Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution...

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

I have it for DS. I do love the demo on 360. It's pretty much the same game, just on a smaller screen. No achievements though. How's the multiplayer? I'd like to pick it up when I can afford it. The only thing better than picking up Civ Rev would be an Age of Empires 360 release.

That would be loco. I could never play an AoE game with a gamepad :O

[phoenix1967]

Aren't the guys that designed the Age of Empires series currently working on Halo Wars?

@Antimind, I haven't tried the multiplayer yet. I've just been whoring on the achievements.

FYI, for those that got a special download code for new Wonders and Artifacts with their copy of the game, the content was released yesterday. BTW, the Statue of Liberty Wonder is ridiculously good (+2 pop in each city...at a cost of 350 production).

Was finally able to beat Deity with Greece. Tech win.

[Tan]

Aren't the guys that designed the Age of Empires series currently working on Halo Wars?

Ensemble Studios yes. Imagine that, a Halo game even I might play.

[Sirgin]

Aren't the guys that designed the Age of Empires series currently working on Halo Wars?

Ensemble Studios yes. Imagine that, a Halo game even I might play.

You like RTS games, Tan? Or just the Age of series?

I played all games in the series except for the expansions of AoE3. I liked them all but Age of Mythology is my favorite, love the gameplay of it. Which one do you like most?

[Tan]

Aren't the guys that designed the Age of Empires series currently working on Halo Wars?

Ensemble Studios yes. Imagine that, a Halo game even I might play.

You like RTS games, Tan? Or just the Age of series?

I played all games in the series except for the expansions of AoE3. I liked them all but Age of Mythology is my favorite, love the gameplay of it. Which one do you like most?

I'm not into the genre as a whole but I have a select few I really enjoy that are always on the HDD including AoE II, III and Mythology. I had the DS version of AoE as well but I didn't care for the slow pace of the turn based combat.

Ensemble Studios always impress me because they don't try to piss out games every year and release something only when it's finished. Every AoE game is of the highest quality, even the DS one and even though this one will be using the Halo license, if anyone can pull off a good RTS out of it, they can.

[Antimind]

The videos I've seen for Halo Wars look good. Not my type of game though. They're really trying to keep the game in line with the Halo series as well as pleasing general RTS fans. There are a few vids on Xbox Marketplace. Worth a look.

[Sirgin]

Every AoE game is of the highest quality, even the DS one and even though this one will be using the Halo license, if anyone can pull off a good RTS out of it, they can.

That's true. I was very impressed with the visuals and physics of AoE III. I only got to play the game last year, because my PC at the time of release was a wreck and wouldn't be able to play it at all.
Heck, even with my new PC (almost a year old now) with a GeForce 8800GTX inside, I couldn't max out the visuals or the framerate would go down to like 20fps.

[Tan]

Every AoE game is of the highest quality, even the DS one and even though this one will be using the Halo license, if anyone can pull off a good RTS out of it, they can.

That's true. I was very impressed with the visuals and physics of AoE III. I only got to play the game last year, because my PC at the time of release was a wreck and wouldn't be able to play it at all.
Heck, even with my new PC (almost a year old now) with a GeForce 8800GTX inside, I couldn't max out the visuals or the framerate would go down to like 20fps.

Ouch, you must have a lot of background tasks running or sorely need ram.

Most onboard vid chips from the last couple years can run that game at medium  or higher, an 8800 would chew that game up and spit it out under normal conditions.

[Sirgin]

Ouch, you must have a lot of background tasks running or sorely need ram.

Most onboard vid chips from the last couple years can run that game at medium  or higher, an 8800 would chew that game up and spit it out under normal conditions.

Onboard graphic cards are really bad. I don't know why my card has problems with it, it shouldn't because it is a top-of-the-line card (atleast at its release, which was after the release of AoEIII )

My PC (important things):

Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit)
Intel Core2Duo E6750 @ 2.67Ghz - 1333Mhz Front Side Bus - 4Mb cache
2,00Gb Ram (but it's 677Mhz I think, not the faster 800Mhz)
XFX GeForce 8800 GTX - 768Mb DDR3 - 630 Mhz core
Asus P5K motherboard (regular version, not deluxe) with Intel P35 chipset
WD 320Gb S-ATA II - 7200RPM - 16 Mb cache
600Watt power supply to feed all this nonsense

I use a 1680x1050 22" screen and play games at that same resolution (if the game supports it)

According to Vista, my RAM is the worst thing in my PC, scoring only 5,0, the rest scores higher.

PS: I'm not really that PC-focussed, I got one from my parents last year for going to uni, so I wanted one that was good

Do you might know what it could be that causes the slowdown, Tan?

