You know, I'm guessing that the guys were all of a sudden FORCED to sell Civilization because their line of credit was secured by the civilization franchise. Companies do this all the time, its like taking out a loan backed by your house, if you dont pay it they take your house but by doing that you get a lower interest rate because its less risky for the lender. For example, Midway has an asset based line of credit backed up by Mortal Kombat and other games, and if they dont pay it back the bank can sell Mortal Kombat off to the highest bidder.

I always thought the added graphics in the newer Civ games would just detract from it, as well as thought the isometric view was terrible.

I just want original Civ, even if the enemy units don't follow the same yours do.


I never got into Alpha Centuri. Something about being on a star in the future doesn't strike me as being nearly as much fun as pissing off Napoleon while trading nukes with Ghandi.

Hey, MacD, change the ForceVoxel parameter in Alpha Centauri.ini to 1 and it shouldn't crash in Win2000/XP anymore.

Does anybody know how to make the numeric keypad work in Alien Crossfire on Win2000, though?

>> I think, Civ3 was a MUCH better game than both Alpha Centauri and Civ2.

> I think you'll need to qualify that with some firm reasoning before you'd get other people to agree with you

Well, the emphasis on "MUCH" better was in reply to another poster. But yes, I believe Civ3 is a far better game than Civ2. To me Civ2 always felt like an expansion pack of Civ1. The addition of resources, the abstraction of trade, cultural effects and boundaries made Civ3 a true sequel to Civ1.

Now Alpha Centauri was a better game than Civ2, but still it had the patented Brian Reynold's 'design by the numbers' approach. You know, 620 units, 542 customization choices, 500 menus, 259 submenus etc. It just lacked something (at the risk of being Dr. Phil, I'd say it lacked soul) The sci-fi setting was also very dry.

Civ3 took the best of Civ1 and AC and then added strategic resources into the mix among other things.

They're going to bundle it into Corel Perfect Office so people will have a reason to buy it.

Alpha centauri...damn, I installked that game a couple of months back and I deleted it just a month ago...it was cutting into my real life! That is a damn near perfect game...everything civ1 was, and more

Personally, I think 'screw the civ franchise'; let Sid create 'Milky Way' or something...starting at the industrial revolution, up through space flight and colonization so you can run multiple civ-worlds, each with it's own difficulties and bonuses.
And get the game to look like the citymap in civ3 throughout the game (like civ3 should have done...there was no excuse to have a plain flat map during the game: we should have been able to scroll through it like a globe at high magnification...like the city-view).

And for me: AC>civ>damn near any game considering the amount of time I spent on the first two Civ2 was was just civ1 with slightly better gfx...and civ3 was just civ2, period.

Now all I need is for Alien Crossfire to work on winxp ('cause whilst Alpha Centauri does, installing Crossfire causes crashes to desktop ).

X-Com? You havent heard of UFO: Aftermath?

Unfortunately. It wasn't X-Com, though, it was Dreamland. It was the "spiritual successor" of X-Com, but only if you crossed X-Com with a steaming pile of dung.

X-Com? You havent heard of UFO: Aftermath?

Actually, here is your answer:
http://www.projectxenocide.com/firaxis.html

Firaxis bought old IP from Atari in 2002. This is dated 2003. Looks like X-Com is still in limbo.

I don't think Civ was a part of it. I don't believe we ever got confirmation on what was included, aside from some of the simulators.

The X-Com property was never officially announced as belonging to Firaxis.

I thought that Infogrammes/Atari sold the rights of the old Microprose to Sid ages ago, or does that not include Civ?

I'm still waiting for a new X-Com, damnit!

Infogrames has been desperate for cash for some time now. For every good release Atari (the Infogrames American brand) puts out that sells well, they have about five bombs. Actually, they're kind of like Interplay that way.

Extremely good comparison.

This is the main reason that publishers like EA have been buying up studios like mad...

...and closing them. There goes the reason part of your argument.

We aren't having the Avalon Hill/Sid Meier thing again are we? And 15.5 million euros is plenty, what's that in dollars? About a billion these days. har de har har. (settle, play mates, it's about $20 million. Your currency is turning into the RMB.) IMHO that's a huge amount to pay for a franchise which may well have run its course.

IMO, and sorry in advance for the retarded ">"

civ1>SMAC>most things known to man>Civ2>civ3
two fantastic games well established in my top 10 all time faves, and two i just didnt enjoy at all.

I can't imagine Sid buying his franchise back for 15.5M euros when he can't create a brand new one for free.

Does anybody know whether it's the Avalon Hill "Civilization" or Sid Meier's? I remember there being a big brouhaha about the two franchises a while ago. I can't imagine Sid's Meier's "Civilization" going for only E15 million, considering its popularity.

Well.. maybe Sid himself bought the rights to HIS game back!

That was the first thing I thought of too, since the rumbling was out there that they were working on a CIV4...

Use your head, don't lose it - Don't feed the trolls!

Well.. maybe Sid himself bought the rights to HIS game back!

Atari must have been REALLY despirate for cash.

Infogrames has been desperate for cash for some time now. For every good release Atari (the Infogrames American brand) puts out that sells well, they have about five bombs. Actually, they're kind of like Interplay that way. Like most publishers out there now (like Eidos and VU as well), they are going to have to seriously restructure and start listening to what gamers want instead of trying to guess. EA only does so well because they've managed to cinvine the public to buy the same sports game over and over every year and managed to land a lucky hit with The Sims. If direct-to-developer systems like Steam take off as well, they are in real trouble. This is the main reason that publishers like EA have been buying up studios like mad. If the publishers own the developers, then they still get the money from Steam sales.


Parallax Abstraction
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
StateOfGaming.org Coming Soon
This comment was edited on Nov 24, 13:13.

Wait... Alpha Centauri was made by Firaxis, wasn't it? So the guys that worked on AC at Firaxis left to form Big Huge Games? I thought Sid Meier was leading that project too

I think, Civ3 was a MUCH better game than both Alpha Centauri and Civ2.

I think you'll need to qualify that with some firm reasoning before you'd get other people to agree with you on that. Civilization III did very little to forward the genre in the gameplay department, whilst Alpha Centarui at least made a wholehearted effort to do so.