Looking for a Settlers-type game + Civ IV talk

[Tieno]

Back in the day I really enjoyed playing Settlers (...2, I think) on my PC. I just had fun building my towns, not worry about too much complicated stuff. I just loved the building animations. I think I also played one of the Civs (or was it age of empires?) back then, but mostly for building. I usually didn't enjoy the combat because it made me too tense trying to protect my belongings and the threat of an attack I often ended up cheating so I could build build build. When I was but a small Tieno I loved playing with legos.
I want to play a game like that, but whenever I see a trailer of a strategy game nowadays it all looks way too complicated and demanding. Combat isn't that much of an issue anymore since I'm grown up, but I still want something that focuses on building cool stuff, with cool building animations. But not too complicated where citizens whine about everything.

[Great Rumbler]

It's has some combat in it and the citizens tend to complain fairly often, but it's a really fun game and pretty much exactly what you're looking for.

[Tieno]

Wow, that came out in 2007? I never knew they made a new one. Just checked out the City creation video http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21384.html and it brings back fond memories. I wasted hours on building lumberjacks, making gold mines etc. So much fun.

I hope my PC is able to handle that (I have a P4 3.2gh, 1gig of ram and x300)

[Fragamemnon]

If you can't run the newest Settlers game, you can always get the 10th Anniversary Settlers 2 remake:



Cheap and quite good!

Have you played the ANNO series? I find that people who like one generally like the other, and Anno 1701 is a brilliant, brilliant game.

[Powerslave]

Have you ever played Caesar III?

[Great Rumbler]

I hope my PC is able to handle that (I have a P4 3.2gh, 1gig of ram and x300)

It should run okay as long as you don't turn everything all the way up.

[Tieno]

Some great suggestions thanks guys! But oh em gee, they even made a lovely remake of Settlers 2. I can still hum the music of that game. I always loved the cutesy look of it, it reminded me of a show I used to watch as a kid (De Freggles/The Fraggles) and they had these great little guys called "de doeners" (the Doozers) and everytime they showed them they were building these elaborate constructions.


Regarding Anno, I heard about that game but the specs were too high at time. I checked some videos and it looks cool too.

It's fantastic that they updated Settlers 2, going to look for it and see if I can find it somewhere in a store. I'm sure I can run this, but I hope it's Vista compatible. Going to look for Settlers 6 too.

It's been a long while since I last gave into my building and construction fascination.

[Fragamemnon]

If you are worried about the system requirements for Anno 1701, just get Anno 1503 (the game before it). Both are great games.

Tilted Mill should be releasing an updated version of Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile pretty soon. I'll be posting about that when it comes out, it's sort of like the games posted in this thread as well.

[Tieno]

I mean, I was worried about the specs back then, because I had a different PC. I checked the specs again and I think I should be able to run that game on this PC.

[Great Rumbler]

You may also want to check out Sim City Societies. It's basically all about building your city exactly the way you want it and even has infinite money modes, as well as more difficult ones.

I would suggest getting this:

http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Arts-The-SimCity-Box/dp/B0014468XE/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1215452537&sr=8-3

[Powerslave]

Have you ever played Caesar III?

[Fragamemnon]

Socities is pretty good now that it is patched up. There's plenty of game there now, where as before it was felt like a usual Maxis game-all sandbox, no meat.

Caesar III/Pharoah/Zeus: Master of Olympus are three older citybuilders that still look good (IMO) and are very fine games. They are much more spreadsheety than the Settlers or even Anno, IMO. Then again, I never played them on anything except the hardest difficultly level, where the spreadsheet tactics were employed to counter the challenges posed by that difficulty.

[Brehvolution]

(Image removed from quote.)

It's has some combat in it and the citizens tend to complain fairly often, but it's a really fun game and pretty much exactly what you're looking for.

Is it on Steam? I'm going to have to get this.

Can you play your own music in the game?

The metacritic score is a 66. What does it do so wrong?

[Brehvolution]

O I went to buy the game after work, got home, installed, patched, now it say insert original game CD in drive. It's in there!!!!!

