New Applicant

[cheekimonk]

Name (first and last for in-game entry): Ben Teague
Email: benateague@gmail.com
AIM ID: covious73
Date of Birth: 5/17/73
Occupation: Technical/Management Consultant
Location: Charlotte, NC (originally from Birmingham, AL)
Other OOTP Leagues (with links): MLIB (http://mlib-online.com/)
Do you own OOTP11? Yes. v11.2.23
We have a Participation Point System to foster activity. Cool with this? Absolutely!
Willing to troll the boards and participate in polls? Absolutely!
Have you read and understand the MBBA League Constitution? Yes.
What interests you about the MBBA? I love the activity I see on the boards. Active GMs, the concepts of "vultures" is awesome...looks like a really active, knowledgeable group of GMs.
Do you have any weird OOTP quirks that we should know about - like you don't believe in making trades? Lol...not that I know of. I'll pull the trigger on a trade if I think it will make my team better, but trades just make things fun anyway...even bad ones. As the deadline approaches, I'll definitely be a buyer or a seller. And I'm big on filling holes with free agents.
What other hobbies do you have? Guitar, outdoors (hiking, climbing, etc.), UAB sports, music, Civ5 lately...

[aaronweiner]

How is Civ5? What did they change? I'm trying to talk myself into the $60.

[cheekimonk]

How is Civ5? What did they change? I'm trying to talk myself into the $60.

I love it! There are some hardcore Civ4 fans who hate it, but they've been playing a product with 3-4 expansions plus 100's of mods. It does seem, though, that there are more haters of Civ5 than there were Civ4 (from hardcore Civ3) fans. I guess it's because they really did radically change some things. It will take some time for them to balance out some features, but the biggest improvement - IMHO - is that you can only have one unit per tile (well, one unit of one type...so you can have a military unit and a worker on the same tile). No more stacks of doom!!! I always thought that was the most unrealistic thing about Civ. Ranged units are actually ranged (meaning you can put your archers/crossbows behind your melee units and unleash volleys at targets.

Religion is out and a greatly expanded system of social policies is in. City-states are a unique concept and they could do with fleshing out a bit (right now you just bribe them with money until you're friends/allies and they give you extra food/culture/military units/etc.). I wish the city-states were more of a player in diplomacy. The leader animations are MUCH better. If you are familiar with Montezuma's reputation in Civ4 you'll spew your drink when you first see him in Civ5. And Askia (leader of Songhai)...when you first meet him he inevitably says his civilization seeks peaceful coexistence, this while he's standing with a sword over his shoulder and the smoldering ruins of a city behind him...LOL!

It's well worth the money...

[cheekimonk]

BTW, everyone, I keep my AIM pointed to my Blackberry so even if it says I'm away (or mobile) feel free to send a message. Just mention you are from MBBA if we haven't chatted before.

[aaronweiner]

That really is drastically different, but it's also very interesting - I suspect they're trying to kill the conquest victory dead (and it was always sort of unrealistic anyway). I imagine it still exists but would be basically unimaginably hard.

Sounds fun though.

Aaron

[cheekimonk]

Not really dead...you can still pull it off it just takes some strategic thinking. However happiness is now totaled for your civ rather than being isolated to cities. That can make conquests difficult because the new cities add to your total unhappiness...so you kind of have to conquer, wait and build happiness, rinse, repeat. But you can also raze cities or make them puppets, too.