Dec 8, 2016

Watch Sean Bean find out that he dies in the Civilization 6 launch trailer

Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI

The ruggedly mellifluous Sean Bean drew many a manly tear as the narrator of the Civilization 6 launch trailer. Even though it was a multi-generational affair, spanning eons of human history, it looked as though, for once, he wouldn't die at the end—until he ate a hail of 7.92mm machine gun fire in the skies over England. Unfortunately, it seems like nobody thought to mention that fact to Sean. And he really, really thought he made it through this time.

Actually, he took the news pretty well, all things considered. I suppose he's used to it by now.

"I was in the dark, which was quite good for me because I didn't know what was going on. I just learned as I was going, and therefore it was quite a surprise to me. It was very fresh and very spontaneous," Bean says in the trailer, comparing the experience of voice acting with his more regular work in film. "You just try to be as truthful as you are in filming, but you have the luxury of having all the lines in front of you, so that's great!"

Civilization 6 isn't actually Bean's first foray into the realm of videogames: He's previously appeared as Martin Septim in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and last year narrated the bizarre adventure Kholat.

He died at the end of at least one of those, too.

Dec 7, 2016

CIVILIZATION VI - Behind the Scenes with Sean Bean

Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI - Hinkle2K

Go behind-the-scenes in the recording booth with Sean Bean as he discusses working on Civilization VI. Click below to watch!
https://youtu.be/zBFoIjob_b8
SUBSCRIBE ➜ http://2kgam.es/CivilizationYT

http://store.steampowered.com/app/289070
Follow the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #OneMoreTurn, and be sure to follow the Civilization franchise on social media to keep up to date with the latest news and information on Sid Meier’s Civilization VI.

Dec 7, 2016

CIVILIZATION VI - Behind the Scenes with Sean Bean

Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI - Hinkle2K

Dec 6, 2016

Steam Charts: And we all sing along like before

Counter-Strike 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

Had a week off. (No, not a holiday, no such thing when there’s a three-year-old in the house). Bit of a break from writing about games. Though I’d rebuild and resupply a little, come back fighting fit, ready for anything GAMESWORLD might throw at me next.

Anything but this. … [visit site to read more]

Nov 24, 2016

RPS Asks: do you restart games you haven t finished?

Stellaris - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Adam Smith)

I’ve played a million beginnings and around a thousand endings, or at least that’s how it feels. Imagine having seen the first act of Romeo and Juliet a hundred times but never having seen how it ends. That’s my experience with all manner of games, from big story-driven RPGs to some of my favourite strategy epics. I’ve founded so many starter cities that have never birthed a civilization and met so many characters whose fate I don’t know. And this isn’t a case of starting a game and then abandoning it; these are the games that I play again and again, sinking days and weeks into them, restarting but never finishing.

Diablo III is the latest.

… [visit site to read more]

Nov 23, 2016

Steam s Autumn sale has begun here s some picks

Invisible, Inc. - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Brendan Caldwell)

Aside from starting a new tradition of unusually-named Steam Awards, Valve have also pulled out their worn and adored bargain bucket and have begun to fill it with games you ll enthusiastically buy and probably never play. Yes, it’s their Autumn Sale. In the streets, the apocalyptic jockeying for TVs and blenders has started. The moon has turned blood red. And I looked and behold a pale horse, and his name that sat on him was Black Friday, and sales followed with him. … [visit site to read more]

Nov 22, 2016

Steam Charts: Just Gotta Ride It

Counter-Strike 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

Well, this really isn’t the chart I’d expected to see at this point of the year. We’re in peak Silly Season, and yet last week’s 10 best-selling games on Steam form a broadly unexpected bunch.

Which is exactly what I like to see.

… [visit site to read more]

Nov 18, 2016

Civ 6 patch brings loads of interface and AI tweaks

Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Adam Smith)

Let’s get the important thing out of the way first: YES, YOU CAN NOW RENAME YOUR CITIES. Thank whichever god is at the head of your current pantheon for that>.

There are loads of things that I’d like to see changed in Civilization 6 [official site], even though I think it’s a fantastic game, and a new patch looks like it addresses at least some of my quibbles, including clearer tracking of amenities. The full changelist is here, and I’ve picked out some highlights below. … [visit site to read more]

Nov 17, 2016

Civilization VI update brings DirectX 12 support, new map types and more

Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI

Civilization 6 received a substantial update today in the form of its 'Fall Update' patch, ushering in DirectX 12 support as well as a host of sweet gameplay additions. As far as the latter is concerned, there's a new multiplayer scenario called 'Cavalry and Cannonades', as well as two new map types in the form of Four-Leaf Clover and Six-Armed Snowflake. According to the patch notes, these map types are "designed to encourage more conflict".