[Fragamemnon]

O I went to buy the game after work, got home, installed, patched, now it say insert original game CD in drive. It's in there!!!!!

probably has some nutty protection software on it. Do you have anything like daemontools or the other image mounter software enabled? Also, give it a whirl with your virus scanner disabled.

TAGES (the copy protection I think was used) is rough stuff.

[Brehvolution]

I uninstalled poweriso. Uninstalled the game, reinstalled, repatched. same shit!!!! THis was the first disc based game I bought in a long time and I'm fuccked. I just called the old lady to buy a new DVDRW on her way home. This one is a few years old.

[Great Rumbler]

It has some kind of copy protection software on it, that's probably what's causing it not to work.

The metacritic score is a 66. What does it do so wrong?

Nothing that I noticed. I've played it for hours and had a lot fun.

[Brehvolution]

Got it working.

How the fuck do you make a pasture?

[Great Rumbler]

Got it working.

How the fuck do you make a pasture?

I assume you've built a cow farm, right? Select the cow farm, that should give you an icon somewhere in its vicinity. Click the icon and then place the pasture. You'll need to get cows from somewhere in the level for the farm to do anything though.

[Tieno]

I downloaded the demo of Settlers 6 and while I should have been able to run it as I exceeded the recommended settings it chugged even at 800x600 re (which looks really blurry on a native 1680x1060 22inch monitor) and everything set to low.
Went to the store and found Settlers 2 Anniversary for 5euros and Civ 4 for 10euros (loved the 360 demo). Really cheap!! Civ Rev for the 360 was also there, came out today, but costs 60euros.

[Brehvolution]

Got it working.

How the fuck do you make a pasture?

I assume you've built a cow farm, right? Select the cow farm, that should give you an icon somewhere in its vicinity. Click the icon and then place the pasture. You'll need to get cows from somewhere in the level for the farm to do anything though.

Usually, when you build a structure, you build it in a close proximity and the resources turn green. I found cows and sheep, drop a farm there but was never given the option to build a pasture. I have a couple more questions:
How do you build military units? I've built barracks and sword and bowsmiths. The bandits are ripping me off and must pay.

[Fragamemnon]

I downloaded the demo of Settlers 6 and while I should have been able to run it as I exceeded the recommended settings it chugged even at 800x600 re (which looks really blurry on a native 1680x1060 22inch monitor) and everything set to low.
Went to the store and found Settlers 2 Anniversary for 5euros and Civ 4 for 10euros (loved the 360 demo). Really cheap!! Civ Rev for the 360 was also there, came out today, but costs 60euros.

Getting started with Civ4 PC? Awesome. Read the PDF in this post, it's a good Civ4 primer:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632

[GilloD]

If you have a DS, Anno 1701 is LITERALLY Ceaser 3. It's the same exact game

[Powerslave]

Have you ever played Caesar III?

[Great Rumbler]

Got it working.

How the fuck do you make a pasture?

I assume you've built a cow farm, right? Select the cow farm, that should give you an icon somewhere in its vicinity. Click the icon and then place the pasture. You'll need to get cows from somewhere in the level for the farm to do anything though.

Usually, when you build a structure, you build it in a close proximity and the resources turn green. I found cows and sheep, drop a farm there but was never given the option to build a pasture. I have a couple more questions:
How do you build military units? I've built barracks and sword and bowsmiths. The bandits are ripping me off and must pay.

Most resources work that way, except for some of the animal-related ones [sheep, cows, bees].

Military units are built at the castle, if I remember right. It's either that or the barracks. Once you have enough weapons, you'll be able to build a military unit.

[Tieno]

Powershave, nope, I haven't played Ceasar III.

Just played the tutorial of Civ 4 and continued on. Tried to War on Ghandi thinking he'd be a pussy, but even his small proxy city I had difficulty to lay it in shambles. Then again, I didn't really focus on a war economy early on. So I went back to having relations with him, but he hardly had anything for trade, while I had tons.
I had built some workboats early on but couldn't do anything on any sea square, even within my cultural influence. Do you need to put people(workers?) in this boat? Maybe I should try that.
I just researched and built stuff based on what sounded cool, probably need to plan that more carefully. I stopped when I was around 1500AD and I had about 4-5 cities, probably too low.

