Review: Civilization V

This is only a very short review and tbh more a test of the amazon links than anything else.

Civilization is probably the only series I own every box. Twenty years ago, Civilization hit the shelves and for twenty years, I have been playing this game. There are huge discussions, which of them is the best and if the new product can beat the previous ones or not.

I do not think, that Civilization V is the best Civ of all times, despite huge improvements. The graphics are superb. I also like the change from squares to hexagones. I also like, that there are no more Stacks of Doom and that each military unit uses one tile.

But I do miss the movies you got in previous games, when you built a wonder. I do miss religion and the influence of culture in Civ 4.

So, should you buy this game or not? I am a bit torn. On one hand, the game has potential and is beautiful. I really hope, future updates or mods will improve the game and add things I miss. But for my playstyle, I'd rather keep on playing Civilisation 4 (Complete Edition) than play Civ V.

Call of Duty; Black Ops

I bought CoD: BO this week. Couldn't get decent fps on main computer. But can run it on second PC. The game is great. Fast paced action and a good story.

It is a shooter on a rail, but it is good fun. Hm, I even would call it great fun.

Will keep you updated.

Private Update

Almost two weeks since my last update.

Nothing much has hap pend.

I could leave it at this, but won't.

After my last post, I installed a beta of Tabula Rasa, Richard Garriott his newest creation. He is most famous for his Ultima series, a then ground breaking group of games which I really liked to play.

Tabula Rasa is set in a not too distant future, Earth has been overrun by aliens and the players have to save the world. Sounds familiar? Yeah, I know.

Never having been a big fan of massively multi player online role-playing games (MMORPGs for short), Tabula Rasa does not really please me. The graphics are not what I want to play and the story, I have found little trace of in the hours I have been playing. MMORPGs just seem too much work for too little reward.

I also tried to install a beta of Hellgate: London, but failed three times to download the files. As the files are 5 GB and the game will be out in less than a week, I stopped my attempts. I am not too sure if I will like Hellgate: London, but I think I'll buy it anyway. Fighting demons in an apocalyptic London, sounds just too appealing.

On Wednesday, directly after work, I took a train to Zurich where my trip to Prague started. It was a trip by bus and was less stressing than I had feared. Our group consisted of 25 men and 6 females and was organised by two DJs. We arrived early in the morning and after a short visit to the town center, could go to our rooms.

The hotel was located outside of Prague, I had a nice room on the tenth floor with three beds, all for myself. But still, I just used one...

In the evening, we went to a Pizzeria which I liked but most thought the food was bad. I probalby was the only one not eating Italian and what I had was OK.

Afterwarts we went to a small disco which was really nice, location-wise but just a bit too small for my taste. There was an old man, responsable for hanging the coats, but man, was he slow. I am sure, there are still now, people waiting to get their stuff back....

There were some Go-Go dancers which we were not allowed to take pictures of. They attacted a bit a strange crowd, people you'd usually don't find in a disco, drooling at them. The dancers had nice bodies, dancing seems to be good for keeping fit and I talked a bit to one of them. She was the only one, who seemed to like what she was doing. A lot of men talk bad about Go-Go dancers, but I wouldn't mind to have one as my girl-friend. I might even be proud, that people pay for seeing her half naked...

I also met a couple from Valencia, Spain, who knew tilllate from back home. That is one thing I like about tilllate, that it is becoming more and more international.

Next day, we went shopping, to a town about an hour away from Prague. I don't know its name which is no loss, because it (sorry) sucked. The weather was too cold and windy just to stroll around and the shops were not worth visiting. Therefore we took a bus to some shopping malls near the highway. Some of us bought some clothes there, I didn't feel like shopping.

In the evening we went to an other disco which was bigger but had too little people. I didn't stay there for too long.

After a brief tour of Prague on Saturday, we went to the third and last disco of our trip, the Karlovy Lazne. Their own hompage you can find here.

We arrived here quite early. And there were few people. I thought, boy, an other boring night. But the club filled up quickly.

It is located in a rather little building.



There were five dance-floors, each one for a different type of music. And there was even enough space to chill. The building might once have been used as a public baths, as the dance floors sometimes were still tiled. It was the lest shiny location of all discos I went to in Prague, but there were just so many people there.

I met a tilllate-photographer from Leeds, UK, and a lot of people who knew tilllate from Switzerland, Germany, UK and Italy. About half of the crowd were foreigners. I also talked to Russians, Danes, therefore, this was probably an even more international party as those I have been to in Ibiza.

I thing a lot of the visitors came, like myself, by car to Prague. At our hotel, we had some groups from Italy and Germany and probably one more car from Switzerland.

In this club, I had the best party since a long time. Some parties last year in Ibiza would be the only ones to top this experiances.

Partly because I met a girl from Moscau who I've been mailing since. I really love her freckles. Probalby I will spend some more time in Russia than I had planned.

Private

I have written less these last few days.

September belongs to Scuba Diving. Besides work, I have four evenings of Scuba Diving theory and four dives in local swimming pools. And I am tired a lot.

After theory and work as well as scuba diving and work, I am too tired to write my blog.

I also had two tilllate events I did. Not too much for it already being the 18th of a month but on one hand, they were longer than usual and they were farther away so I had to drive for about two hours each way. As the pictures had to be online till 8:00 am, I had to take off the next day. At least I got paid for them. But as I am running low on days I can take off this year, I won’t be able to do many more.

The first one was nothing special. But the second one was a fashion show with the active runner up for Miss Switzerland 2007 Xenia Tchoumitcheva who many (as myself) think that she should have won.

Christa Rigozzi, the Miss Switzerland 2007 is not ugly, but she has a bit a large nose. But she seems to be bright.

My all-time favourite, Bianca Sissing was also there and I managed to talk a bit to her and even have a picture taken with her. She was Miss Switzerland 2003.

Sonja Grandjean ruled in 1998, Tanja Gutmann in 1997 (she still has amazing eyes!), Jennifer Ann Gerber in 2001 (without her friend Doris who I wanted to meet, but she had to travel to London), Anita Buri was Miss Switzerland 1999 and they were joined by Miss Zürich Sabrina Knechtli and Miss Bern Yvonne Würms. I didn’t like those two very much. They didn’t seem to have potential for Miss Switzerland.

But I liked the Miss Africa Schweiz Coumba Faye whom I took a lot of pictures of. She has a very dark skin and looks really nice. Usually I don’t like dark women, but her I do.

They were joined by Tim Wielandt Mister Schweiz 2007 who is almost as old as I but looks much better than me and Raphael Kägi (Mister Coke light, shouldn’t that be Mister Coke Zero now???). The show was moderated by Sven Epiney and Plüsch also played some songs.

I also bought a new game for the PC, in fact just an Add-On. Medieval 2, Kingdoms. But even though I only have original games on that PC, I could not start the game. It has some copy protection from SecuROM which somehow blocks the game from starting. SecuROM belongs to the Sony Empire, making me like Sony even less than before. I tried to get in contact with them, but did not receive any good advice.

At least I am not alone with my problems. But I am still angry. There is a lot of anger in the forums and they seem to put the blame on other companies. The cracked version of Kingdoms is already available for download, but as a buyer, I should not have to download a crack just to play a game. I wasted four hours of my precious free time to no avail. I managed to install it, but could not start the game.

Meantime I have found a way around the problem, I just had to start the launcher of the original game, then without closing the launcher, swap discs to the Add-On and then start the launcher of the Add-On. But WTF. They can be lucky, that they don’t live around here, I would really like to pay them a visit myself.

An other friend has bought War Craft and could not install it, I have never been able to run any of the Splinter Cell Games on my PC due to copyright protection programs. Even though I don’t have any illegal software on that PC.

We honest buyers are getting butt-fucked by the industry. Even in Bioshock there seems to be a copy protection which disables the game any further installations after installing it two times. They now seem to have raised the number to five, but that still is not enough.

I also have ordered personal designed ear protective plugs to wear at loud concerts or discos. Discos are not too loud in Switzerland, but very bad in Ibiza.

Last week I have started to loose weight. I want to loose about 15 kg, from 85 to about 70. My boss says, that is too much, because I am about 1.81 m, but he has gained a lot of weight even though he does a lot of Sport. We will see, if I can loose as much as I want to.

Ups have to go. I’ll write more soon.

Private: Problems with Logitech Mouse

As I wrote in my last post, I started Bioshock. I wanted to play more, but the battery packs of my Logitech Mouse stopped working. I had problems these last few days but the problems couldn’t have come at a worse time. New game and no mouse...

The only one I had, was at the office, too far to get. Therefore I played Civ4 for a bit and went to bed much earlier than planned.

On Friday, I had taken a day off to play Bioshock, therefore I had to buy a mouse first. I went to the Interdiscount in and bought the G3 Laser Mouse. I didn’t fully test it, but I don’t like it at all. I have gotten used to my cordless G7 and don’t like to be annoyed by a cord.

What I dislike or hate most about the G3 is that there are two additional buttons placed where you'd usually hold the mouse. Therefore you constant press those buttons and have to live with the consequences.

It seems, other Logitech users had their share of problems as the G7 is no longer available and Logitech has no cordless mice for gamers anymore. I will try to find a G7 or at least a good substitute.

PS: Could be quite difficult to find a new G7. I've searched the internet to no avail.

Private: Bioshock

I didn’t write for some time, but I want to tell you about my last days. I will take scuba diving lessons in September.

