New Civ IV Expansion Announced, Ninja Gaiden DS

A new expansion pack for Civilization IV has been announced, with an emphasis on the late-game portions of the title. CVG says that new civilizations, technologies, and leaders will be available; added functionality includes the ability to form corporations and spread them throughout the globe, new espionage elements, and the ability to start games further up the tech ladder. "Advanced Starts: A major fan request, this new feature will enable players to 'buy' components of a custom-tailored empire and begin play in the later part of the game, allowing them to experience many of the new features of the expansion pack in a shorter amount of time." Also newly announced: Ninja Gaiden:Dragon Sword for the DS, an overhead 3D action game wholly unlike the side-scrolling original titles. That article, at 1up, also points out that a demo for the PS3 Ninja Gaiden title will be available in April.

Comments

I definitely won't be buying Ninja Gaiden DS

[CaseM]

Forking over $40 for a new Xbox controller because a wall collided with it is one thing, but $130 for new DS? That's a whole new ballgame...

Re:I definitely won't be buying Ninja Gaiden DS

[trevorrowe]

Wow, the mod totally missed the humor in the parent post.... when I replied it was moded -1 offtopic, it should be +5 funny If you didn't get the joke Ninja Gaiden has been known to cause copious amounts of frustrations, enough to throw your controller. Now imagine your controller is a DS.

Re:I definitely won't be buying Ninja Gaiden DS

[the dark hero]

As illustrated by Penny-Arcade

Re:I definitely won't be buying Ninja Gaiden DS

[strider2k]

Is it all Ninja Gaidens? The only ones I played were the 3 on the NES.

Re:I definitely won't be buying Ninja Gaiden DS

[UbuntuDupe]

I don't think you understand. Drawing obscure symbols to finish off a boss *fundamentally* changes the game, it's like a completely new experience.

Re:I definitely won't be buying Ninja Gaiden DS

[trevorrowe]

Its mostly just the xbox version (thats why the comment about a $40 xbox controller).

Re:I definitely won't be buying Ninja Gaiden DS

[MMaestro]

Damn what kind of wall was it? Maybe you should invest in some of the original Xbox controllers, unless your controllers have a tendency to collide with a sledgehammer.

Re:I definitely won't be buying Ninja Gaiden DS

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the series was always difficult. They were among the hardest games for the NES.

Thanks Fraxis

[VJ42]

A new expansion pack for Civilization IV has been announced That's a week of my life gone, ... Gee thanks Fraxis. ;P

FP?

Re:Thanks Fraxis

[spun]

A week? What kind of lame-o Civ gamer are you? A week's barely enough time to finish one single epic game on a huge map. A week is two or three multiplayer games. Meh. Get back to me when you've lost a job, had to drop out of school, or been kicked out of an apartment because of the smell. Then maybe you can call yourself a serious Civ gamer.

Seriously, though, I am SO glad they beefed up the late game. This incarnation of civ has had one of the weakest espionage elements of any of them, and I've missed the end-game fun to be had with corporations, like in Civ: CTP.

Re:Thanks Fraxis

[nuzak]

I missed a lot of things from Civ:CTP, like the public works pool and the espionage layer. Managing worker/engineer units is one of the more truly annoying aspects of Civ. I also liked the fact that CTP doesn't make history end in the late 20th century. I heard CTP2 even did away with the fixed city grid, letting it grow outside the "5-square-except-corners" layout (I'm not sure on this point tho, never played it).

I'd love to see workers/engineers and the city grid done away with in a Civ5. In fact, unless it's radically different, I'll probably skip Civ5 altogether. It's not a bad game at all, but just like Heroes of Might and Magic, I'm getting very sick of playing the same game every time it comes out.

Re:Thanks Fraxis

[Midnight Thunder]

Now just to see if they fix that dreaded 'out of sync' issue.

Re:Thanks Fraxis

[Tarinth]

Hopefully the new version provides more real gameplay than the first "Warlords" expansion, which seemed to be little more than a bunch of marginal scenario designs.

Damn

[stratjakt]

You combined two stories.

I thought the new Civ expansion pack was Ninja Gaiden.

IMAGINE HOW FUCKING COOL THAT WOULD BE.

Instead of one cool game, we're talking about two lame ones. :(

Hah!

[sesshomaru]

I already have Ninja Gaiden for my Lynx.

Take That!

Advanced Starts aren't new

[Friedrich Psitalon]

Those have actually been there since the Civ IV: Vanilla version came out. I'd guess marketing is emphasizing them to give the game another laurel, but people have been playing Future Start, Industrial Start, Medieval Start for a long time now. Better question: Will the AI be properly tuned for those starts, or will its ancient-era-prioritization cause it to be utterly demolished in the vastly different priorities of the more advanced eras?

