Quoting: PangaeaCivilization 4 is the best version in the series, with depth and so, so many ways to achieve your goals (and a damn hard AI/difficulty level). This game is available DRM free on GOG, so I see little reason to try out the inferior, dumbed down versions that came after it.

Hopefully they bring the series back to its roots at some point in the future, but I won't hold my breath.

I've never liked the absolutely atrocious combat in 4, worse than 5 or even 3; I mean, the nigh-complete removal of ranged units*‽ Who greenlighted that? Combat is no longer an interesting puzzle of positioning, picking apart enemy units at range while minimizing damage taken in return, just mash your doomstacks together until the stronger one wins. Even in 3 you could bombard enemy doomstacks at range to weaken them up first.

Granted, that put me off the game so hard that I never tried any of the expansions and don't really remember it much, so it's possible that the non-combat portions of the game were indeed interesting (I've heard a lot of good about the Beyond the Sword expansion in particular).

*Airplanes come far too late in the game, and are far too limited, to be interesting.

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Quoting: NanobangI haven't ever bought a game soundtrack, so I'm probably missing something. I can see the logic behind making a game's soundtrack available to those who owned the game. They would've heard it when they played the game and know if they wanted to hear more of it outside the game. Myself, I can't imagine wanting to buy a soundtrack I hadn't heard before. Is this something people do a lot? Just curious.

I've personally bought…*counts*…uh, "many" soundtracks for various games, both on Steam and Bandcamp when there's no Steam version. (My personal music library is 99% classical music from before 1900 and game soundtracks. :D) I don't buy soundtracks "sound-unheard", but there are plenty of ways to get exposure to game soundtracks besides simply playing the game these days. Maybe you watch a Let's Play or a streamer playing a particular game which you aren't interested in playing yourself, but which you really like the music to. Many game soundtracks can already be found on YouTube if you want to preview them before buying (you can of course also just rip them from the videos if they're up, but I prefer to show my appreciation for music I like by paying, since I can afford it).

Quoting: einherjarI think it is also silly to buy a game, that includes the music (as it is played in the game) and then pay for the music as a DLC, to get "the game music". You already payed for it...

While I can definitely see your point, I can think of three four five reasons someone might want to pay for it:

• Different arrangement. Sometimes the music as it's played in game will be arranged slightly differently (for gameplay purposes) than the music released in the soundtrack. For example, something that might be an infinite loop in gameplay could have a proper intro and outro bit added in the soundtrack. Or, in Portal 2, the soundtrack has a complete rendition of the Cara Mia Bella song which you can't hear in-game (though that soundtrack was released for free). Or, take Thomas Was Alone: the music there is made up of many very short little bits which are randomly played after and over each other throughout the game, so the only way to get that music outside of the game is through the soundtrack which has a representative arrangement of it. The Stellaris soundtrack also includes versions of a few songs that have a vocal part added, which are pretty cool, but which I can see wouldn't really work as default background game music.


• Convenience. In Paradox's grand strategy games, the music files are all lying around to be listened to outside of the game. However, if you want to get them into a playlist you'll need to go through and add track numbers, update it every time new music is released, etc. Buying the soundtrack for Stellaris allows you to have an auto-updated, pre-made playlist of tracks which reduces the amount of work needed.


• Quality. While I'm personally not an audiophile and can't tell the difference between an MP3 and a FLAC version of the same song, some people swear by it. Some soundtracks (again, Stellaris springs to mind) give you both MP3 and FLAC versions of the music, whereas the files for the game only have the MP3 versions.
  


• Appreciation. Sometimes you really just like a developer and want to show your appreciation by throwing a little more money their way.


• Practicality. While some games have the files just out and about if you want to copy them and listen to them elsewhere, sometimes the game files are all locked up in various archives. While I could probably figure out how to open them given enough time, I value my time higher than the (typically) couple of bucks the soundtrack would cost.

I'm not saying you (or anyone) should be buying soundtracks, and I'd be cool with more people releasing them for free, but in a world where developers need to make money to be able to continue making games those are a few reasons people might be interested in spending some. :)

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Good on 'em. Even here in Melbourne, far, far away from the worst of the action, there's a smell of smoke in the air and the Moon was tinted an ominous orange as it rose last night.

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Nice, I like it! It's always felt silly that I can't buy the soundtrack from a non-Linux game separate from the game itself.

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Quoting: hammahUnrelated to the conversation at hand, but I stumbled over the word “titbit” in the first sentence. Personally I hadn’t seen it written like this before, but only as “tidbit” i.e. with a “d” instead of a “t”. Believe it or not this was the reason for creating an account with GOL.

In any case if anyone is interested, apparently both forms exist, but according to Merriam-Webster, the notation with a “t” is less common:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/titbit [External Link]
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tidbit [External Link]

Thus ends my first contribution to this fabulous site...:D

From what I remember reading, the original version was actually titbit, nothing salacious about it, that's just how it came down from older English. But then someone created the tidbit form because they thought it was salacious, and now we have two forms. :)

Uhh, on topic, that's actually rather interesting to hear that Steam for Linux got started by ex-Microsoft employees, and that even they can think that Windows is going the wrong direction.

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Quoting: razing32Sorry to dispel your odd-even theory.
I like 4 and 5 the best.
Tried 3 and 6 as well.
5 remains my favorite.