On Thursday, I bought Bioshock, a computer game I was looking forward to play for some months. The intro was a bit disappointing but as soon as the plane crashed down, the experience changed for a better.

The graphics is in most part not as spectacular as I had anticipated but at least it ran smoothly on my 23 inch display.

I was pleased with the immersing game experience. The story is well told even though the gameplay is extremely linear.

After the crash, you emerge in the ocean, surrounded by burning oil and sinking debris. The only feature in the night not directly connected do the plane crash is a lighthouse and after a short swim you find a open door.

As soon as you enter, the door closes and the before dark room is lit by some lights. A large sculptured face looks down on you and gives an eerie feeling. As the door outside is closed, the only way leads some steps down to a small submarine, which, after entering brings you to Rapture, the City of the free.

As you arrive in the terminal, the guy trying to get in contact with you gets whacked and the assailant flees the scene. You then leave the sub and find indications of turmoil and demonstrations.

Soon afterwards you get attacked by the former assailant who herself gets killed by a mechanical sentry system.

The theme is that Rapture was built for humans to be free of „the man in Washington, from the man in the Vatican and the man in Moscow. But some experiments of the free scientists seem have gone wrong and even though I have seen the first Little Sisters and Big Daddys, I still have a lot of questions.

What I like is the atmosphere, the architecture, like in the movie Metropolis, Art Deco, etc. And even though one could rush through the game quickly, there is a lot to explore and I will continue to explore Rapture and tell you of its secrets.

Siedler 6 Open Beta, Part 2

I replayed Siedler 6 beta for some hours. What I miss most is need. I do not bother, if the settlers succeed or not. Even if they are unhappy, there is no real feedback. They might stand on the marketplace and shout, which is less threatening than Anno 1701 rioting settlers who would burn down the houses.

And there seems to be too little to do. Once you built the main structure, there is no need for fine tuning. It is not even possible to do so.

I also missed the postcard view of Anno 1701 which allowed to get nice screenshots if you zoomed in to the max.

Sielder 6, the final version, will need much more. I liked the different types of settlers from Anno 1701, who had their own needs and would leave or riot, if one did not fullfill them. In Sielder 6 beta, they still pay taxes even if on strike. And you only need money to build, military and trade.

But the build-up is soon done and there is a somewhat natural city-limit which makes it unnecessary to build your city too big. And there is a 1000-settlers total city-limit.

I didn’t use military a lot, because there weren’t enough different types of soldiers. And there was no enemy.

Trade was equally unnecessary. I had to buy cows and sheep if I wanted to have milk (for cheese) and wool (for clothing). But there was nothing more to buy.

I’ll might try a demo, but from “wanting to buy” I have moved to “cautious”.

Siedler 6 Open Beta

Yesterday I played the open-beta of Siedler 6 for about five hours. It includes a tutorial mission as well as a LAN game.

I know, it is only a beta of the game, but the demo has to be much better if they want me to buy the game. The graphics are good, not great but nice. The interface is very intuitive and the sound is pleasant. I can’t say anything about the KI as the tutorial has little and the LAN none.

The town centre and the castle were preset. As always with these games, I got woodcutters first, a fishing hut and a fish smoker. Then a stonecutter, an iron mine, some hunters, leather tanning, and so on.

It went all very smoothly. The buildings can all be upgraded in two levels (three in total) but as upgrading is cheap and easy, I always upgraded every building ASAP. The main character can also be upgraded when different conditions the player has to meet. What can be built is related with the level of the main character (which there are six or so different ones to choose).

There are two kinds of roads, a gravel and a stone. As the stone road is wider than its gravel brother, you just can’t build a stone road over a gravel one if you have buildings on both sides. You might even have to tear down some buildings to improve the road. Which should be changed for the final version.

The warehouse tends to get full very easy. The things you don’t need can be sold. And this is important to do, because if the warehouse is full, the workers stop working and even get poor (because they can’t sell anything). So selling the surplus is very important!

Military. I could build swordfighters and bowmen as well as siege towers, catapults and rams. I would like to be able to build also spearmen and cavalry! I would also very much like the possibility to disband troops (or at least I couldn’t find that option).

As there was no KI I couldn’t fight. It also bothered me, that wild beasts such as bears and wolves constantly respawnd. I got annoyed of the constant “your settlers are under attack”.

Where does settlers stand now. I would say that right now, Anno 1701 is still holding the title. The graphics with Siedler 6 is better, but Anno 1701 still is more fun.

Fable, the lost chapters

I started playing Fable last weekend. Of course the graphics are not up to date but what I really like, is the emersion. Your deeds, good or evil, are remembered by the bystanders and when you walk through the town, you hear them talking about what you did. For example, when you are a good child, they say “such a nice boy” and when you are a brat, they say “in our days, we were kinder” etc.

I fought a lot with a sword and got hit sometimes. Now my character is full of scars...

Have to restart that game.