Re:Advanced Starts aren't new

[ACS Solver]

Advanced starts aren't the same as starting in a later era. It's about "buying" stuff for your empire as well, as the announcement says. By the way: hi Friedrich, fancy meeting you here :).

Re:Advanced Starts aren't new

[maglor_83]

I thought you could have an advanced start from Civ I, or at least Civ II. Granted, it was just the AI had a couple of turns for you at the beginning, during which time they would build your capital in some crappy spot and maybe build a second city with overlapping resource squares, but it was definitely there.

Re:Advanced Starts aren't new

[Friedrich Psitalon]

Hi Solver. I notice you didn't say much about the second question. Tales told of silence, eh? ;)

Re:Advanced Starts aren't new

[ACS Solver]

Oh, you know me, if it weren't for the NDA, I'd write a truly gargantuan essay on the AI ;).

Less Civilization

[hansamurai]

and more Alpha Centauri!

Re:Less Civilization

[pezpunk]

i agree!

building a globe-spanning empire is great and all, but what really made AC fun was embodying the wonderful characters they invented for the leaders. the philosophically zen but emotionally void chen-xi wang, and the ruthless fire and brimstone of miriam godwinson were the most fun for me to emulate. of course, the cyber hippie (diedre skye) was another favorite.

and yeah i know "wonder movies" are considered fluff, but damn AC had some brutal and brilliant ones! there was a ton of clever writing that went into that title.

Re:Less Civilization

[Nasarius]

Unfortunately, Brian Reynolds (primary designer of Civ 2, Colonization, and Alpha Centauri) is no longer working with Firaxis. I suspect that an Alpha Centauri 2 made by others would be too much "Civ in Space".

Re:Less Civilization

[nuzak]

What I really liked is how Miriam's character starts off as some strident bible-beater, but eventually they make you really empathize with her when she starts quoting from We Must Dissent. The Self-Aware Colony is quite chilling. Damn near impossible to play her as a faction though, thanks to the lousy science output. Really only good for beginning rushes on small maps, because the -planet score kills you once the mindworms start getting busy (or when they come after you with psi units).

Re:Less Civilization

[demiurgency]

"Damn near impossible to play her as a faction though, thanks to the lousy science output."
...
Wait a second...
...
Just making sure I read that right...
...
If you're trying to research legitimately as Miriam, it's game-over already. You're missing out on the sheer joy of playing the Believers. PROBE TEAMS!
Miriam + Fundy = serious spy goodness!

Nothing feels better than stealing someone else's hard-earned military tech, and then turning around and making tougher units out of that same tech then they can produce, just because you're bad-ass, fanatical Believers!

Now Santiago on the other hand, I could never play with, except on small rush maps. A shame too because she's really hot. :D

This is exactly why I agree that SMAC > Civilization. The factions are not just interesting flavor text, each one demands you play a completely different game.

Re:Less Civilization

[Anonymous Coward]

While the other Civ games were content to allow nukes to be the most powerful one-shot weapon in the game, yet just had them cause fallout, AC had the Planet Buster missiles, which literally cratered the landscape down to below sea level. Sure, as soon as you used one, everyone immediately declared war on you, but that's why you stockpiled plenty of them *beforehand*. Nothing like turning your opponent's mighty cities into undersea algae farms for your harvesters.

Also, I really liked the UN politics. One of the things I've generally decried about playing (single-player) Civ games is the limitations of the AI in the political arena. One couldn't play a mostly diplomatic faction in the other games; the AI would eventually just move in and attack you. While the UN could have used further fleshing out, I really enjoyed being elected supreme world leader by cowing other factions into being my puppets during voting sessions.

Man. I need to go play again.

Re:Less Civilization

[777a]

Also try for the the Wonder which allows you to know any tech known to 2 factions, after that you can set research to 0% and concentrate on building up your cities. The Hunter-Killer Algorithm was nerfed in the AC expanison, which made the probe team tactic even more viable. The AC expansion added 7 new factions, which were generally more powerful than the original 7 factions, which was a shame, since mixing new/old factions in one game becomes unbalancing, but the 2 alien factions add a different element.

Re:Less Civilization

[meringuoid]

the philosophically zen but emotionally void chen-xi wang, and the ruthless fire and brimstone of miriam godwinson were the most fun for me to emulate. of course, the cyber hippie (diedre skye) was another favorite.

Sheng-ji Yang is a paranoid reactionary fool intent on establishing a repressive dictatorship and stifling all creativity, while Godwinson is simply a dangerous fundamentalist and a threat to all intellectual integrity and human progress upon Planet. Dierdre Skye is at least reasonable, and her Green policies combine well with our current research projects into the nature of the xenofungus; of course our interest is purely scientific, while hers seems rather emotional. Oh, but I should tell you that it is in fact true: she does dance naked through the trees. The nanomachinery lab at Zarya Sunrise recently developed a new type of microlens allowing the construction of invisibly small spy cameras. We've seeded them throughout the pine forests at Gaia's Landing, and we're negotiating with MorganNet to obtain a fair price for the movie rights...

