One day I’ll write a Desert Island Discs about the games I’d keep with me until the end of days, given a choice of ten. It’ll no doubt be a Desert Island Digital Downloads given the absence of physical media in my life. I live with the ghosts of entertainment.

Rather than compiling the list of games I’d take to the Vault with me though, today I’m aiming to put together a collection, one from each genre, that I’d use to introduce those genres to a PC gaming newcomer, or a lapsed gamer. A friend inspired this particular bundle of joy, someone who grew up with an Amiga but developed other interests and hasn’t touched a game for more than a few minutes at a time, either console or PC, for over fifteen years. A recent illness has left him unable to engage in his usual outdoor hobbies and games have filled the gap.>

… [visit site to read more]

Oh, Civilization: Beyond Earth [official site], how sad you make me. You work so very hard to make me love you but… well, maybe you’re fundamentally unlovable. The Rising Tide expansion, that was a good try. You became more alien, less like your dad trying to wear a spacesuit, but gosh, you made a pig’s ear of Diplomacy, didn’t you? Bugs and bonkers design decisions queered the pitch.

But maybe it’s not too late. I hear there’s a big new patch intended to address one of your biggest problems; what flowers are you bringing to my door this time?

… [visit site to read more]

Rising Tide [official site] is the first, and some might say much-needed, expansion pack for Beyond Earth, the sci-fi Civilization V spin-off which met a somewhat muted reception. It’s out tomorrow, but I’ve spent the last few days with it. >

It’s so much better. It’s so much worse.

… [visit site to read more]

Here’s the latest Civilization: Beyond Earth – Rising Tide [official site ] trailer talking about hybrid affinities, overthrowing dictatorships, and combining harmony and purity in a part faux-propaganda, part technical rundown of what the upcoming expansion has to offer.

… [visit site to read more]

Who’d win in a war: Pagan Min out Far Cry 4 or Gandhi? Sure, Min’s great at murder and oppression and has a crack army and all that, but push Gandhi too far and nukes will fly. In Civilization V [official site], anyway.

Custom civilisations are one of the more common Civ mod types, but I do like the look of a new mod adding Pagan Min and the nation of Kyrat. They’re mostly focused archeology and exploration, see, though can always deploy those horrible sneaky Hunter soldiers, the gits in the hoods who pelt you with arrows then vanish. Yeah, you can have them.

… [visit site to read more]

Toward the end of February, Richard Moss documented the great AI wars that were sweeping through the Civ V [official site] community. If you haven’t read that feature, you should do so immediately. I’d intended to follow the 42-player AI-only game as updates arrived but when I checked in yesterday, it was my first visit in a good while. And, to my horror, I found that the game had stalled. Something was rotten in the code of Japan and the save file crashed when processing the nation’s 239th turn.

The save file ended up in the hands of Firaxis but Battle Royale organiser TPangolin managed to find a solution before hearing back from the devs. A few hours after I checked in, the problem had been fixed. The AI wars continue and, by thunder, they make for good reading.

… [visit site to read more]

A strange thing happened in the Civilization community r/civ on January 10, 2015. Inspired by similar, smaller-scale offerings by a Twitch.tv livestream and fellow redditor DarkLava (from whom he explicitly sought permission), user Jasper K., aka thenyanmaster, shared the first part of an experiment he was conducting wherein he put 42 computer-controlled civilisations in their real-life locations on a giant model of the Earth and left them to duke it out in a battle to the death, Highlander style (except instead of heads they need capital cities).

Since then, the practice has exploded in popularity. Reddit’s Civilization community has AI-only fever, but what exactly is so compelling about watching the computer play a very slow-paced turn-based strategy game with itself?

… [visit site to read more]

Offworld Trading Company is a combat-free, sci-fi real-time strategy game from the lead designer of the sumptuous Civilization IV.

A great concept with a great pedigree can it possibly be as good as it sounds? But enough about Snickers More Nuts, let s talk about Soren Johnson s new game, an Early Access version of which was released this week.> … [visit site to read more]

The inimitable forces behind Colonialist Legacies have gone and Frankenstein-ed together something audaciously lovely: a fully animated, fully voiced 3D leader screen for their Civilization V mod pack. It’s Australia’s Henry Parkes and he didn’t make his grand entrance on the Internet alone. No, the esteemed gentleman is just one part of their new and improved Australia mod.

… [visit site to read more]

A science victory in Civilization is awfully anti-climatic. Thousands of years of research, exploration, art, diplomacy, trade, war, survival, and human progress, and all you have to show for it is a little spaceship popping out your city then flying off the top of the screen. It’s nice, but lacks drama. That’s where Civilization: Beyond Earth begins, exploring what happens after humanity reaches the stars, so its intro movie offers an extended take on that blastoff. It’s all hope and fear and EMOTIONS. Imagine this next time you win a science victory, and try to hold in those little sobs of pride.

… [visit site to read more]