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By Dale at 02/03/2010 - 06:51
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Courtesy of The Cut Scene, Take Two Interactive had announced that the open beta for Civilization Network will be available in June.
The full text is available here:
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Take Two Interactive Software tells us that the beta for "Sid Meier's Civilization Network" isn't expected to hit until sometime in June.
That's a bit later than many had hoped, since Meier had said Firaxis would be looking for testers "soon" in his initial announcement. But don't expect loyalty to waver.
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By Dale at 02/02/2010 - 22:36
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The SMAC February 2010 Game of the Month has been posted.
All seven SMAC faction leaders have been killed in a mysterious incident at an in-person summit; their loved ones and underlings have to soldier on in their wake, coping with their own loss while settling the question of succession and dealing with the Planet-wide interfactional chaos.
Can the Peacekeepers survive? Brother Lal's sister Prashanti asks herself "What would Pravin do?"
Acclaimed fanfic writer Alinestra Covelia has teamed with President of SMAC bdanv and notable WPC loudmouth Buster's Uncle to produce a scenario and set of accompanying stories featuring all-custom factions.
If you haven't played Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri in a while, now is the time to try something that promises to make it all new and fresh again.
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By Locutus at 01/28/2010 - 10:57
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On Friday March 12 legendary game designer Sid Meier will give his first-ever keynote presentation at the 2010 Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Fransisco. The talk is provocatively titled "The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong)." A synopsis of the topic:
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When designing a game, particularly one based on real-world or historical topics, it might seem that hard facts, physical principles, painstaking research, and mathematical formulas would provide the foundation for a successful game. Wrong. These and many other seemingly useful tools will have to take a back seat to the real driving force in game design: the psychology of the player. Gameplay is a psychological experience: it’s all in your head. The vagaries of human psychology define your game more than the laws of physics or algebra. Egomania, Paranoia, Delusion - these are tools to be wielded with precision and care. For the player, perception is reality and the center of the universe is right here. As we follow this reasoning to its logical conclusion we discover a number of amazing things, among them: everyone is above average, 2/1 is not equal to 20/10, and the player is his/her own worst enemy. Using actual examples from Civilization Revolution, Pirates!, and other games we’ll look at how including player psychology as a fundamental part of game design can lead us to some strangely counterintuitive places and save us millions of dollars in time and resources. Along the way we’ll learn why AI’s should not be too smart, how nuclear weapons are like knocking over a chess board, and why gamers can’t be trusted.
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GDC is the premiere event of the year for video game developers, where everyone who is anyone in the games industry gathers to share their knowledge and experiences. GDC attendees awarded Meier a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. If anyone wants to attend the conference (and has money to burn), GDC 2010 is held March 9-13 at the Moscone Center in San Fransisco, pass options can be found here (early bird registration ends February 4th).
Soren Johnson's reaction to the news:
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It's about time Sid gave a GDC keynote. I'll be in the front row.
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Two other Firaxis developers have also been confirmed to participate in sessions at this year's DGC: the company's Art Director Seth Spaulding will take part in a roundtable discussion on the challenges of art direction in games, with topics including pre-production resources, scheduling demons, tools, reviews, production pipelines and studio development. Additionally, Greg Foertsch will take part in a panel discussion during the IDGA Education Summit, on the relationship between the games industry and academia. Foertsch, lead Artist on Sid Meier's Railroads! and an as-yet unannounced Firaxis title, is the driving force behind Firaxis's internship program.
You can find an overview of all announced sessions to date on the official GDC website. We will of course try to report as much info as we can on all Civ-related talks come March. If anyone has any eye-witness reports to share, please contact WPC staff through PM in the forums or email info [at] weplayciv [dot] com.
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By Locutus at 01/28/2010 - 08:34
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We Play Civ is proud to announce its first Team Democracy Game, titled History in the Making. The game is set to start in February and will be played on Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword. This will be an in-house team game played using sequential PitBoss with Solver acting as game administrator.
A Team Democracy Game (Demo game or DG) is a game played by a community of players who split up into a number of teams, each team becoming one civilization. Each team gets to discuss their teams strategy in their own private forum. Quite how they operate within their private forum is entirely up to them, but as a general guideline, some form of discussion is held (via posting and/or 'live chats') to decide upon the best course of action for their civilization. Once they have decided upon a course of action, one member of their team physically plays the turn. To find out more, check out the game's FAQ.
Co-organiser Nogog wants to invite you to join in on the inaugural WPC game:
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Several teams are already forming, find one that fits your style or piques your interest. Our esteemed hosts, Dale and Locutus, will be joining in the fun too! More information and recruitment threads can be found in the Democracy Game forum.
Come join us! Make your own history in the game while making history at WPC!
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Coinciding with the start of the game We Play Civ will also launch it's very own local PitBoss server: no more downtime due to hosts going on vacation or dropping off the face of the earth, having flaky internet connections or their computers crashing or needing to be taken down for maintenance -- as long as the WPC forums are live, so will be the game server! Or that's the hope anyway: running a Pitboss game on a Linux web server to the best of our knowledge has not been tried before so we might come across some issues, but our tests so far have been very successful. If the Democracy game proves a success as well, we will in the future be looking to open up our server to host other games.