As the first major patch for the game, the list of updates and tweaks is extensive. The user interface has received a number of fixes and improvements; AI is better tuned, and the list of bug fixes is very long. You can read the whole spiel over here, and then compare and contrast with some of the beefs Evan had with the game earlier this week.

As far as DirectX 12 support goes, the patch starts with AMD cards, as well as Nvidia Maxwell series cards and upwards. Firaxis advises to make sure your GPU drivers are updated before booting the game.

Nov 17, 2016

Civilization VI ‘Fall 2016’ Update Now Live

Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI - Hinkle2K

A new update is available for Sid Meier’s Civilization VI today. The “Fall 2016 Update” will automatically install when starting the Steam client; if it doesn’t install automatically, please restart Steam.

This update adds DirectX 12 support to Civilization VI, starting with AMD cards and NVIDIA Maxwell-series-or-later cards; please make sure your drivers are up-to-date. Support has also been added for Logitech ARX. For more information on each of these, please click their respective link.

Today you’re also able to play a whole new scenario called “Cavalry and Cannonades,” and settle on two new map types, “Four-Leaf Clover” and “Six-Armed Snowflake.” These maps are playable both online and off, and were designed to encourage more conflict by forcing players to move toward the center. For the full list of what’s in this latest update, please see below.

Firaxis Games and 2K are committed to making Civilization VI the best experience possible and will continue to support the title. If you have any feedback on this update or just the game in general, please let us know in the 2K Forums or here on Steam. Stay civilized!

[NEW]
• Maps
- Added a balanced six player map.
- Added a balanced four player map.
• ‘Cavalry and Cannonades’ Scenario Added
- Combat scenario with reduced unit maintenance costs and no strategic resource requirement for units.
- Larger starting army and additional starting techs.
- Time limit: 50 turns.
- Goal: Possess the largest territory.
• DX12 Support
• Complete Logitech ARX Support

[GAMEPLAY UPDATES]
• Added additional notifications.
• Added a “time defeat” for running out of time. This is always disabled if a Score Victory is available.
• Added additional Hotkey support (next unit, next city).
• Added the ability to rename cities.
• Added UI to show the next tile a city will grow to.
• Added a visual cue for Barbarian Scouts that are alerted to your city.
• Changed Dan Quayle rankings.

[BALANCE CHANGES]
• Added prerequisite project (Manhattan Project) for Operation Ivy.
• Added Metal Casting as a prerequisite for Economics tech.
• Adjusted religious pressure when a religion is first founded to give them more resilience and convert the city.
• Adjusted relationship decay rates.
• Reduced the effectiveness of cavalry production policies.
• Reduced Warmonger penalties in most instances, and adjusted how this reacts to returning versus keeping a city. The last city conquered from a player now provides a heavy warmonger penalty, even if you have a Casus Belli against this player, because you are wiping out a civilization.
• Reduced border incursion warnings if the troops are within their own borders.
• Increased the number of Great Works of Writing slots in the Amphitheater to 2.
• Increased Counterspy operation time.
• Increased the cost of Religious units and applied additional charges.
• Units may no longer be deleted when they are damaged.
• Deleting a unit no longer provides gold.
• Updated Island Plates map to have more hills and mountains.
• Units may no longer remove features from tiles that are not owned by that player.
• Fallout now prevents resource harvesting.
• Barbarian camps must spawn further away from low-difficulty players’ cities.

[AI TUNING]
• Adjusted AI victory condition focus to increase their competitiveness in Science and Tourism.
• Adjusted AI understanding of declared friendship.
• Adjusted the AI approach to beginning and ending a war based on potential gain and loss.
• Increased AI competitiveness in building a more advanced military.
• Increased AI usage of Inquisitors. Especially Phillip.
• Increased AI value of upgrading units.
• Increased AI use of Settler escorts.
• Tuned AI usage of units that cannot move and shoot, like Catapults.
• Tuned AI city and unit build planning.
• Improved the ability of city-states to maintain a strong military.

