Goodbye, free time.

February 26, 2007 9:17 PM

Vox Imperium A pretty deep web based civilization game.
posted by boo_radley (19 comments total)

Here is the quick-start guide.
posted by boo_radley at 9:17 PM on February 26, 2007

Oh now that looks like fun. Thanks!
posted by owhydididoit at 9:45 PM on February 26, 2007

This just looks awful. And the last RPG game I played was Ultima VI.
posted by phaedon at 9:51 PM on February 26, 2007

Well, it's not an RPG. Does that help?
posted by boo_radley at 9:56 PM on February 26, 2007

Looks pretty sweet to me. I've been meaning to get back into civ, I'll give this a go when I get a chance. Thanks!
posted by bob sarabia at 9:58 PM on February 26, 2007

Oh, the many hours of my life I've lost to Civ 2, Civ 3 and Civ 4. And now you offer another?
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 10:07 PM on February 26, 2007

talking about Civ, has anyone figured out how to stop the automatic unhappiness in cities in civ4? I prefer the challenge of III myself.
posted by infini at 10:20 PM on February 26, 2007

Thanks for this. I was hooked on Travian for a while, but it got pretty repetitive after a few months. This seems more in depth.
posted by zardoz at 10:24 PM on February 26, 2007

This does look quite deep after reading the quick start. Still, reminds me of DiceWars all dressed up and half-way through its PhD thesis ... and on acid.

And that, of course, is a complement.
posted by YoBananaBoy at 11:09 PM on February 26, 2007

I had a peek at the CivIV wiki just now and, wow, it looks great. But tell me, did they do away with that ridiculous "culture" mechanism that so plagued CivIII? It's the reason I abandoned the series.
posted by dreamsign at 12:44 AM on February 27, 2007

I have also spent too long on Travian. Dare I hear the siren voice of this newcomer?
posted by imperium at 12:58 AM on February 27, 2007

well I preferred to win by scoring culture points, i'm such a wimp at coordinating battle
posted by infini at 1:02 AM on February 27, 2007

Vox Imperium is a pulse based game. This means your empire runs itself, even when you are not paying attention and your browser is closed.

Whoah. This is going to take some getting used to.
Thanks, boo.
posted by dreamsign at 1:07 AM on February 27, 2007

Culture's a lot better in Civ IV than in Civ III, if you ask me. The general consenus among fans seems to be that if you preferred Civ II to III, you'll prefer Civ IV to III as well. I'm in that category.
posted by furiousthought at 1:12 AM on February 27, 2007

Oh man, Civ IV and I had to start seeing other people because it was eating my life, but now I might have to give it a call... for old time's sake...

(This online game though, the graphics, they hurtzes me. Seems like a good idea. I'll come back when we have web IV.0)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 1:54 AM on February 27, 2007

I've given it a quick whirl, looks fun but its hard to get a sense of how it all pans out in practise. Before I sink hours into this, it'd be useful to get an idea what its like to play over a period of time, if anyone has a handy link, or would care to expound.

Also, while we're on the subject of Civ IV; I'm a die-hard Civ II (multiplayer) fan that was burned by Civ III, is Civ IV a worthy successor?
posted by MetaMonkey at 4:02 AM on February 27, 2007

Oh God. This is why Metafilter is bad for my productivity. Well, Metafilter and lunchtime drinking. Well, Metafilter, lunchtime drinking, and my crack habit.
posted by MrMustard at 5:30 AM on February 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

MetaMonkey: Civ4 really is a lot of fun. It's not as classic as Civ2, but miles better than Civ3. I find it a lot more fun than Civ3, with more variety than Civ2. Plus the multiplayer works pretty well.
posted by adrianhon at 6:00 AM on February 27, 2007

I just jumped into one of their quick games yesterday after this was posted, it finished just a little while ago.

It was a lot of fun at first, until toward the end when I realized most of my opponents had given up.

I think they should have gone for a simpler game. There are too many different resources-- 13 in all. Many aspects of the game are completely unintuitive: most resource tiles are exploited by building logical structures on them (farm for food, sawmill for wood, etc). But some valuable ones are only obtained by having your workers swim out to the middle of the ocean and tread water.

They also seem to be working out some of the unit balance issues. For example, the fortress structure is completely invulnerable.

Still, it's pretty cool idea, letting people play a strategy game against live players online, for free, with no download.
posted by justkevin at 8:01 PM on February 27, 2007