Civilization V

A Little Bit of Civ. 5

stargrace May 10, 2016 2 Comments

It may come as a bit of a surprise but there are a few non-MMO games out there that I really enjoy playing. A lot of them stem around creation or building in some way – like Civilization 5, Banished, or any sort of city creator. This week I decided to re-visit civ. 5, it has been ages since I last played. I don’t think I own all of the expansion packs for it but that hasn’t stopped me from enjoying the game. I started out with three cities of my own along the coast on the left hand side, and then quickly decided to become a warmonger and took over three more cities, wiping Spain from the game. Not my fault they fell so easily. I’m ally with Monaco on the right hand side and they also hold a little city down South. I’ll leave them there for now.

No one has come along to invade me yet, so I’ve had lots of time to work on reinforcing my cities. Having gunpowder helps a lot, and I think a majority of my citizens are happy, minus the annexed ones.

I’m not sure why games like this appeal to me aside from the fact that I find them very calming. Turn based means I’m not rushing around trying to get things done, and I have lots of time to go AFK if I’d like, or to ponder my next move. Civ is also one of those games that’s deeper than it looks. There are lots of political mechanics at work besides the simple ‘running a country’ image.

Next I’ll be wandering over to the right hand side of the map and slowly making a name for myself. There’s plenty of map left to uncover and I’m eager to explore.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Some Casual Civilization V

stargrace August 14, 2013 2 Comments

Every so often I’ll back down from playing my typical MMOs and go browse through my collection of steam games. There has been a lot of talk about these collections on G+ lately, so that’s where the inspiration came from.

One game that I received some time ago but had yet to actually play was Civilization V and I was very much in the mood to play this sort of game, so I started it up. That is how I lost track of the next 4 hours. I absolutely fell completely in love with this game, even though to date I had not played any of the Civs before.

Of course then all my dreams were crushed as the game crashed, and I had not saved – except wait! It saves every 10 moves! Not all of my hard work was lost. At the time I did not see the tab that lets you check the last spots where you’ve saved, all I saw was the steam cloud save which was NOT updated at all (grumbles). So I thought all of my hard effort to take over Venice was lost. Turns out it’s not lost (yay).

In my first game I randomized everything and started as Russia. In the second map I was England, and things were going a bit poorly as I had issues taking over my neighbours kingdom. I didn’t realize that I needed some melee to help out instead of just ranged attackers, so I spent a good 20-25 minutes pummeling their walls with my archers only to have the city continue to stand. Eventually I clued in and sent some pikemen over, and victory was mine.

I don’t own any of the expansions but I added them to my steam wishlist. If you happen to be on steam and want to add me to your friends list, please go ahead! I’m over there as Stargrace, as usual.

It is a really nice break from MMOs to play some single player games. I know there’s a multiplayer game available too, but I haven’t tried that out yet.

I was a bit interested in Steam’s Trading Card mini-game, so I decided just for fun that I would not sell the cards I had earned towards Civ. 5 and instead I would purchase the ones I was missing (I dislike the idea of asking my friends for them) and craft the badge. It was neat, and I admit, addicting. When I crafted the badge I received a bunch of steam experience (for what, I have no idea), a :gems: emoticon (which I sold), A Civ 5 background, and 90% off of some game that looked cute but that I don’t really have any use for. I may pick it up so that I can gift it at a later date, I love helping out people who have games on their wishlists. It wasn’t super fancy, but I did have fun. I’m not sure if I’ll keep future cards or just sell them, we’ll see.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!