Civ IV patch 1.61

[Troy S Goodfellow]

I won't list all the changes since this isn't a WoW patch, but you can find the list here (http://civfanatics.com/).

Big stuff?

Financial trait has been weakened by not giving a bonus on banks
Expansive civs now get extra health
The deforestation strategy is weaker.
Firepower is averaged between max and current strength of unit.
Lots of changes in the civic upkeep arena.

The Pit Boss and SDK have also been released, so we should soon see a flurry of mods.

All available on the Firaxis site.

Now off to test this out.

Troy

[Quaro]

Woot on the SDK and Pit Boss!

[Chris Woods]

I like what they did with chops. Now it's base 20 hammers, +50% with the discovery of Mathematics. That puts it much more in a "now or later" decision. (Well, I'm just theorizing as I haven't played with it yet.)

Chris Woods

[Jasper]

Sweet! Lots of solid tweaks. I'm curious to see how the hammers from chopping decreases with distance. Is it only 20 for spaces immediately adjacent to a city?

I suspect with the decreased value I'll still chop early, but I'll likely improve the better tiles first and build a unit or two before settling, and perhaps hold off on researching Bronze Working right away.

[Equisilus]

My god. Will I ever get back to playing Civ4 now that I'm playing Oblivion, Dreamfall arrives shortly, then HoMM5 will be playable (without SF!), then we'll be into the summer arrival of expansion packs and....

I need more time. Which one of you has the time machine again?

[Raife]

My god. Will I ever get back to playing Civ4 now that I'm playing Oblivion, Dreamfall arrives shortly, then HoMM5 will be playable (without SF!), then we'll be into the summer arrival of expansion packs and....

You could just wait and try to work in Civ 5.

[Shadarr]

My god. Will I ever get back to playing Civ4 now that I'm playing Oblivion, Dreamfall arrives shortly, then HoMM5 will be playable (without SF!), then we'll be into the summer arrival of expansion packs and....
Yeah, too many games and not enough time. I just finished Space Rangers 2 and I'm trying to decide whether I want to start something new or try SR2 as a pirate. I look at the Civ IV patch announcement and think "cool, I should give that another go." But when? I still haven't played all the games I got for Christmas.

[Fiend]

Oh snap, guess I'll have to fire up another game of Civ4. Last game was a cool war mongering conquest victory on Prince. Civ4 is pretty much the only game I play these days. I tried (rented) out Fight Night 3 on my PS2 but it wasn't much a challenge even on hard. I ran one career cycle and finished 59-0 with 59 knockouts. I never tried the Xbox360 version but the PS2 version was actually a step backwards in terms of graphics, gameplay, and AI.

I'm probably the only one not playing Oblivion...8-) Maybe next year when I get a Vista-ready PC.

[HRose]

AT LAST.

This patch was expected to be out by the end of January.

[Chris Nahr]

Man, I'm still busy with Oblivion for the next 100 hours or so, and then there's the new GalCiv2 patch...

Anyway, this is the official page (http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/downloads.htm) with the download links, and here are the voluminous patch details (http://www.2kgames.com/civ4/patch-detail.htm). Of course they all pale before this supremely important item:

Civilopedia main page sorted in columns rather than in rows

Since I specifically requested this change I'm very happy they put it in. Thanks! :)