Umm, Fable 3?

Long term readers of this blog will know I am a massive fan of the Fable series. While many people did not like Fable 2, I have written at length about how I thought it was a truly fantastic game (that said, looking back through my posts, I have written considerably less than I remember writing... maybe I should do a look back at some point...)

So your probably wondering why there has been no coverage of Fable 3. The sad truth of it is I haven't played it. My excuse is legitamate, I am at university and do not have a 360. As a result, I am saving it until Christmas (where I will be back at home). I am currently avoiding all press and reviews on the game, so I have no idea how it is being received. Believe me, when I get to play it, I will be blogging about it.

On a simmilar note, I will eventually write my review for Civilization 5 but my life has been a bit hectic for the past month.

Civilization 5 IS coming to Macs

I can confirm (to a reasonable extent) that there will be a Mac version of Civilization 5 and we are hopefully not far away from its release. In every Civ 5 mod there is a file called the modinfo file. It contains, among other things, the description of the mod and who made it etc. It also includes a property called . To me, that seems pretty conclusive evidence that a Mac version is on its way.

You heard it here first, Civ 5 for Mac!

Civilization 5 LAN fix

As you can probably tell from the lack of live updates, I am enjoying Civilization 5. Posts coming soon about things I liked and don't like. However, in this post I am going to explain what I had to do to get LAN play working with one copy of the game licensed to one Steam account. My copy was from Amazon but I believe this will work with Steam versions as well.

I am not sure if this counts as piracy but I don't think anyone would buy more than one copy of the game to play the occasional game at a LAN party so it isn't costing anyone any sales...

The problems I had were:

• Game not showing up in the LAN screen
• Game stopping on the "Retrieving Host Information" screen

Solution: To solve the first problem, make sure Civ is allowed through all of your firewalls (no special ports, just add an exception.

If you are having the second problem, each computer needs the Steam account to have a different nick name (read below for details)

First you need to choose a host computer and put your steam account on this computer in to offline mode. Then with each extra computer do the following

1. In Steam, open up the friends window and change your nickname to a unique name/name of the player on that computer
2. Switch Steam in to offline mode (Steam>Go offline...)
3. Start Civilization and go to LAN (in Multiplayer)
4. Hopefully at this point, Windows will ask you if you want to allow Civilization 5 through the firewall, click allow (this should resolve the first issue). If it doesn't prompt you, just add the exception through the Windows Firewall exceptions list
   

Do this for each computer setting them to a different name each time. Now go online on the host computer and change the nickname to another name. Open Civ, add Civ to the exceptions list and host the game. All players should now be able to join.

Nb, there doesn't appear to be a save option in LAN at the moment. Fortunately the game appears to auto-save every turn so just make sure you end your turn before quitting. I am assuming this is a mistake and will be patched.

Civilization 5 Live Blog

Civilization 5 tuned up today and I am just waiting for Steam to allow me to activate it (at midnight). I will be live blogging impressions tonight and will pick these up after work tomorrow (and before you say, yes I know this is a bad idea).

I have played the demo and I really liked what I saw though I have some reservations. I will be playing as Arabia on a normal map with normal pacing. Also, if anyone wants a game, let me know.

Most recent updates are at the top

[01:44] The game is opening, and there are 100+ achievements, because, honestly, the game wasn't addictive enough
[01:38] 1 hour and 38 minutes after Civ 5 was meant to go live, disk users can now install Civ, which is what I am doing now, planing on playing no later than 2. We'll see how that goes. Approximately 30% of the way there
[11:59] All set to go

[11:50] 10 minutes to go!

The Civilization 5 Combat System

Civilization 5 is scheduled for later this year and already significant changes have been announced. Aside from the fact the game is now hex based, the biggest changes seem to be related to how the combat will function in this game. Crucially, you are only allowed one unit per hex, demolishing the standard Civ strategy of "stacks of doom" where you put all your troops in one big pile and advance them towards cities. Further, you are not allowed to leave troops in cities; instead, cities will require long and drawn out sieges. The idea behind this is to reduce the city centric wars that exist in Civilization 4.

The single unit per hex rule combined with the ability for ranged units to fire over hexes implies a much more zoomed in game. This would appear to be a move to make combat more tactical and less about numbers of units. If you can set up an effective choke point, it doesn't matter how many troops your opponent has, you just have your best unit block the way with archers behind them.