Re:Less Civilization

[rsborg]

Unfortunately, Brian Reynolds (primary designer of Civ 2, Colonization, and Alpha Centauri) is no longer working with Firaxis. I suspect that an Alpha Centauri 2 made by others would be too much "Civ in Space".

Tis sad.. tho his new gaming company, Big Huge Games, has done other nice titles

Check out the interview about Civ2

Re:Less Civilization

[MagusSlurpy]

And more atrocities!

Re:Less Civilization

[Daetrin]

and yeah i know "wonder movies" are considered fluff, but damn AC had some brutal and brilliant ones! there was a ton of clever writing that went into that title.

A bit of trivia for the day, almost all the live action scenes in the intro and wonder movies were clips from the film Baraka. And yeah, i thought they added a lot to the game. I'm still annoyed by the demise of wonder movies.

Civ IV: Ninja Gaiden

[trisweb]

I totally had images of Ninja units in Civilization IV... or maybe a ninja civilization to start the game with... or maybe just ninjas dominating the whole world.

What, you mean they're totally unrelated? Oh. My bad.

Re:Civ IV: Ninja Gaiden

[644bd346996]

The Japanese conquest in civ3 was always my favorite. They did a great job of recreating the entire game to fit the Shogun era history. Even the music was a well done in that mod. And the ninjas were great because they were invisible like spies.

new AI priorities? excellent...

[CaptainNerdCave]

i do hope that this expansion adds a new early history development aspect with a leader or civilization that puts the alphabet ahead of some other techs. perhaps leaders that play go for bronze-working while building the oracle (to achieve free metal casting!). perhaps a roman leader that tries to conquer the world with the almost overpowered praetorians?

i'm excited to see this, especially since i'll be out of college and have much more time to devote to ruling the world...

AMEN TO THAT

[drinkypoo]

I have to open by saying that I haven't played Civ IV and probably will not, because there is not a linux version and I am not repeat NOT paying for cedega, since it sends a clear message to game publishers that they do not need to develop linux versions. I don't mind running software on wine, because I don't have to pay $5/month to use it, but even that is a half-measure.

With that said and out of the way, I find Alpha Centauri to be more enjoyable than Civ I, Civ II, or the production of bastardy that is Civ CTP. (s/T/RA/) Just the ability to design my own units is beautiful. If only the game went on for longer!

Give me Alpha C! If I wanted to portray life on earth, I could just walk away from the computer.

Re:AMEN TO THAT

[wall0159]

"I am not repeat NOT paying for cedega"

How do you run Alpha Centauri on Linux? I've been unable to get it working with WINE... any tips appreciated..

Re:AMEN TO THAT

[Ray Radlein]

Loki Games produced and sold a Linux-native port of SMAC for a while.

Of course, I'm personally still not able to get either SMAC or my Loki Railroad Tycoon II actually running under FC6, but they do still run on my ancient RH 7.3 box across the room.

Re:Civ IV: Ninja Gaiden - (Naruto-i-fied)

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool, I can attack the country of the leaf village, sweet!!!

Only a Week?

[WrongMonkey]

You're lucky. The total time I've wasted on civ games is measured in percent of life expectancy.

This why SMAC was brilliant

[WrongMonkey]

In Civ 4, you can pick any leader and use basically the same cookie-cutter strategies. Not so on Alpha Centauri. The advantages/disadvantage of each faction lead to completely different approaches. It's almost scary how it forces to get inside the characters heads in order to win.

Re:This why SMAC was brilliant

[DavidTC]

I'll bring up a faction I haven't heard mentioned: The Spartans. I'd always play as them.

If you were going to go to war, and my games always had massive amounts of war in them, the Spartans were the ones to play. You could constantly keep all units upgraded. As an added bonus, no one started out pissed at me, which let me pick them off one at a time.

Alternately, I'd play as University. (You had to get Hunter-Seeker if you were then, or you'd lose, almost without exception.) Oddly enough, in all Civ 4 games, I end up playing as I played University in AC.

Why is it that discussions about Civ 4 always turn into how much fun AC was? Why don't we get an expansion for Civ 4 that actually gives unique civilizations, instead of essentially having a dozen traits and you pick two, or, rather, pick the leader that has the two you want?

Re:new AI priorities? excellent...

[Homr Zodyssey]

i'll be out of college and have much more time to devote to ruling the world...
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! HAH! HAHAHAH!

Did anyone else who's been out of college for a while find this assertion to be ironic to the point of absurdity?