Three months is a long time to scratch the civ itch - apply for a copy of CtP2 & AoM

[Nikolai]

Thanks!

[Alexander I]

Can you give us a civ list?

[stankarp]

Can you give us a civ list?

The draft Strategy Guide, a pdf document of under 1MB, can be downloaded from:

http://www.theagesofman.net/index.html

It is a password protected folder,
Username: taom
Password: 2005

It contains the civ list and what each civ trait is. The civ trait only lasts till the start of the Dark Ages(turn 300) in the full campaign. You then can get a new civ trait by building a special wonder available to your government for the Middle Ages.

Boris, name ONE civilization that achieve a position of long lasting dominance without war?

Lord Montgomery of Alamein stated in his book on history, the biggest activity collectively of man has been war, and the biggest single cause of war has been desire for someone else's land or resources.

[Nikolai]

name ONE civilization that achieve a position of long lasting dominance without war?

You have the Indus Valley civ, I don't remember the name. But while war is important to become dominant, or at least to remain at top, having a strategy that is mainly builder and to a lesser degree war based should be possible IMHO.

[Maquiladora]

Its possible to play the builder in AoM, but you still have to be able to defend yourself.

It costs you a lot of resources to keep moderate AI personalities happy through diplomacy (tech exchanges, gold gifts), but theres always gonna be bloodthirsty leaders that will attack you regardless, and thats how it should be.

[stankarp]

You can play as a builder as Maq said, but by about turn 300 on the recommended settings, most of the good land is settled and you will be being hemmed in by the AI.

To do that, you will need to do as Maq said, be nice to the passive AI and defend yourself against the aggressive AI. The aggressive AI usually only become more agreeable after you become much stronger.

Don't think that Civ you mentioned actually met the criteria Nikolai

[angrybowen]

Nikolai, even your ancestors had the reputation for being fierce warriors who terrorised their neighbours for centuries and ended up settling conquered lands.

AOM beats Civ 3 in 2 areas IMHO that makes civ 3 seems like it is in Neanderthal Land by comparison.

IN AOM, AI don't fight to the death, they surrender to reward you for successful, well conducted war. As opposed to Civ 3 where in the regicide game, after you get through the stack of cheat created defenders, you get to see all their cities suddenly turn into piles of ruble. In the normal game of course in Civ, you have to hunt down and kill the cheat created settlers and defenders.

In the combat system, instead of switching the clock back to Troy, where the armies paused 3 times to watch single combat between champions, combat in AOM is stacked and different types of units have different functions and abilities. This actually also makes combat quicker.

[Alexander I]

Hexagonians and Apolytonians?

"Did you do any fact checking before you turned this in?" -Strong Bad

[Protra3211]

If Activison would only rerelase CtP2 with some of the updates made it would rebuild the fan base in no time.
Pardox did this with Hearts of Iron 1 called a Platinum release. It contained a major fan made mod with many improvements costing 20 dollars with update booklet.

[Dis]

I've been playing Civ3 to satisfy my civ need. Just finished the Napolean secenrio. 1 more scenario to go before I finish all of them (actually I have done all of them before on my old computer).

I couldn't get into CTP2. I tried (twice)

[Proteus_MST]

Hm,
I liked CtP2 although it had a lousy AI
(because there were so many things I liked, such as PW, Tech-Trees which reach far into tha future and of course the stacked combat).

So yes, normally I´d like to try AoM. I assume you haven´t found a way yet to make it downloadable via ftp? I remember reading something about thoughts that it might be hosted by Apolyton.

[stankarp]

Proteus_MST

AOM has been available for download here for several months.

http://apolyton.net/forums//showthread.php?s=&threadid=134392&perpage=30&pagenumber=1

However, if you wait till Tuesday, you can download it with the diplomacy update.

Nikolai, even your ancestors had the reputation for being fierce warriors who terrorised their neighbours for centuries and ended up settling conquered lands

By angrybowen.

Yes, some Vikings settled in Normandy under the Franks, became the Normans and dominated medieval europe (for 300 years). Then through their conquest of Englend, they dominated the world (arguable).

They also had a big part in the downfall of Byzantium through Roger and his Norman Kingdom in southern Italy. Those ex vikings arguable had the biggest influence on history and civilization (through conquest and war) of any group of people.

[angrybowen]

The greatest compliment you can make about any game is that you cannot put your brain on cruise control for long stretches of the game.

Well put. I agree with stancarp about AOM being close to competitive on line play. Especially the first 250 turns. AOM improved my gameplay, by necessity, as it accurately reflects what happens to empires that did not grow and achieve. They eventually became dominated by someone else. That has only started to change in the last 150 years.

As I said about Civ3, after the initial glitz wore off it was more like a TBS game of settlers, only thing missing was the "what mooooore work?" whine from the workers when you clicked on them.

[stankarp]

Thanks everybody. I'll watch more carefully this game. Gotta say, though, I haven't had this much fun learning to optimize my gameplay in a long time. This is a very good sign!

By yin26, AOM forum, 14 Aug, 05.

Maybe having an open mind can be rewarding?

[DrKazanovaKK]

If Nikolai gets the AOM victory message, maybe it should read "history will know you as Emperor Nikolai, the Couch Potato". Where has that Viking spirit gone? Vikings get plus 2 hitpoints (ouch) as their civ trait and +1 boat movement in AOM.

One thing always amused me about Civ3 was the concept that some learned person sitting in a hut would think that if he found a large, not too wild animal, he might ride it, then when he finished this thought, the animal would appear outside somewhere. Or think, if I had a metal, I might be able to heat it up and make something.

In AOM, it is more logical. The man looks outside his hut, SEES the Horse or Camel, then forms a group of people (a settler type) with ropes and other materials (gold and public works) to go and capture it and work out how to ride it. Or if he stumbles across the interesting looking mineral, again he sends the group of people to experiment with it.

In AOM the prescence of the resources drives the early technology which is far more logical, rather than mysteriuously, the technology suddenly creates the resource!