[BUG FIXES]
• Fixed some production Social Policies, Great People, and Pantheon bonuses that were not applying correctly.
• Fixed Royal Navy Dockyard not getting the right adjacency bonuses.
• Fixed some issues with how the Great Wall was built by players and AI, including proper connection to mountains and removing other players’ Great Walls as potential connection points.
• Fixed a unit cycling error with formations.
• Fixed a bug where the first military levy that expired would return all levied units (including those levied from other city-states) to that city-state. Now it should only return the levied units that actually originally belonged to the one city-state.
• Fixed several issues when Airstrips and Aerodromes are occupied, including forced rebasing of enemy units and UI updates.
• Fixed an exploit that allowed ranged and bombard units to gain experience when attacking a district with 0 hit points.
• Fixed an issue with wonders when transferring city ownership – conquering a city with a wonder would not track that wonder, and could lead to problems when attempting to use Gustave Eiffel.
• Fixed an issue where the Settler lens would not always show the right information to the player.
• Fixed an issue where AI would counter gold changes with the change desired, rather than the total amount of gold desired.
• Fixed an issue where the Tutorial intro and outro videos would appear off-center in certain resolutions.
• Fixed some crashes with units.
• Fixed an issue where multiple leaders of the same civilization would frequently show up in a game.
• Fixed an issue where Trade Route yields were doubling in some instances.
• Units in formations now break formation before teleporting between cities.
• The achievement ‘For Queen and Country’ was unlocking too frequently.
• AI with neutral relationships should accept delegations barring exceptional circumstances.
• Can no longer declare a Joint War if it is invalid for either party.
• Save game files should no longer be case sensitive.
• Certain wonders were sending extra notifications.
• Players will no longer receive any warmongering penalties from a joint war partner for actions in that joint war.
• Liberating a civilization back to life will now bring them back into the game properly.
• Observation Balloon range bonus was being incorrectly applied when stacked.
• Text and grammar fixes.

[VISUALS]
• Buildings on snow will now have snow on them.
• Added an Industrial Barbarian Encampment.
• Added a ranger tower to National Parks.
• Fixed some issues with buildings not culling around other world items properly.
• Fixed an issue with some Districts not showing properly.
• Miscellaneous polish applied to multiple improvements, districts, and buildings.

[MULTIPLAYER]
• Turn timers are always disabled on the first turn of a new game. This happens regardless of the advanced start or turn timer type selected.
• Allow multiplayer lobby's private game status to be toggled once the lobby has been created.
• Cap the max players to 12.
• Added LAN player name option to options screen.

[UI]
• Added the number of specialists working a tile.
• Added some additional icons for espionage, promotions, etc.
• Added additional Civilopedia shortcuts, including right clicking a unit portrait.
• Added the signature to the diplomacy action view/deal view so that we can differentiate between duplicate players. Also added multiplayer screenname in diplomacy.
• Added Trade Route yields to the Reports screen.
• Added City Center to the City Breakdown panel.
• Added rewards and consequences to mission completed popups.
• Updated the leader-chooser when beginning a new game.
• Updated the end game Victory screen.
• Updated the multiplayer staging room.
• Updated city banners.
• Updated Espionage mission chooser flow.
• Updated to display what cities are getting amenities from each resource.
• Changed resource icon backings to reflect the type of resource it is.
• Auto-scroll to the first Great Person that can be claimed.
• Improved search functionality in the Civilopedia.
• Removed Barbarian data from player replay graphs.
• ESC now closes the Tech, Civic, and Eureka popups.
• When loading a game, the era blurb will be the current era of the saved game, rather than the starting era of the game.

[AUDIO]
• Added some missing mouseover sounds.
• Fixed the Oracle quote.
• Fixed an issue where the Advisor voice was not playing in some languages.
• Fixed compatibility issues with some sound cards, especially those set to high playback rates.

[MISC]
• Added a setup option "No Duplicate Leaders" that is enabled by default. This option prevents multiple players from selecting the same leader.
• Updated leader screen to support enabling/disabling bloom according to the 'Enable Bloom' graphics option.
• Plot Tooltip Delay is now available in the Options menu.
• Auto Cycle Units is now available in the Options menu.
• Benchmark updates.
• Credits updated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOYBWAJ_Eeo&list=PL-lTq9LJCHpT-5WKxaMZQ9vDRdDfwpf60
SUBSCRIBE ➜ http://2kgam.es/CivilizationYT

http://store.steampowered.com/app/289070
Follow the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #OneMoreTurn, and be sure to follow the Civilization franchise on social media to keep up to date with the latest news and information on Sid Meier’s Civilization VI.