Also, there is talk of things like flanking bonuses for bringing your troops round enemies (though quite how this will work is unclear: will you have to point your troops in a specific direction?). All of this tactical layer sounds neat in principal. Wars have never held much attraction for me as they are too much of a slog towards the end of the game and I am not good at rushing. Hopefully the changes will make the wars more engaging.

If they are hoping to move the battles away from the cities the key thing they need to work on is making battles outside of a city beneficial. In Civilization 4, war was a serious thing. It wasn't permanent, but it had lasting diplomatic consequences with the AI and human players would rarely back down after a quick fight. Therefore, if you went to war, you could expect to be at it for quite a long time. The only thing that would justify the costs would be taking enemy cities. I think the early game could be more exciting if armies frequently clashed to capture resource points or territory. It would even fit with the time line, I can't imagine cave men had peace treaties with neighbouring tribes? As it stands, to capture enemy territory you have to capture the city that is creating the border, which seems a bit drastic for a small territory gain. And if Civ 5 make capturing cities harder, wars could just become and rare but final element of the game, no skirmishes, just total war.

My other concern is that it will be too much micro managing. Civilization is not a war game. War is a required part of the game play, but it is not the only part. By keeping it simple (as they have done up till now) it was assumed that your generals on the ground were managing your archers etc. and you just explained to them what you wanted to capture while you managed the economy, diplomacy and politics. How is having to position your archers behind your axe men going to fit with the pacing of the game? Will it heavily favour people who are prepared to do all this micromanaging?

The game is going to bring back advisor who will help you manage your cities, but I have never liked trusting the computer with tasks, particularly when it is optional and particularly when I enjoy managing my cities. Besides, that just means that those with the most patience will just manage it all and get an advantage at the cost of the pacing of the game.

Obviously, details are thin on the ground at the moment and I don't really know how any of this stuff is going to work.

Fable 3 and Civilization 5

My two favourite franchises, Civilization and Fable, are both receiving sequels this year! Fable 3 we already knew about, however the Civilization announcement is new. Please note, Civilization 5 is different from the previously announced Civilization Facebook, which should also be coming out this year.

Fable 3

I mentioned that Peter Molyneux would be demoing and talking about Fable 3 at this years X10. The key things to take away from it are:

• Traditional RPG levelling and health systems have been cut
• Like your character, your weapons will now change according to how you use them
• There are two continents
• The expressions wheel has been replaced by something called touch, though the details are still hazy as to how it actually works
• The game will support but not require Natal. How the game will use Natal has not been announced

One thing that Molyneux did say is that they are still not talking about the second half of the game, where you have to rule a country (beyond a few hazy details like you will have a treasury and you will have to decided how to spend the countries money). Judging by the inclusion of a second continent, I would imagine there will be some kind of diplomacy/military conquest.

The weapon development is quite interesting. Basically, as you use your weapon, it will become more powerful and specialised. If you kill innocents, it will constantly drip blood, killing certain types of creatures will cause it to develop a certain appearance. The cool thing is, you can name your sword and then trade it online. Which means you will have actual legendary swords that you have to try and track down. The problem with this is of course the fact the game exists in sub-perfect world; optimal swords will be found and mass produced, flooding the market and near-breaking the system.


The other good thing is they are doing co-operative properly. You can use your actual character. Naturally, it being Fable, I am now super excited for this game.

Civilization 5

Details are still very vague at this point. Probably the most significant change is the move from squares to hexagons. They also said that there would be indirect attacks from units like archers. This all suggest, along with the screen shots, more tactical combat (placing your archers behind swordsmen type of thing) and less stacks of doom.


They also commented on improved diplomacy, which is good. For me, I found the biggest problem with Civilization 4 is that there is little reason the interact with the other nations, particularly in the end game when military victory is far too much of a grind to be seriously considered. Which is a shame as I have always liked the idea of combined military arms.

On that note, one thing I would like to see is a more inter-nation interaction during the end game - taking the UN idea to the next level. For example, maybe requiring nations to work together to overcome an flu epidemic or global warming. Something to force nations to consider each other, rather than just becoming isolationist and pushing for the space victory.

The only other thing specified was improved online, which is good, particularly if they introduce things like clans, leagues and experience points. Civilization 4 had a very robust multi-player, but little incentives to keep you playing which made it feel a bit dry.

Two very exciting announcements for my two most anticipated games of the year. Keep an eye of this site for updates as we approach their release (Civ 5: Fall 2010, Fable 3: Before Christmas)