I do really like the helicopter gunships. They've got good movement points, gain experience like a 'melee' unit (though it is wierd to see pikemen or swordsmen swinging their weapons to try and fend off the helicopter attack) and can be very useful for scouting. Only problem is they're land bound (can't fly over coastal or open water).

StealthSigma, you obviously aren't fighting far and fast enough into multiple enemy empires. Airdropped tanks quickly get well beyond your own pristine rail network (which of course I have).

In my experience (Civ4), paratroopers were ideal for reinforcing defensive positions and cities, or for taking an empty city after it had already been bombed into submission. I never used them for real attacking.

They can't take an 'undefended' city in Civ 5 though, so that limits that.

The thing is that the alternate for them is stronger and moves 2x as far when not paradropping. It makes them exceedingly limited. Even more so since Civ 5 railroads are no longer free passes, and they cost gold to maintain, so you can't just coat your entire empire in them very easily.

Got a look at it yesterday at a friends house. Played a few turns, looks nice but would be worried as it crashed his PC (might be due to PC performance) and that is why he stopped playing it.

Do any of you have issues with the game crashing?

Not when I run the game under DX9.

I have that problem in my current marathon game. I'm not sure what is causing it, but it keeps happening on the same turn. Haven't tried it again for a while though.

No crashing after I disabled the intro movie.

Hmm, didn't know you could do that. I should do that as it takes a while to cancel out of anyway.

You just sit there at a black screen for a couple seconds. They use the opening video to hide loading so there's no real difference between hitting escape and waiting for it to go to menu and disabling the intro. Unless of course you hit escape after the loading is done.

Ah, that's cool. Most things use opening video to delay the time when they have to start actually loading anything.

Heh, I just realized that Civ 5 lets your civilization build Metal Gear.

Pump up music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUHJsU_ooWQ...feature=related

Never gotten that far, as the game becomes a crashy crawl around the time i discover oil...

I never seem to have access to radioactive material

I find that the early eras go way too fast.

iI hit renaissance by 300 ad and then I'm in the industrial era by 1500, and yet I still only have 5 cities

if i have studies the tech tree right, this can happen if one go down the main path heavily.

Seems there is a big as patch coming, and one of the entries talk about something that sounds like a memory leak in the save game system. I wonder if that could be why i had issues with crashes late in the game...

This makes me wish Masters of Orion had a new game coming out.

Haven't played that in forever. I do recall it being an excellent game though.

In Master's of Orion II you could negotiate lots of treaties and if you had the upper hand you could even demand they give you planets. I enjoyed stomping all over the enemy AI and eventually whittling it down to 1 planet in 1 solar system under it's control.

Master's of Orion and Master's of Orion II are some of the best RTS games ever made IMO.

Plus when you research a stellar converter (IIRC) you could blow up an enemy planet after you were done destroying their cities. Very Deathstar-ish.

But if you build Metal Gear, won't you be repeatedly defeated by a special forces agent with a peculiar affinity for cardboard boxes?

~J

Try Galactic CIV II, it is just as good. The AI is pretty decent and will give you a challenge.

Side note: MOOIII killed the Master's of Orion franchise cause they tried to do too much with it.

This is why I will have all my guards kick, hard, any cardboard boxes that aren't neatly stacked in an appropriate location.

This makes me wish Masters of Orion had a new, good game coming out.

Let us not forget MoO3.

I think it was Civ 4 where the American special unit was Navy SEAL? Someone should make a mod where the Japanese special unit is Snake. Snake automatically destroys Giant Death Robots garrisoned in cities you make him attack.