Alpha Centauri 2

Community => Recreation Commons => Topic started by: Buster's Uncle on August 29, 2013, 07:11:27 PM

Title: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 29, 2013, 07:11:27 PM

I don't feel like researching all this, but the closing of CGN and the hacking of Apolyton the same month has me wondering about some of those little somehow related forums that no one seems to talk about much.  So, a request for member insights/info, and this is also FYI for newbs who don't know.


The part of the English-speaking Civ forum circles I'm aware of and am a member at, in descending order of activity:

CFC, The CivCentration Camp
Apolyton, The Troll Pit (hacked)
WPC, The Frog Pond
AC2, Dung Mountain (where I am King Poop of)
CGN, The Dead Zone (closed)

I'm also a member at something called SuperCiv from 2009, which never accreted 50 posts to become a real thing.  There's also something called CivUnited, which apparently was inspired by the old CivJunction April fool's joke, and I don't remember if it's the same forum as the MP gaming league forum MMC was involved in running - I got my first ever moderation job offer from the latter.

Further afield, I think, are Eventis (gone, I gather) and CounterGlow (where the fine gentlemen of the Pit discuss things like trolling raids that they may not at the Pit, and which I think is still going at a pathetic activity level) both of which were/are apparently the sort of forums where trolling and spamming are almost mandatory.

Some of this is mere curiosity.  Some is a desire to know of anywhere that might be inactive but has any content that might be useful.  Some of it is because I want to know about anywhere that at least pulls some lurkers for when I'm doing promotional stuff.  And some is a desire to understand the online community of which I am part and its history better.

Anyone?

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Petek on August 30, 2013, 12:49:17 AM

GOG hosts an AC Discussion forum (http://www.gog.com/forum/sid_meier_s_alpha_centauri_#1377573206).

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 30, 2013, 01:06:36 AM

Okay, I'm familiar with that; I should have thought of it.  Thanks.

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Petek on August 30, 2013, 01:31:45 AM

If you're looking for inactive forums, there's the GameFAQs SMAC forum (http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/96102-sid-meiers-alpha-centauri). The pinned troubleshooting thread is useful. Aetherspoon knows what he's doing. I wonder if he posts elsewhere under a different screen name?

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 30, 2013, 01:37:39 AM

I wonder if someone could send Aetherspoon a link to here.

I am looking for that, I guess, although finding anything sisko isn't aware of is unlikely.  I'm also looking for history and observations about what formerly-living places were like, and all kinds of stuff.  Knowledge is power, and I don't know what might be good to know without knowing.

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Dale on August 30, 2013, 04:36:55 AM

http://www.sidgames.com (http://www.sidgames.com) - Gone now (though I remember it fondly).
http://forums.2kgames.com/forumdisplay.php?38-Civilization (http://forums.2kgames.com/forumdisplay.php?38-Civilization) - 2K forums
http://civforum.de (http://civforum.de) - German
http://www.civplayers.com/ (http://www.civplayers.com/) - Civ MP Players
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=221 (http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=221) - Steam Forum
http://forum.civilization.org.pl/ (http://forum.civilization.org.pl/) - Polish
http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/48849/ (http://www.neoseeker.com/forums/48849/) - NeoSeeker
http://www.stormoverciv.net/forums/ (http://www.stormoverciv.net/forums/) - Storm over Civ
http://www.1bcciv.com/ (http://www.1bcciv.com/) - 1BC
http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/ (http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/) - Realms Beyond
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/938528-sid-meiers-civilization-v (http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/938528-sid-meiers-civilization-v) - GameFaqs
http://civcraft.net/forums/ (http://civcraft.net/forums/) - CivCraft (a Minecraft Civ Mod, but some Civ discussion goes on there)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Take-2-Sid-Meiers-Civilization/forum/Fx2UOYTGBHWJ1T8/-/1?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B003ELORWE (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Take-2-Sid-Meiers-Civilization/forum/Fx2UOYTGBHWJ1T8/-/1?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B003ELORWE) - Amazon forum

I think that's about it.  Can't think of any others.

