Hey, you've got nothing to worry about from me. I'll be buying both games. There is such a dearth of good TBS games that you gotta get em all.

I already bought Elemental.

Civ 5 will have to wait and see. They don't have Stardock's commitment not to penalize the customer with DRM. If I think it will be a quality product, I will buy it.

The civilization series is great, and I'll probably buy civ V just to see where they decide to take it, but Civ IV was a combat simulator junkie's worst nightmare. An army of archers should NEVER EVER EVER defeat an army of Industrialized Artillery....sigh. That was really my only problem with the game...that and you end up pissing off everyone as a result of simply trading with other players. You are practically forced to make enemies in that damned game. I have yet to find a strategy that is a guarenteed pacifist victory. So I'm forced into war. When I go to war, I get fucked because of the horrible combat system. Its cyclical process with me....piss people off go to war, get fucked.

I dunno. You guys have to realize, from our perspective, Firaxis are the good guys.

It's a small industry and we're friends with these guys.  Soren Johnson, at Firaxis at the time, is in the GalCiv II credits.  He's not there but it gives you an idea of how close knit our group is.  That's why it always pains us to see people taking sides. We're all on the same side.  

I realize people who aren't in the industry may not see this but for us, we don't see Civilization as our competitors. They're our friends.  

Uhm, I would say that Civ 5 is in fact a substitute product in relation to Elemental, so yes, those with limited budgets may have to choose between the two.  I for one will buy both. 

So what you're saying, Brad, is that you guys are like a bunch of female Olympians, hugging each other after you win medals even though you're from different sides and jumping up and down in big hug-parties?

(teh olympics rox)

So what happens if you just order a copy from the states? Or have someone sends you one. Does it somehow know you're in Spain? I know DVDs have that sort of thing but PC games?

Huh? Civ 5. and EWoM will be totally different games. While we are at it, I just read that [unit] stacks are removed from Civ 5. Wth?

Meanwhile, in europe ;_;

Well, at least the stardock games are available worldwide...thats one reason to buy elemental instead of Civ5. But I will probably still end up buying a boxed version of Civ5 if they don't overdo it with the DRM (hello there, Ubisoft). They removed the disk checks from Civ4, so maybe they will do something reasonable with Civ5.

I figured out what is giving me grief. I can and will play both Civ and Elemental. But.... which one am I going to mod? Modding is a life consuming exercise! I can't do both!

It's like, who do you want to live with? Mom or Dad? The answer of course is to get yourself thrown in jail so that the decision is made for you, hopefully minimizing the psychological damage.

I will also buy Civ5, but I will mod EWoM, because EWoM will be a much more complex game in many aspects.

While I'm sure Civ 5 will be a good game in it's own right (Maybe), it still won't be anywhere near as bad ass as Elemental.

The more important thing to ask about Civ 5 is if they'll fix a Woolly Mammoth beating a M1A1 Tank!!! That's what killed the Civ games for me. The complete lack of anything even close to realistic battles.

That's awesome. Go tell the Firaxis dudes to stop screwing off and get to work on that X-Com sequel.

Civilization 5 will be definitely nice game. I do not expect it to be revolutionary game at all. Just polished version of civ 4 with new engine and good modding possibilites. Still elemental is completely different genre, only thing which is common is turn based strategy. Anyway civ 5 can have an edge in term of past titles-  But I also believe that elemental will be much more polished and entertaining game on release then civ 5. Simply because it is released by stardock, which has really great past of releasing patches and generaly caring about their games and releases.

Faraxis is working on an x-com sequel? I knew 2K were rumoured to be working on something but I thought it was Irrational Games?

Civ 5 has hexes for movement, which is a HUGE turn on for TBS for me.

I think the square movement stuff needs to be purged .

2k Games, which recently went back to being called "Irrational Games", also owns Firaxis or they're partners or something. From what I understood there are two games in the works. One of them is a FPS set in a X-Com universe (like X-Com Enforcer) being done at 2K/Irrational and another full X-Com strategy game being done at Firaxis. The one being done by Firaxis will be the full re-boot everyone's waiting for with squad based tactical missions, researching, capturing live aliens, the works. I want to say the schedule that was discussed said to aim for a release in 2011 so I'd expect a announcement some time this year.

I haven't heard anything "Official" from Firaxis on it yet so I don't know if they set it on a back burner or aren't ready to announce or just plain don't have anything to show yet as it's too early of a stage, but, I do know that was the plan as of 3/4 months ago.

Unless it's extremely well done I don't know if I could get into a X-Com shooter, but I can't wait to see what Firaxis does with a full blown X-Com re-make/re-boot. The only other company I'd like to see take a shot at a X-Com game is Stardock. There have been a few X-Com clones made over the years but none of them had that same punch as the original and Terror From The Deep. I know Firaxis can pull it off if anyone can and I think Stardock could too.

Ill be buying both no question, well technically ill only be buying Civ as ive already bought Elemental

The only question is which to play first if they come out the same day!

I think it will depend if i'm playing by myself or with friends, the civ games dont tend to hold my interest as much anymore as single player, so ill probably dive straight into multiplayer. With Elemental ill probably want to hit the single player as there will be more 'new' things to try out before destroying my friends

The new combat will be change the game heaps. Civ has never had tactical combat, now it will and it there won't be any "going to the mini-map" stuff, it will all occur on the main game map.

What I'm interested in is if they will go full Panzer General style and retain the "battles where units don't always have to die but just get damaged" or retain the Civ style "always one must die" approach. Personally I hope it will be PG style.

I know I'll be buying Elemental on day 1, for what that's worth.

Jon

Hey Jon,

Which one will you be modding?

Just kidding...

I'd rather they stop working on Civ5 (for now) and do a SMAC2, that is a franchise long LONG overdue for some new blood!

Civ 4 Colonization.

They will use the Civ 5 engine to release a sequel to SMAC. Its already planned, along with the features missing in the Civ 5 release that will be in the Civ 5 expansion packs.....

I wouldn't see it as your competitor either, but for somewhat different reasons.  Depending on what they do with combat, it won't even be on my list.  It's not fantasy, I already have the FFH2 mod, the standard Civ combat bores me to death, and the mechanics in general are too simplistic.  It's like GalCiv1.

If they go with tactical combat and an economy that's more interesting, then it would be a competitor.  They might as well be different genres entirely without that though.

You mean you haven't already bought it???