I downloaded the demo of Settlers 6 and while I should have been able to run it as I exceeded the recommended settings it chugged even at 800x600 re (which looks really blurry on a native 1680x1060 22inch monitor) and everything set to low.
Went to the store and found Settlers 2 Anniversary for 5euros and Civ 4 for 10euros (loved the 360 demo). Really cheap!! Civ Rev for the 360 was also there, came out today, but costs 60euros.

Getting started with Civ4 PC? Awesome. Read the PDF in this post, it's a good Civ4 primer:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632

Thanks, will use that.

[lordmaji]

eh, I've been playing Medieval 2 Total War. Pretty solid game IMO. Not sure if it's really in the same lines as Settlers though, it's been about 10yrs since I last played a Settlers game.

[GilloD]

Have you ever played Caesar III?

I couldn't believe they were the same exact game. I played Anno first and the gace Ceaser a whirl on Gametap and was totally shocked. The SAME EXACT game, shitty combat and all.

[Fragamemnon]

I couldn't believe they were the same exact game. I played Anno first and the gace Ceaser a whirl on Gametap and was totally shocked. The SAME EXACT game, shitty combat and all.

I found C3 and Anno to be similar games with different points of  focus, actually. C3 is more of a city planner sort of game-assemble your city blocks, ensuring proper coverage of services, etc., where as Anno is really much more about transportation networks between your island empire.

Both own face. Though I do think that Zeus: Master of Olympus is the best of the Impressions City-Builder series.

[Tieno]

Anyone have any advice on good Civ 4 mods/upgrades/fixes(which make the game better or whatever) etc?

[Fragamemnon]

For vanilla Civ4, just patch up and play. It's a great, great game without any changes to it.

If you have Beyond the Sword, then your options are a bit more open-most modders are working from the expansion code base.

[Brehvolution]

GET BTS!! It's a big step up from just Civ4 IMO,.

[Fragamemnon]

Tilted Mill just released their updated version of Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile on Steam.

http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=app&AppId=17110&cc=US

There's a demo there too. Definitely worth checking out if you're in the mood for a city-builder type game with a very progressive, engaging design that's a step beyond the SimCity/C3 style formulae.

[Tieno]

Started a real game this morning, albeit on easy, and I'm really loving it. Trading with other civilizations, building a ship that can cross an ocean and then discovering the other civs there. Pretty cool. Still discovering it all, but I love it more as my civ advances and I can do more stuff. I got a real kick out of culture-bombing a city by letting an artist create a work in one of my cities to overtake a small city with my cultural influence.
Would it make sense to get Beyond The Sword at this point? Is the expansion only for advanced players or can a noob like me also get a lot of enjoyment from the expanded content?

[Powerslave]

Have you ever played Caesar III?

[Tieno]

Have you ever played Caesar III?

Yes, back when it was released.

[Fragamemnon]

Started a real game this morning, albeit on easy, and I'm really loving it. Trading with other civilizations, building a ship that can cross an ocean and then discovering the other civs there. Pretty cool. Still discovering it all, but I love it more as my civ advances and I can do more stuff. I got a real kick out of culture-bombing a city by letting an artist create a work in one of my cities to overtake a small city with my cultural influence.
Would it make sense to get Beyond The Sword at this point? Is the expansion only for advanced players or can a noob like me also get a lot of enjoyment from the expanded content?

I'd say play it some more and get a better feel for some of the game's base mechanics first. BTS mostly adds stuff to the late game timeframe, which isn't going to be very interesting for a lot of new players-the early and midgame is where they will find things the most interesting.

[demi]

Sid_Meiers_Civilization_Revolution_USA_NDS-XPA

[Brehvolution]

Hey Tieno, you can go in the sound options and put a path in there for where your MP3's are. The debut album from 30 seconds to mars is fun to listen to while playing because the songs kind of fit what you are trying to accomplish in the game.

Enjoy

[Beezy]

I just won my first game of Civ4 with a comeback on the 2nd to last turn!