Ha ha, fair enough! :D

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I've got an interesting theory (feel free to chime in with support or rebuttal) that people tend to like either even- or odd- numbered entries in the Civilization series better depending on whether they first played an even- or odd-numbered game themselves. I, for instance, was introduced to Civilization with Civ 3, which devoured hundreds of hours of my teenage life. I really tried to get into Civ 4, but bounced off it pretty hard (the removal of nearly all ranged units, which was one of my favorites aspects of warfare, certainly didn't help). I found Civ 5 to be a little dry at release, but over the years with the release of Gods & Kings and Brave New World I've found it to be my favorite game so far—I'd go so far as to say that the culture victory from Brave New World is possibly my favorite victory condition in a game ever. (There's just something about optimizing my collection of artifacts and Great Works over the years to squeeze out another +1 Tourism that's immensely satisfying to me!) I haven't played Civ 6 because, well, its mechanics just haven't really appealed to me enough from watching gameplay videos to pick it up. (Subjectively, I also prefer 5's more realistic art style for leaders over 6's more cartoony style.)

On the other hand, I've colloquially heard of at least a few people who got into Civilization with either Civ 2 or Civ 4, who didn't like Civ 3 or 5, and like Civ 6, so I'd really like to hear other people's thoughts on this. Is this just small sample size bias, or is there actually a measurable trend here?

Quoting: PatolaI am curious. What is so special about Civilization V mechanics (compared to other versions) that is so worth mimicking? Tried to find that on the project page but couldn't.

I mean, you could ask that about any entry in the series they happened to pick, no? I guess it's just this guy's personal favorite. But some thoughts of my own:

• Civ 5 introduced hexagonal tiles (which can allow for somewhat more natural looking landscapes) and city states to the main games (I'm admittedly ignorant of any spin-off games).


• The build-your-own-religion system in Gods & Kings was new, and interesting, where all the options are not balanced in power because it's first-come, first-serve. Want a powerful religion customized to you liking? Need to get working on it early.


• The culture victory from Brave New World. I've already touched on this, but I think this is the most interesting and interactive (non-military) victory condition I've encountered in a Civ game to date (with the caveat that I haven't personally played 1, 2, or 6). It's incredibly well balanced over the entire course of a game so that you always end up winning right near the end of the tech tree, but you always feel like you're making progress towards it along the way (at least once you get your first Great Work). And there's just something about making five different Great Work trades to get that extra +2 from your new Museum of Classical Greek Art that's just so satisfying!


• I also really like the trade route system of BNW, it did a good job of having a number of trade routes that was small enough to manage, but important enough to care about, especially with how it synergized with the culture victory (having a trade route with a civilization would increase your rate of cultural superiority with them, for instance).

Now, having written all that, I looked at the project page and realized they don't have mechanics from G&K and BNW in place yet (though they seem to be on the road map), but those are a big part of why I, personally, like Civ 5 so much. :D

(This isn't in the list above because it's not mechanics-related, but as a linguaphile I really liked the attention to detail in the leaders in Civ 5 and how they all speak the correct language [as close as we can determine].)

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Quoting: buckysrevenge

Quoting: XpanderQ.U.B.E - which for some weird reason isn't on steam anymore, though i own it in steam... wtf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AltrokRM4NI [External Link]

the director's cut is still available on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/239430/QUBE_Directors_Cut/ [External Link]

Was just going to post that, that's probably why the original isn't available anymore. :) I remember getting the Director's Cut for free at some point after I'd bought the original game, that might be when they removed the original from Steam.

The name F-STOP was mentioned in the documentary "Portal 2 - The Final Hours [External Link]" as being this incredibly fun and interesting game mechanic which was around before 2011, but which Valve kept a tight wrap on. It's nice to finally—after all these years—see what it was actually about. Seems like it would be an interesting mechanic, if well-implemented.

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Quoting: CheesenessNo probs!

The other nice thing (from my perspective) is that Itch allows people to buy, download, and play the game without making an account, so when I distribute on Itch, I'm not asking people to commit to using another platform.

Ah, that's interesting. I didn't know that. I'll have to check it out.

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Quoting: KimyrielleThe worrisome bit is that our market-share is still exactly the same 1% it has been before Steam for Linux was launched (which was arguably the birthday of Linux as a viable gaming platform).

But we have grown! :) Given how fast Steam as a whole is growing, the number of Linux users must have increased proportionally with all those new Windows and Mac users to keep that 1% steady. If we hadn't grown, that'd be more like 0.0001% now. :)

I absolutely agree that it'd be wonderful to see that 1% starting ticking upwards, but in absolute terms, there are more people gaming on Linux now than ever before.

----------------------------
Another perspective on Proton, is that it's less about playing new games (which we can hope to have native versions in the future) and more useful as a way to play older games which will never get a Linux port (due to developer shutting down, rights issues, lost source code, or whatever). For instance just yesterday I discovered that Star Wars: Episode I: Racer was on Steam, got it working, and have been reliving my childhood. :D

I only started using Steam in 2011, and switched to Linux 2014, and had been consciously buying only games with Linux versions for a year or so before that, so I didn't have to give up too many games to make the switch; but for plenty of people, before Proton came out, switching would've meant giving up potentially a pretty large part of their library. I still think Proton is possibly a double-edged sword, with the potential to cause companies not to produce a Linux native version because "it can run on Proton", but I think the utility it offers in allowing hundreds (thousands at this point?) of older games to be run shouldn't be underestimated.

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