Only tossed in a handful of votes because for the most part I haven't played any of the games, or in many cases even heard about them. But I missed RimWorld in the long-term support category. Think it deserved to be in there since the game has been supported on Linux for years (with patches along the way) and works perfectly natively. It's also a really fun and challenging game, but that's not really relevant I suppose :P

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Hopefully similar issues not yet discovered/publicised isn't the case for AMD's processors as well.

And being on Linux, I hope it's not just naive optimism that I hope we are less susceptible to designed-in security holes for NSA and suchlike organisations to exploit. That's more likely to be in central infrastructure though, and not necessarily in personal computers.

In any case, I hope Linux is more secure in these regards.

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True, it's pretty simplistic in terms of actual real-life farming -- but I'm glad it is. Otherwise it would have been boring as hell, and feel more like actual work than it already does (sprinklers help a lot!). But on that note, I've seen pictures of those basically automatic tractors that drive up and down gigantic fields, with a farmer inside playing Stardew Valley. That was pretty funny I thought.

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10 million copies?! Holy shit. ^_^

Am sure I have several hundred hours of playtime in at least two longterm games. Lots of fun.

I do tend to get a bit jaded after around 3 years when I'm rolling in money, but Skull Cavern is a nice distraction. I liked the recent introduction of fish ponds too. Not big money makers, but they look nice.

There is something to be said for safe environments for you children too :)

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Will the games run better if you have an open case so it's able to breathe?

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Paradox continues down the road towards Evil Arts, eh? :(

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Re-selling more steam keys I see (at least for the games I checked). Not interested then.

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Ultimately it's simply down to a difference in opinion with regards to the combat in Civ 4 and 5/6. What I enjoy most about Civ 4 is the depth, balance and how hard it is on the higher difficulties. For me, it simply was a whole ton more fun to play than Civ 5. And since I've played it competitively, such things matter too. Winning on Deity and even Immortal is far from trivial in Civ 4, which means the game has been fun to play for me for years on end. For others it can be different of course.

:)

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Indeed. If you want that kind of "strategic depth", there are more shooters than you can wave a stick at out there, or actual strategy games. I don't want to waste time trying to manoeuvre units past each other in way too little space. I'd rather move the whole stack (much more likely many different stacks, and reinforcements coming in a line), and then select the units which has the best odds, or the best promotions, taking risks here and there, or suiciding units here and there, and eventually coming out on top (or trying again later).

Looking at other aspects, however, I was actually shocked at how dumbed down the rest of the game was. While in Civ4 you have loads of information from the city screen and suchlike, and can quickly act with a click or two, in Civ5 you have almost no info, giant icons and need twice as many clicks to do most things. It was horrible. Somehow the game itself was much slower as well. And like touched upon above, all leaders basically act totally random, giving none of them personality and meaning you can't have actual allies.

In the end, all these things meant I fairly quickly dropped playing that game, and went back to Civ 4. It offers so much more depth and interesting games than the later versions. That's why I say I hope they will return to their roots one day, instead of continuing down this silly path of simplification. It's the way the industry has gone though, so I don't expect any change. At this stage, the best we can hope for is somebody else to release a game that is more akin the classic Civilization games.

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Admittedly Civ 4's combat isn't where the game shines - though it still managed to utterly trounce the idiocy of Civ 5. But like touched upon in the above post, there are a great deal of features in the game that make it interesting, and offers the player many different ways to achieve their objectives, and different ways to win the game. And due to bonuses/penalties, the AI is actually highly competitive on the top difficulty levels, even for some of the very best players. Quite different to Civ 5, where people with zero experience could jump right in on Deity and still trounce the AI. Very disappointing of course.

The siege warfare of Civ 4 is a bit silly, and I totally agree airplanes and missiles and the like come too late to be of relevance (in the vast majority of games). That said, overall I do like the combat in Civ 4, and certainly more than in the games that came after it, although it's always infuriating to lose units at 99+% odds, particularly in the early game where every unit matters a great deal.

Basically the game has more depth AND breadth than Civilization 5 and 6, which is why people still play it to this day. I found it more balanced as well, albeit there are some military units that offers a genuine edge over others (like the Cuirassier and Rifleman). The different civilizations and leaders also act differently, and not basically completely random as in Civ 5, which means each game tends to play out differently depending on the civs and leaders involved. Again, this gives the game longevity, which I really like about it.

I think they got almost everything right with Civ 4, and very few things wrong. I can't say that about Civ 5 and 6. I'll take stack warfare over parking lot logistics any day of the week.

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