Recommendations? 4X TBS Game for My Wife

Patrick wrote:
> Her partial playing history (games she's already done with):
> Master of Magic
> Age of Wonders I, II, III
> Civilization (I-IV) (She has always had mixed feelings about this
> game.)
> Heroes of Might & Magic III Complete (her latest favorite, but only
> with the WoG mod; and she complains that she can't build new cities
> and that the AI opponents are too aggressive)
>
> Any ideas?
>
> I'd offer her Disciples II Gold (which I've been playing off and on),
> but there's no city building in it. And that's what she really misses
> from MoM--the chance to actually build up an empire from scratch
> rather than just conquering existing cities.

It's not a true 4-x, but I would very much recommend that you get your
wife a copy of A#'s King of Dragon Pass. Last I knew they were still
burning and selling copies. It's very different. There will be some
"war." It's a very, very difficult game that is very rewarding.

You may also want to take a look at StarDock's the Political Machine.
The engine was the basis of Entrepreneur which was definitely the best
real time 4x ever.

You may also want to investigate the CIV IV mod Fall from Heaven. It
makes civ iv a whole new game.

dfs

> Any ideas?
>
> I'd offer her Disciples II Gold (which I've been playing off and on),
> but there's no city building in it. And that's what she really misses
> from MoM--the chance to actually build up an empire from scratch
> rather than just conquering existing cities.

You could consider some of the "Historical City Building" games, like the
"Caesar" series or "Children of the Nile". I liked a lot CotN and it's
spiritual predecessor, Pharaon.

Patrick wrote:
> I wonder if she'd like Galactic Civilizations. I've never played it
> myself. Do you get to settle planets in GalCiv? She's big on
> expanding and settling--exploring a map and taking over large portions
> of it. She just gets tired of war--especially when the enemy always
> seems to get big faster (yet she'll still insist on challenging
> herself by playing at higher and higher difficulty levels). But in
> GalCiv, there are other paths to victory, right?

Yes, you settle planets, and yes, there are non-conquest paths to victory:
-- technology (research)
-- influence (diplomatic)
-- diplomatic

You can also play with commerce towards any of the 4 goals.
See http://galciv.wikia.com/wiki/Victory_conditions

Patrick wrote:
> Any ideas?

As others have suggested, she may enjoy Galactic Civilizations. You can
play as big or small as you like, face many foes or just one other.
Explore, settle, develop and expand. Design your own ships or use
pre-fabs. Etc.

http://www.galciv.com

You may also look into CivCity: Rome. You build humble towns and grow
them into majestic Roman cities. Defend them from enemy nations, raiding
barbarians, and wild beasts. Keep your citizens happy and educated to
improve services and abilities. However, it is not TBS. It is
"real-time" that you can pause.

http://www.2kgames.com/civcityrome/civcity.html

Both of these games have sucked up many hours of my gaming time.


- Sheldon

Patrick <p55carroll.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> wrote in news:0f34e277-d258-4017-b95d-
f3bc46b31753.TakeThisOut@w1g2000prk.googlegroups.com:

>
> Her all-time favorite is probably Master of Magic. So, that's
> approximately the kind of game she's looking for. However, she gets
> frustrated with aggressive AI players and sometimes wishes she could
> turn off war and just enjoy a game of more peaceful expansion.
>
> She also dislikes 3D graphics and real-time. And our computer system
> balks at some of the latest games.
>
> She does seem to enjoy micromanagement, and she gets more into the
> economic side of games than I do.

Sounds like all of my reasons for loving Dominions.
(now up to Dominions 3)

I went to it based on a comparison between it and Master of Magic.
Its TBS. In fact its so TBS that is supports PbEM.

The graphics are not 3D but are surprisingly good in the latest
version.Same can be said of sound. But its also not nearly as large as
many present games and can be played on a laptop. Its also Windows, Mac,
and Linux versioned. (the linux version is VERY compatible with
webserver). All 3 versions come on the CD along with a 300 page spiral
bound manual.

Its more worth the amount of money than just about any game Ive ever
bought. Like Master of Magic, Space Empires IV, and Stars! it has lived
on my machine for years.