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By Locutus at 01/28/2010 - 07:51
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But don't hold that against them. The thirty-ninth episode of ModCast is now netcasting. Entitled "Not a Saint", it features core panelists Tony "GarretSidzaka" Kiehl, Kenneth "Impaler[WrG]" Ferland and Peter "Maniac" Steenbeke with first-time guest co-host Shen "stmartin" Tong.
ModCast is an audio production in an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on game modding; sibling show PolyCast focuses on Civ strategy and RevCast focuses on Civilization: Revolution.
- 05m48s | News
The new fourth regular co-host has been selected, modding support being added at Civilization IV designer Soren Johnson's Strategy Station, and the restarting of the Second Revolution Mod.
18m00s | Artist Sketchpad
Profiling Heavy Flamethrower by workerbee and WW1 Experimental units by snafusmith.
22m03s | Modding Spotlight
Going over the History of the Three Kingdoms Mod with its creator, stmartin, himself.
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By Locutus at 01/27/2010 - 23:19
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Soren posted an update for Strategy Station:
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General
- Allow locking/resetting xml files
- Better list browsers
- Show # players for scenario in list
- Better Account Screen UI
- Better UI buttons
Conquest
- Improvements on player's territory no longer deleted at scenario start
- Cannons now have Offense 1, Support 2
Kingdoms
- Rebalanced techs and buildings
- Can no longer launch seeded games
- Food now spoils if you keep more than 20 units
Tactics
- Removed defensive bonus from Heroes
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Check out the Strategy Station forum for more info.
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By Dale at 01/27/2010 - 07:28
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It's out there. The eighty-fifth episode of PolyCast now netcasting brings about the show's fifth season, including a key personnel change. "That's What He Said" features regular co-hosts Daniel "DanQ" Quick, Stephanie "Makahlua", Philip "TheMeInTeam" Bellew and Lisa "qnl" Bang with guest co-host Imran "Imran Siddiqui" Siddiqui
The summary of topics is as follows:
- 02m10s | News
Goodbye to Imran "Imran Siddiqui" Siddiqui as a regular co-host on the show, and hello to Lisa "qnl" Bang.
- 14m50s | Forum Talk
Does the Civilization IV Artifical Intelligence (AI) care if it wins, on trade routes and its income, going for a defensive or offensive military, and reference charts including the Beyond the Sword expansion.
- 32m06s | Research Lab
A proposed solution for the (in)famous 'Stack of Doom'.
- Intro/Outro | Miscellaneous
What to listen and when to listen to it, and some memories... remembered.
PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production in an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on game strategy; this is the last episode of the this, its third season, and will return for a fourth beginning next month. Sibling show ModCast focuses on Civ modding and RevCast focuses on Civilization: Revolution, both of which are to have their respective season premieres this month too.
As always, enjoy. 
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By Locutus at 01/21/2010 - 14:40
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It's Sid Meier week on the digital distribution site GamersGate. Until January 24th, you can get 50% off on their entire catalog of Firaxis games, which consists of the following games:
- Civilization IV Complete Edition (now for €19.95 / $19.95)
- Civilization IV Colonization (now for €9.95 / $14.95)
- Civilization IV (now for €4.99 / $9.99)
- Sid Meier's Railroads! (now for €3.49 / $9.95)
- Civilization III Complete (now for €3.49 / $2.49)
- Sid Meier's Pirates! (now for €3.49 / $4.95)
- CivCity Rome (now for €3.49 / $9.99)
(Dollar prices are USD and all prices and availability may vary depending on your location.)
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By Dale at 01/13/2010 - 21:43
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A couple of days ago, Velociryx announced in the Candle'Bre forum that a new website had been launched! You can visit the shiny website at http://www.candlebre.net.
On the same day demo 2 of the game based on the Candle'Bre World was released to the public. So head on over to the thread dedicated to the new demo and check it out!
The land of Candle'Bre is more ancient than its own features, older than its own mountains. It has been morphed and changed, shifted under the weight of centuries and in the fury of a single moment. On this land, its history forgotten in endless cycles of life and death, the people exist and build over the unrecognizable ashes of the past. To the people, this is all that matters: the now, what exists. The people who claim this land for their own, however, merely scratch the surface of the great wonders and horrors of history.
Once, there was an Empire, so great that it was The Empire, the Realm of Man, the seat of all civilization. It may have been the source of man, the great tree from which mankind was scattered like leaves after its loss, or it may have been just one of a procession of empires back to the dawn of time. But it was an empire, and it was the last empire ruled by the great figure of the Emperor from the peerless city of Ravanna.
Ravanna fell in a war that finally threw The Empire into ruins. With the seat of government destroyed, all contact between the various lands of The Empire was lost. Of the refugees who had fled west, only a few small bands remained. One of these bands, led by the priest Arliss Castillar, traveled to a sparsely populated land in the far western reaches of The Empire, a land which was known as Harrad. It is known now as Candle'Bre.
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By Dale at 01/11/2010 - 11:08
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"The French speaking game" was launched here: http://www.weplayciv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2077
the four players are: Le Limule, MallaxOZ, Bodissey and fed1943.
WePlayCiv is now a Francophone-friendly community! 
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