What's a good time-consuming game?

[Arrqh]

Saw your title and thought 'Civilisation IV' - seems a lot of others did too! I recently bought it, in a 'Complete' package which includes the Warlords and Beyond the Sword expansions as well. You could play that game for hours (i have ), and it's a lot of fun.

Do the expansions add much to it? I can play it for hours on end, but I've wondered if it's really worth paying for the add-ons.

If you don't play the scenarios, don't bother with Warlords as you'll get all the new units/buildings/etc from it in BtS as well. BtS adds a bunch of neat stuff mostly for the modern age including corporations (which act sort of like religion but provide bonuses/handicaps to city production based on available resources) and also greatly expanded espionage.

 

[RoJoHen]

I tried playing Civ 3 a way back, and I remember not liking it at all. I don't remember why. Is Civ 4 different at all?

 

[Arrqh]

If you didn't like 3, then you probably won't like 4... it's the same basic game with some new additions on top of it. But there's a free demo somewheres if you want to check it out.

 

[archeryguy1701]

I'm another vote for Sim City 4. Also, Get Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-Earth II and the expansion. The campaigns are pretty quick, but there's a variety of factions you can play with, and also, it has the War of the Ring (WoR) ability. Basically, WoR is set up like Risk, except when you and your opponent face eachother in combat, you have an option of either auto-resolve or you can actually delve down into the RTS combat, and each territory has its own corrosponding map. However, if you do want to play WoR, I stongly suggest getting the expansion too. It greatly improves WoR gameplay, and includes unit persistance from the RTS map to the world map.

 

[Cain]

I'd recommend Homeworld. Great storyline, missions last a good while (especially if you want to mine/collect every resource on the map)

Don't know about the original, but Homeworld 2 auto-collected all resources before ending a mission (assuming you weren't doing an emergency jump-out).

If you guys liked Homeworld, check out Sins of a Solar Empire. It's a great space RTS. It is a not as hardcore of an RTS as Homeworld because it also has 5X elements like Master of Orion or Civilization. It's a really great game.

 

[broberfett]

Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines.