🚀 go-pugleaf

In message <MPG.29b073c341ccd30b98969a@news.individual.net>, Peter 
Huebner <no.one@this.address> writes
>
>
>I bought Civ 5 a couple of days ago.
>
>First impressions were annoyance: I bought the boxed disk version. Ho,
>hum: as it turned out the disk version not only wants you to install
>Steam to activate the program, it will always spawn Steam in order to
>play, if you want it or not. Ok, so I can run Steam in offline mode,
>it's still a nuissance. I was NOT expecting that. I resent having to
>poke holes in my firewall so Steam can do ... nothing useful at all, in
>order for me to play a game.
>
>I have upgraced my OS since I had my old Steam install, and recovering
>my account details simply didn't work. In the end I had to make a new
>account ... fortunately my only other Steam game, X3, does not require
>Steam to run at all, so this is not a major piss-off. A bloody lot of
>frustration all the same. Particularly since Steam immediately tried to
>upgrade the game client and timed out. Second try after restarting Steam
>worked fortunately, so after about 2 hours of mucking about and deciding
>that Firaxis will not sell me another game on this basis I finally got
>to take a look at the game. (Oh, and in the first session Steam started
>spamming me with unwanted pop-ups and requesters -- fortunately it
>doesn't seem to do that any more since I put it into offline mode -- but
>spam sure is a great way of getting on the wrong side of my temper).
>I will be *extremely* circumspect about/before buying another Firaxis/2k
>game.
>Likely: not. Any company that does not understand that user experience
>plays a role in buying decisions deserves to lose customers.
>
>To the game:
>Radically changed interface and mechanics nonwithstanding, I felt more
>or less at home after some 10 minutes of play. It's a little slow
>though, despite a system with an i5 quadcore and an nvidia gtx 570 video
>card. Fall from Heaven 2 on a huge map is snappier than this.
>
>On that subject: I'm running the dx10/11 client on Win7 64 ultimate ---
>woohoo: this game really heats up the gpu: it's the first time ever that
>I've heard the fans spin up to high speed, and the gpu is at 60 celsius
>instead of the normal 40-45. Again FFH2 does not seem anywhere near as
>demanding.
>
>Overall I can hardly give an opinion about the game per se: there are
>enough new things to keep me entertained for now; for instance all the
>wonders that used to give civilization-wide virtual building benefits
>seem to be conceptually revamped. Furthermore strategic resources come
>on a one by one basis - so if you have 1 iron resource you can have
>exactly 1 swordman in the game, no more. Same goes for mounts. Which
>forces interesting strategic new issues: expand to grab resources vs.
>the increasing cost of cultural/civ advances with more cities and the
>requirement of some wonders to have one of something in _every_ city. No
>Oxford University unless you have a Uni in each of your cities, et
>cetera.
>
>This will take some experimentation with _small_ civs vs. large ones.
>
>-P.

Deja Vu,
Except my negative experiences of Steam with Civ 5 meant I was not 
prepared to give Civ 5's radical reworking a chance to show they were 
actually improvements rather than madness and the game remained unplayed 
after the first attempt.
-- 
Kevin Blackburn                         Kevin@fairbruk.demon.co.uk

Peter Huebner  <no.one@this.address> wrote:
>First impressions were annoyance: I bought the boxed disk version. Ho, 
>hum: as it turned out the disk version not only wants you to install 
>Steam to activate the program, it will always spawn Steam in order to 
>play, if you want it or not. Ok, so I can run Steam in offline mode, 
>it's still a nuissance. I was NOT expecting that. I resent having to 
>poke holes in my firewall so Steam can do ... nothing useful at all, in 
>order for me to play a game.

I haven't bought Civilization V because of the Steam requirement.  I might
end up getting when it's on sale for less than $5, but otherwise I want
actually own a copy of the games I buy, not a "subscription" that could
end at any time.

Unfortunately more and more PC games are going the online activation
route, where your ability to (legitimately) play the game is at the mercy
of the publisher.  So I'm probably not going to buying many more PC games.

					Ross Ridge

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

Concerned about price and subscriptions etc? Find some free strategy games (in the Civ style, such as C-evo and Freeciv) reviewed and partly analyzed on the Civilization Games Wiki - http://civilization.wikia.com - which incidentally now has an official partnership with Sid Meier's Firaxis.

In article <Pe2dnak78olqrsHJnZ2dnUU7-YOdnZ2d@giganews.com>, robin-
p@slingshot.co.nz says...
> 
> Concerned about price and subscriptions etc? Find some free strategy games 
>(in the Civ style, such as C-evo and Freeciv) reviewed and partly >>
<analyzed on the Civilization Games Wiki - http://civilization.wikia.com 
>- which incidentally now has an official partnership with Sid Meier's 
>>Firaxis.

I have read a review that contends that the new Civ "Beyond Earth" or 
whatever it's called is very short on content. (think that may count as 
Civ6)

Civ 5 ... well, it pissed me right off. I bought it on DVD especially in 
order to avoid having to run it through steam - and guess what, the 
first thing was that I had to re-subscribe to steam and the client runs 
through steam, even if bought on DVD. I told Firaxis that they had lost 
a customer there and then.

Hell, I am not even a 'steam-hater'. But I want to run my games 
independent of my online connected-state (unreliable infrastructure).
If I want a 'steam' game I will buy it off Steam.

My problem with c-evo and freeciv that you are plugging here is: too 
small. I have a 30" monitor. Due to the diminuitive size of the graphics 
tile sets those games are well nigh unplayable for me. Unfortunately. 
It would be great if they would scale up, or offer the opportunity to 
use larger tiles for terrain and units. Alas, I cannot see how it can be 
done  ... I have hunted high and low for larger tile  sets and found 
none; let alone a good  explanation of how to even get alternative tile 
sets plugged in and working.

-P.

Peter Huebner <p.w.huebner@gmail.com> writes:

> I have read a review that contends that the new Civ "Beyond Earth" or 
> whatever it's called is very short on content. 

        Yes.  It might improve with its patches, but it's not very
interesting yet.

                           - Tim Skirvin (tskirvin@killfile.org)
-- 
http://wiki.killfile.org/           Skirv's Homepage <FISH>< <*>
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tskirvin           Skirv's Pictures