There's plenty of forums where Civ talk goes on, but the ones above are basically the main ones.

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 30, 2013, 04:39:51 AM

[ninja'd]Aha.  I looked up CivUnited, which appears to be completely gone, but found CivPlayers in the process, the MP forum I mentioned in the OP.  http://www.civplayers.com/ (http://www.civplayers.com/)  It's been around for years and there were two posts today.  CanuckSoldier looks to be the man in charge.

At least as of a few years ago, they wanted to get some SMAC action going.  Somebody ought to go help them out...


Got any good stories about anything on that list, Dale?  I'll take scurrilous forum gossip, provided its not too hateful and fairly certainly true... 

I stumbled over NeoSeeker and posted there back in the spring - they'll take a fake email and don't require signup.  sisko posts at the German and Polish forums sometimes.  I hear there used to be a Russian one that broke up fairly explosively.  We've got an old friend who used to post at Realms Beyond.

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Dale on August 30, 2013, 04:56:53 AM

Well SidGames.com used to be a place where high-level strategy was discussed.  Hardly any spamming or trolling or hate since it was back in the Civ2 days before the haters got on board the game.

CivPlayers saw its peak during Civ4 since MP was reasonably good.  Civ5 killed off part of the site and since Civ4 is so old things have really slowed over there.  And yes, CanuckSoldier is the main guy there, but even he's losing interest in Civ since 5's MP is so crap.  Nolan is another good person to talk to if CS isn't around (CS is military and gets deployed to various locations sometimes meaning he's offline for a while).
- Interesting story here.  There used to be another admin of the site a long time ago, a Russian guy (forget his name/handle).  There was a falling out and he was booted from CP.  He went off and started his own competing MP forum and for years every so often the Russian guy and his mates would hack CP.  I think they've finally gotten on top of him now, but it went on for a very long time.

Storm Over Civ is relatively new I believe (never come across it before Civ5) and for all intents and purpose is kept alive because a couple of the big name Civ5 modders hang out there.  They of course have groupies who seem to keep things ticking slowly over.

CivForum.de is the home of Kai, the guy who makes the Blue Marble mod for the last couple of versions.  He hates Civ5 too.  I haven't spoken to Kai since my Firaxis days, but I believe he left too after being disheartened by Civ5.  A LOT of us left Civ due to Civ5.  People like me, Kai, Sullla, Bob, Harlan, Locutus......

Most of the other boards are minor sites with very little discussion going on.  Steam, Amazon and 2K forums tend to capture most of the casuals so conversation on those boards is at a much lower level (in general) than the more hard core forums.

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 30, 2013, 05:02:21 AM

ciV gutted SMACX at the Pond.  A lot of our people ran over there all excited and didn't come back home when it turned out to suck.  It was such a bad activity dropoff that I, who never cared anything about V, got discouraged and wandered off for seven months.

I heard it was like that everywhere...

;q;  V  ;q;

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Green1 on August 30, 2013, 05:06:18 AM

EDIT


pps

I mentioned one already listed.

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 30, 2013, 05:10:23 AM

Thanks.

Well, decent-look theme and some posts Tuesday, but they won't let me lurk, so I lost interest in finding out more instantly....

EDIT:  it was http://www.1bcciv.com/ (http://www.1bcciv.com/)

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Buster's Uncle on August 30, 2013, 10:28:47 PM

Quote from: BUncle on August 29, 2013, 07:11:27 PM

in descending order of activity:

CFC, The CivCentration Camp
Apolyton, The Troll Pit (hacked)
WPC, The Frog Pond
AC2, Dung Mountain (where I am King Poop of)
CGN, The Dead Zone (closed)

It's interesting to note that, without looking at any actual statistics, there's a huge dropoff between first second and third entries on the list, and since I've been checking The Pond a lot this week, looking for both any developments in E_T's problem and also anything about 'poly, I've noticed that if number of members typically browsing when I look is any indication,  I may have gotten the order wrong.  That would be freakin' huge.