EDIT: If you want I can screenshot my background tasks, because I think there are alot but I don't know enough of PC's so I don't dare to touch them

[logical123]

Screenshot it, and if he doesn't reply, I will. PC's are my forte, even though I'm on a mac now. 

[Tan]

Ouch, you must have a lot of background tasks running or sorely need ram.

Most onboard vid chips from the last couple years can run that game at medium  or higher, an 8800 would chew that game up and spit it out under normal conditions.

Onboard graphic cards are really bad. I don't know why my card has problems with it, it shouldn't because it is a top-of-the-line card (atleast at its release, which was after the release of AoEIII )

My PC (important things):

Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit)
Intel Core2Duo E6750 @ 2.67Ghz - 1333Mhz Front Side Bus - 4Mb cache
2,00Gb Ram (but it's 677Mhz I think, not the faster 800Mhz)
XFX GeForce 8800 GTX - 768Mb DDR3 - 630 Mhz core
Asus P5K motherboard (regular version, not deluxe) with Intel P35 chipset
WD 320Gb S-ATA II - 7200RPM - 16 Mb cache
600Watt power supply to feed all this nonsense

I use a 1680x1050 22" screen and play games at that same resolution (if the game supports it)

According to Vista, my RAM is the worst thing in my PC, scoring only 5,0, the rest scores higher.

PS: I'm not really that PC-focussed, I got one from my parents last year for going to uni, so I wanted one that was good

Do you might know what it could be that causes the slowdown, Tan?

EDIT: If you want I can screenshot my background tasks, because I think there are alot but I don't know enough of PC's so I don't dare to touch them

I build PCs for a living, but I won't kid you and say it can be solved easily without actually looking at it, no one can. Nor will I recommend things to disable. If your not comfortable digging around in services.msc or regedit or msconfig, then don't. Also I can't guess what you do and don't use on a regular basis, so I won't tell you what background tasks to get rid of either.

As any PC tech will tell you, you won't find adequate help from an "armchair repairman" online. There are just way too many factors and considerations without having hands on.

But here are a few suggestions all the same:

 - check for the latest drivers
 - do a manual vista defrag. not that crap that sits in yout System tools folder, I mean go into command prompt and type: defrag c: -v -w (command prompt is located under accessories in your start menu)
 - find yourself an anti-spyware program and make it your new best friend
 - if you have anything "Norton" related on your PC, get rid of it. the system resources Norton programs use take a big chunk out of your OS, Vista even more so.
 - try scaling back your resolution while playing. most games were developed with 800, 1024, or 1280 in mind, any more than that won't look much different and only causes undue work on the GPU.
 - Also, try scaling back or disabling anti-aliasing and/or antiscopic filtering which should be video options in-game. turn Vsync off and scale back from triple buffering to double.

You have a fine system and even a 5.0 on the windows experience scale is nothing to sneeze at. Vista can only recognize 3Gb of ram at max anyway so if your running pairs to take advantage of dual channel, then upgrading to 4 won't make much of a difference.

You could run the whole gamut and disable servies and startup items left right and center, but unless you know what your doing on a case by case basis, you may end up disabling something vital or used daily, especially if it's a system used for school. Those options I listed above will not hinder any functionality nor do they require PC know-how.

http://www.pcpitstop.com/

[Sirgin]

Alright Tan, I'll do those things.

Don't have Norton, I have Panda Antivirus 2008, don't know if its any good.
What spyware program do you recommend?

I'm noticing that, when firefox (only firefox) is on and I go check out my performance, 40% of my memory is being used all the time. Should this be the case?

Obviously, if I'll disable anti-aliasing and such, games will run much faster. But I thought my system should be able to manage AoE III with everything turned on to maximum. Or are these just vain dreams and does nobody really turns on V-sync and the anti-aliassing and such?

[phoenix1967]

Bringing it back on topic.

FYI. On XBLA marketplace, there are 2 new sets of map packs (containing 3-4 new maps each) to download for free as well as 2 new scenario packs (containing 3 new scenarios each) for 100 points each.

So...for another $2.50, you can get a lot of new gameplay out of SMCR!

[cant-grow-up]

Civ:revolution got it a couple of weeks ago went to work the next morning without any sleep because of it. Nice to know im not the only one that got douped into thing "hey this is easy", after my first time playing it.

[phoenix1967]

Even more content got released a couple weeks ago. All 3 of the bonus artifact and wonder packs that were available at retail releases (depending on store) are out. And some additional maps/scenarios have been made available.

I DL'd all of them.

Looking forward to playing.