or a Space Victory; pick one and beeline it. If you're lucky, you'll win; if not, someone else will get there first. (If Gandhi/India is in play and you're not him, go for Space Victory because he's brutal in Culture; otherwise either is a possibility.) If you have about 10-12 cities and are not too far behind in tech by mid-Medieval era, either one is doable.

This works, repeatably although certainly not every time. And, as stated, it's really kinda boring -- all the real action is in the early game, and most of the play-time is basically just adjusting your specialists, building improvements, and picking techs to research. The real kicker is that mid- to late-game wars are a lose-lose proposition, which is not that much fun. So I'm going back to Noble.
 
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Oct 19, 2006
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RO, now that's a great game :). I was a core tester when it was still in mod stage. 'Doing a Crowfield'* became a common term back then - it meant shooting the guy who shot the promo vid :-/.

Now (re)playing both Doom and Kingdom Hearts.

____________
*Crowfield and GG were my RO nicks
 
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