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Green1 on August 31, 2013, 07:09:18 AM

Quote from: BUncle on August 30, 2013, 10:28:47 PM

Quote from: BUncle on August 29, 2013, 07:11:27 PM

in descending order of activity:

CFC, The CivCentration Camp
Apolyton, The Troll Pit (hacked)
WPC, The Frog Pond
AC2, Dung Mountain (where I am King Poop of)
CGN, The Dead Zone (closed)

It's interesting to note that, without looking at any actual statistics, there's a huge dropoff between first second and third entries on the list, and since I've been checking The Pond a lot this week, looking for both any developments in E_T's problem and also anything about 'poly, I've noticed that if number of members typically browsing when I look is any indication,  I may have gotten the order wrong.  That would be freakin' huge.

CFC is not even in the same league as the other 4.

To use another genre analogy, CFC is like MMO champion. It is a news board with forums.

Oh, and WHY all the HATE to Civ 5??? I think Brave New World makes it really enjoyable. I was not impressed with Vanilla or Gads and Kings as much, though. those with rose colored glasses may forget that Civ 4 was okay in vanilla, Warlords was an improvement, and Beyond the Sword Rocked. Same with Civ 5. Hexes scare ya? Old school war games are best with hexes and no stacking. Panzer General did it. About time Civ broke the mold.

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 01, 2013, 11:34:19 AM

I already explained why I hate 5...

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Geo on September 01, 2013, 12:08:24 PM

Quote from: Green1 on August 31, 2013, 07:09:18 AM

Oh, and WHY all the HATE to Civ 5??? I think Brave New World makes it really enjoyable. I was not impressed with Vanilla or Gads and Kings as much, though. those with rose colored glasses may forget that Civ 4 was okay in vanilla, Warlords was an improvement, and Beyond the Sword Rocked. Same with Civ 5. Hexes scare ya? Old school war games are best with hexes and no stacking. Panzer General did it. About time Civ broke the mold.

I'm deliberatedly delaying my BnW purchase. First want to finish something in SMAX.
Though I'm more or less done with G&K's.

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Dale on September 01, 2013, 12:27:06 PM

Quote from: Green1 on August 31, 2013, 07:09:18 AM

Oh, and WHY all the HATE to Civ 5??? I think Brave New World makes it really enjoyable. I was not impressed with Vanilla or Gads and Kings as much, though. those with rose colored glasses may forget that Civ 4 was okay in vanilla, Warlords was an improvement, and Beyond the Sword Rocked. Same with Civ 5. Hexes scare ya? Old school war games are best with hexes and no stacking. Panzer General did it. About time Civ broke the mold.

It's simple really.  Civ 5 takes a number of the high-level strategy concepts, and pisses on them.  For instance: combat.

Civ 5 is also a massive piss on modders and MP players.

I'll pick up BNW when it's on 75% sale and give it another shot.  You might be right that Civ 5 is good with BNW.  And please do not compare Civ 4 to Civ 5.  Civ 4 vanilla was at least enjoyable, and also a high-level strategy game.  Civ 5 vanilla was confused between strategic and tactical concepts, and not one of them really shone, they were all mediocre.

Title: Re: The Civ family of forums
Post by: Buster's Uncle on September 07, 2013, 05:50:06 PM

Something I should mention - I've gotten some criticism for posting nicknames for other forums in the OP.  [shrugs]  I'm a nicknamer, and that is all there is to be made of it.  I did call my own beloved forum Dung Mountain, to be fair, and the other labels, if mean, are still pretty accurate (as anyone who knows the fora in question can attest), though I doubt anyone but Dale got the Frog Pond joke.

It was said in a spirit of fun, not attack.  I could have gotten uglier if I'd intended such, (except for about AC2, which is actually pretty flawless. ;)  O:-))

I come not to badmouth Caesar, but to encourage discussion of him.  That is all.