The maps can be as large as 1500 provinces. There is a random map
generator built into the game which is highly configurable. And there
are 2 others generators available for download.

There are 72 nations. The nations are not chess-piece duplications of
each other where the pieces just wear different colored uniforms. Each
nation has its own pros and cons. You acn find the nation which best
matches your type of play whether its barbarian horde, offensive,
defensive, researching, stealth, etc. And there are slots available to
take it up to 95 nations to make use of the many user created nation
mods.

2088 different units in the game, over 1000 pieces of equipment that can
be given to them with various abilities, 709 magic sites to be searched
for which can grant gold, magic gems, the ability to recruit or summon
other units, and some which have bad effects.

There is 9 areas of magic. Fire, Air, Earth, Water, Astral, Death,
Nature, Blood, and Holy. Spells are in the categories of Conjuration,
Alteration,Evocation, Construction (creating magic equipemtn to give
your commanders), Enchantment, Thaumaturgy, Blood Magic. And Holy altho
Holy doesnt need to be researched. Some spells are cast in magic labs
you build in a province, some are battlefield, and some are global.
There are 755 major spells.

Each nation can be played by a human and will support online playing
against other people, and hotseat playing for two people on one
computer. They can also be set to play as AIs with settings of easy,
normal, difficult, mighty, and impossible. The AI has not been proven to
do any cheating but mostly just gets more creation points to spend
setting itself up at the beginning. (Impossible is of course NOT
impossible but it is far beyond the little toy AIs in other games which
serve only as tutorials). Since each nation is so unique you will find
that those AI settings mean different things in play. Some nations
mighty AI will be another nations easy AI but the difference is how well
you play against that type of nation so that comparison would be
different than another persons going up against the same nations.

There is a great support forum online. And the game is still offering
patches and upgrades years after its release. Not to mention the very
active support of players in creating playing guides and maps and mods.

The strategy can be very deep. Even after years there is no "killer
strategy" found like in other games. People are still coming up with new
tactics and discussing them on the forum. It takes a LONG time to play
it all solo and settle into your favorite nation and the build choices
of that nation. At that point you can shift to multiplayer online games
which come in many styles. Or start checking out the mods created for
adding new nations, improving the AI, or just throwing surprises into
the game.

Luckily, being TBS this fantastic game is not too distracting for me. I
can still easily take breaks and look up to see whats going on around
me. And it shares the computer nicely. I can shell out of it to check
mail and other things then shift back into it. It doesnt take over my
entire computer when its running.

WARNING: as much as I love this game, it is NOT for everyone. Altho the
demo is way out of date with the many patches and upgrades, it still
does give a good impression of what the game play is like. I HIGHLY
recommend downloading the demo before deciding to buy the game.

You can buy the game from Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000K0OSFS/anyonecannet-20

Gandalf Parker
-- DISCLAIMER: this game is NOT suitable for students, interns,
apprentices, or anyone else who is expected to pass tests on a regular
basis. Do not think about Dominions strategys while operating heavy
machinery. If you find that your game has continued for more than 36
hours straight then you should consult a physician immeadiately (Do NOT
show him the game!)

You might also want to look at Space Empires. I liked IV better than
the current V, but it's still a good game. You found and develop
colonies, which is pretty much the same as cities in MoM. There can
be tons of micromanagement if you like that (I do too), or you can
leave certain categories of decisions up to AI ministers. You can set
victory conditions to include more than conquest, although I imagine
there will be a lot of fighting in any game.


Dav Vandenbroucke
davanden at cox dot net

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In article <0f34e277-d258-4017-b95d-f3bc46b31753
@w1g2000prk.googlegroups.com>, p55carroll RemoveThis @gmail.com says...

> Her partial playing history (games she's already done with):
> Master of Magic
> Age of Wonders I, II, III
> Civilization (I-IV) (She has always had mixed feelings about this
> game.)
> Heroes of Might & Magic III Complete (her latest favorite, but only
> with the WoG mod; and she complains that she can't build new cities
> and that the AI opponents are too aggressive)
>
> Any ideas?

What about those builder games like Rome, Pharoah etc. which had a fad a
few years ago?

I don't know what the latest Settlers games are like, maybe they are
worth a look.

