Quoting: Purple Library GuyIncidentally, does anyone else find the core mechanic in recent Civ that every time you found a new city, your people get significantly unhappier, to be kind of silly?

It's perfectly logical: They get jealous. Like a small child, when he/she gets a baby sibling.

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Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: wvstolzingThere's quite a bit of the designers' own political leanings informing the design...

Yes, but which political leanings are those? I've heard gamers accuse Firaxis of using the Civilization series to promote both liberalism and conservatism.

I think their political conservatism is pretty blatant. (How else would they stomach that G.W. Bush quote for the Future Techs? :P )

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Quoting: Mountain ManI think by the end of the game, I had a small, 3 or 4 city empire but was a technological powerhouse and went on to secure the tech victory.

What was the difficulty level though? That kind of scenario is really possible only on Chieftain. Anything higher, and the 'AI' (?!) starts cheating like mad (not subject to any of your happiness etc. penalties, and enjoying a slew of bonuses); and their diplomacy is totally unpredictable. A thousand-year long alliance can be dissolved in a moment (only 'coinciding', of course, with your weakest moment).

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Quoting: KimyrielleWhat would be the goal in Civ for a nation like Switzerland?

I dunno. The fattest secret bank accounts? Amount of Nazi gold?

Joking aside, you're right about size, of course. But size doesn't have to be a function of imperialism and unbridled resource-hogging. Civ V already makes use of the concept of international research agreements, and getting science bonuses through trade -- those kinds of things could be expanded. A small country like Switzerland can aspire to be the headquarters of an international research organization, for instance; or spearheading something like the 'open access' movement. Or you could aspire to be the most egalitarian society in the world; do the most for promoting peace, etc. etc. etc.

So *expansion* as such need not appear as the DESTINY of a TRULY GREAT nation. Either Civ IV or the 'vanilla' V even had 'culture bombs' that you could 'explode' at your borders to expand them. You'd take a 'great composer' to the border, for instance, and he'd sacrifice himself to claim some land for you. Pretty ridiculous, but in a way that betrays the underlying assumptions of the designers very well.

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Quoting: KimyrielleI am however, genuinely curious what can still done to Civ to improve it.

It's hardly an immaculate concept -- from the ground up, there's so much to improve, to make it worthy of the name 'civilization', as it were. Sure, the core design has to 'gameify' a huge range of social-political dynamics; nevertheless it takes a bit too much for granted.

To begin with, you assume a godlike dictatorship of a nation-state back in 4000BC. Money pretty much has its 20th century significance from the start.

There's quite a bit of the designers' own political leanings informing the design -- in one of the past Civs, the stock exchange increased overall happiness in a city, for instance. And unless you're building an expansionist empire, you can't really aspire to any of the victory types.

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Hopefully it'll be in a slightly more 'complete' state upon release -- unlike Civ V. That game became worth playing only with the release of BNW.

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Not a Hero: I picked this up during the previous Humble Bundle; it's definitely a well-made, fun game -- though the later stages can get a bit too challenging if you're a sluggish old geezer like me, with diminished motor skills. I quite like the sense of humor too.

Hotline Miami: I can barely advance to the 4th chapter. I really like the concept, do wish to play further, but it seems like I simply lack the skills to do so.

Downwell: ... what, a non-linux title??? Actually, this is a 'game maker' game that *can* run *natively* on Linux, with a game maker executable obtained from elsewhere. (e.g., a free demo) This is absolutely addicting; and I've spent more time on this, than any other game recently. Still haven't beat it though. Check some videos on youtube, this one's highly recommended -- though admittedly it's not an official linux sale, etc. But it sounds like the developer has no intentions to bring it to linux, despite the fact that it *already runs* on linux. Go figure. I guess he can't be bothered to figure out the steam integration, etc. for a linux port.

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Only a shallow, literalist approach could interpret that image as that of a 'djembe'.

Rather, the image is meant to resemble a basketball hoop.

So it's NBA 2K16 -- you heard it here.

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OlliOlli2 is unplayable* on my 970 with the 364.16 drivers; it's fine on my laptop with Haswell integrated. I haven't found any clues online as to why.

* - Framerate wavering between 15 and 5; controller input lag *when* it doesn't just ignore button presses, etc. etc. Very disappointing.

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Now I'm confused -- is there a scandal involved? I mean 'Lionsgate' ends in 'gate', so...

Misconduct at the zoo, perhaps?

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