{"id":2830,"date":"2010-12-20T22:24:40","date_gmt":"2010-12-21T03:24:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/?p=2830"},"modified":"2010-12-20T22:24:40","modified_gmt":"2010-12-21T03:24:40","slug":"big-time-patch-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/2010\/12\/20\/big-time-patch-week\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Time Patch Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week saw the unveiling of two huge patches for two huge turn based strategy games – in fact the two most disappointing games of the year<\/a> in the eye of departing Fidgit blogger Tom Chick<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I won’t go as far as Tom does regarding Civilization 5. It had a lot of AI problems, and wasn’t the instant love affair that Civ 4 was for me. But I have put in a lot of time. The big patch was intended to address some AI, diplomacy and balance issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The diplomacy fixes are very welcome. It is now possible to make friends with the AI controlled nations and their reasoning is more transparent because they are always interrupting you with commentary, but it also reverts a little to the Civ 3 end game gang up according to some reports. I am usually kicking so much ass by the end of the game that it doesn’t matter if Napoleon, Caesar and Bismarck want to team up to take me down. Bring it.<\/p>\n

The AI stuff is harder to measure in a couple of plays, especially the tactical AI. Computer opponents are certainly more cautious with their siege weapons, which is a big step forward. It uses aircraft and nuclear weapons. Battles in the field are still pretty one sided affairs, though it at least knows the importance of keeping its archers in the back and holding a decent line of battle. I need to push it a little further to see if the computer still has the problem of producing a trickle of units at the front and not backing them up. My blitzkriegs leave little time for reinforcement.<\/p>\n

The computer still doesn’t do a great job with city states. If these minor powers weren’t so important to building a victory of any kind, then I could probably forgive it. But they are important, so some competition would be handy. This could be related to the computer running out of gold to maintain the relationships, and your rivals still can’t manage a proper economy as far as I can tell. It doesn’t build many late game wonders, either.<\/p>\n

So Civ 5 is still wait and see. I do like the new New World scenario that comes with the Spanish and Inca on Steam.<\/p>\n

Rob Zacny commented that the patch notes for Elemental 1.1 rival the size of Brad Wardell’s Elemental novel. And he’s not kidding. These are an epic read<\/a>.<\/p>\n

PCGamer asked me to play and write up my thoughts on 1.1<\/a> – I think a sign that a lot of people really want this game to get a second chance.<\/p>\n

You can read my full thoughts over at PCG, but I think 1.1 is a big step forward. Still, the core problems from the core game are still there. The AI has some issues and the world itself is still pretty bland. There is progress, though, enough to make me curious about the expansion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week saw the unveiling of two huge patches for two huge turn based strategy games – in fact the two most disappointing games of the year in the eye of departing Fidgit blogger Tom Chick. I won’t go as far as Tom does regarding Civilization 5. It had a lot of AI problems, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8,44,118,38],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5GFeQ-JE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2830"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2833,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830\/revisions\/2833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flashofsteel.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}