It's hard to beat Civ when it comes to empire building; anything else is
likely to seem like an inferior and less evocative clone. SMAC was
good, but that's basically Civ on Alpha Centauri.

- Gerry Quinn

Patrick wrote:
> My wife's not much of a PC-game geek, but she does like having at
> least one great game available to her when she's in the mood for it.
> And when she is, she can spend hours on end playing the heck out of
> it. Then, eventually, she wears one game out and feels ready for
> another. Now the time has come again.

Patrick

For $30, you cannot go wrong with the new Civ4 Colonization. It is not
really a 4x game, but it focuses on economy over war. There is war at
the end, but only for your independence from the Home land. If you want
a cheap economy and exploration simulator, then Civ4 Colonization is a
good choice.

Patrick <p55carroll.DeleteThis@gmail.com> writes:

>Any ideas?

A couple of names:

Fall from Heaven II mod for Civ 4. This one made me play civ 4 for some
more time. Latest version requires Beyond the sword expansion, but there
is a bit older version that plays with vanilla civ 4.

Colonization. I haven't seen the new version, and IIRC it wasn't very
well received, but if you wife still plays MoM then the the old 90's
version might be good, if you still can find it somewhere.

--
What sorcery, what spells, have brought thee here?

Thanks for all the suggestions so far.

I tried to get her interested in Civ IV the other day, but then I
remembered that it's not playable on our computer system anymore for
some reason. I used to play it quite a bit, and it worked fine
(except that I had to turn off the movies, because they'd cause the
game to freeze or crash). But now, even though I've uninstalled and
reinstalled the game twice, it runs ver-r-r-r-y slo-o-o-owly. You'll
click on something, and nothing will happen--but if you wait several
seconds, suddenly your click has been processed and the action happens
on the screen. Don't know what's wrong, but I haven't had the
patience to look for a fix.

Since that game went bad, I'm kinda reluctant to put any new games on
the system.

Still, I'll browse around and have a look at Space Empires, GalCiv,
etc.

Oh, btw, she has played SMAC. We both played it till we got tired of
it. Even tried the Alien Crossfire expansion briefly (borrowed it
from a friend)--but it's usually too pricey on eBay, so I've never
bought a copy.

--Patrick

On the 3 Dec 2008, zeplin <zeplin.DeleteThis@confused.com> wrote:

<snip>

> I would recommend Pharaoh/Cleopatra if she hasn't already
> done them. A combo pack of both can be had for about US $10.

> http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/cleopatra-queen-of-the-nile

I second that. Pharoah Gold was superb value and I really enjoyed it,
having been a fan of that series of city builders since Caesar II. The
Egyptian setting is very well done and is still different to a lot of
similar games.

--
Jades' First Encounters Site - http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm
The best Frontier: First Encounters site on the Web.

nospam.DeleteThis@jades.org /is/ a real email address!

On the 2 Dec 2008, "Vincenzo Beretta" <reckall RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote:

>> Any ideas?
>>
>> I'd offer her Disciples II Gold (which I've been playing off and on),
>> but there's no city building in it. And that's what she really misses
>> from MoM--the chance to actually build up an empire from scratch
>> rather than just conquering existing cities.

> You could consider some of the "Historical City Building" games, like the
> "Caesar" series or "Children of the Nile". I liked a lot CotN

To my shame, I bought that at the back end of 2004 (one of the last
years when I bought PC games in quantity) and it sat on a shelf until
earlier this year - I just never got round to playing it. I finally
started it a few months back and I'm enjoying it. The recent patch did
a very good job of improving the game and ironed out a couple of
niggles.

I know Patrick said his wife doesn't really like 3D and realtime but
the game is playable without needing to change the camera too much.
Gameplay is realtime, but the speed is adjustable and the game can be
paused. The economic and social system is very innovative.

Official website is at http://www.immortalcities.com/cotn/ and
includes loads of info about the game.

> and it's spiritual predecessor, Pharaon.

Pharoah Gold was an excellent game.

--
Jades' First Encounters Site - http://www.jades.org/ffe.htm
The best Frontier: First Encounters site on the Web.

nospam RemoveThis @jades.org /is/ a real email address!