This

They are great games but terribly optimised.

Lol this was hilarious!

I finally broke down and got CivV last night. Must have 2000 hours lifetime dedicated to the series, most of which were on III and IV. Not sure why I had never gotten V, but whatever.

Same situation but I could never get in to V. The more I think about it lately, the fifteen year old me that could sit and play Civ II for twelve hours straight probably wasn't as ADD as the current me. I never get caught now by the "just one more turn!" hook.

any europeans not have metro 2033? have a region restricted key i can't use

wtf, the game is region restricted?!?! I did know about Russian keys being restricted, but now Euro keys too?

probably eastern euro.. a guy on my friends list is from ukraine and used to sell really cheap keys/steam gifts but cant now because most games are region restricted

Yes please!

Liking civ5 so far but can't find a good difficulty balance. I have about 15 hours in game and I'm about to start up an Emperor level game. I don't even understand the value of city-states or half the game systems and it seems pretty easy. I don't remember Civ4 being this way.

I'm assuming you are playing the vanilla game? City states aren't that interesting -- really they are just there to give you some resource boosts if you have excess gold or for access to additional luxuries for happiness or "we love the king day". In the expansion gold gifts give less influence but the city states have more quests that earn influence (most culture/science generated, spread religion, etc). Patronage social policy tree is also better. My favorite are military city states -- free units every ~20 turns and they are sometimes unique units from civs that aren't even in the game.

Which should I play first? Civ 4 or 5?

sweet it worked, tyvm!

Civ 4 w/ Beyond the Sword expansion...and never look back.

i had some fun with civ 5 but i found mid/late game combat becomes very impractical due to the one unit per tile rule. as a result i found myself usually pursuing different victory conditions. maybe this is how they wanted it to be but for me it was certainly a drastic departure from the earlier titles and probably was the main reason i didn't pour as many hours into this one as i did with the others.

highly highly recommend civ 4 + bts; i think it is by far the superior game.

i just bought crusader kings 2 and im really enjoying that although i do have some gripes. mainly that the holy roman empire is an unstoppable juggernaut in every game ive played so far. i hope "the old gods" dlc goes on sale soon.

Civ 5 is not as good for a few reasons. One unit per tile is the worst, obviously. Throughout human history, bigger armies have historically won wars. One unit per tile neutralizes the effect of large armies. It makes NO sense to me that the entire land mass of Germanybcan only accommodate one group of archers, and no other types of units.

Diplomacy in civ5 is he worst I have encountered in any civ game.

Wonders are not as interesting as thy were in past games.

Still, the game is okay. It just isn't on the same level as past civs.

A tried out the demo for 7 Grand Steps because the previews I read raved about it. It really is an engaging game despite the fact that it is set up like a board game.

I'm guessing it will be on sale once the summer sale starts, but I dropped the full $15 by buying it directly from the developer because I enjoyed the demo so much. They are really onto something.

I'd say it is abysmal by any measure for a strategy game. A lobotomized 5 year old would have a more coherent, and successful, strategy than the AI in Civ5.

So would 2p2 be intrested in Civ 4 multiplayer? While I won't be available for next weeks I'd love to try it.

Civ4 Beyond the Sword with the Rise of Mankind mod is the best civ game of all time imo.

Civ 4+ BtS + Fall from Heaven 2 imo.

Bought, Civ5, playing on Diety already and the AI is def not good at all in any facet. But I think I'm liking the one unit per tile. Theres so much more thought that goes into attacking and defending than just sending in the stack of death.

But the god awful AI is a problem. The AI has nfi how to handle the combat systems. Or the the diplo, or...

yeah there can be more thought in the earlier parts... where to place archers vs melee units etc... but later on once you have a decent empire and are able to flood the entire map with units anyway it doesn't really matter. the rule just becomes ineffectual and frustrating.

I saw that Civ5 was onsale and ALMOST bought it because I heard they had patched a lot of the problems away, but instead I thought I'd give the free weekend a shot.

Spent most of a rainy Saturday taking over the world, game still has that "just one more turn" appeal, but Jesus Christ the diplomacy and the AI and the late game mechanics are all still garbage. That free weekend cost them my $12.

i hear the expansion makes it better too

If I can expand on just why the diplomacy is so bad. In previous Civ games, the other players would act like they are part of a world, not just a game. Their goals were not just to **** the player, but to improve their own positions as well. As such, the other civs would often trade one commodity you needed, for one commodity they needed.

In this game, the computer controlled players seem to be playing a game as well, with their sole intent being to beat you. When I ask them what they want for cotton, for example, they don't ask for incense, which would give them the same benefit that I am receiving; a fair trade. Instead, the computer controlled players demand my incense, gems, crab, dyes, furs, marble, iron, and every single piece of gold in my treasury. Yeah, sure, let me give the computer controlled opponent every single thing I own. IT MAKES NO SENSE.

Yea I don't understand some of the dipo. I once had someone offer peace if I gave up every city I had. I mean... I could just fight the war and lose of them that way, right?

On the other hand, once game Greece attacked me, after I advanced a settler right next to him. After losing the fight he offered peace by giving me his second city. It was... I mean I didn't once do anything but defend and he gave me city 40 turns into the game. Why?