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Friday Fun Thread for August 7, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Video Game Thread

What are you playing?

Only a couple hours of Deus Ex this week:

Paul is alive and Jaime has joined us too. Maggie Chow was electro-shocked and chopped to bits with the Dragon's Tooth inside the Universal Constructor area. :) Soon after I ran into a bug back in NYC where the Illuminati contact, Stanton Dowd, wouldn't talk to me. Later discovered I had to shoot him in the head with a firearm. That actually worked. Next up, the Naval base.

Then I started a new Civ V game, intending to go wide. I finished the Liberty tree and ended up having only 3 cities by midgame. Whoops.

I lost my Civ4 game in 1898 when my neighbor and his two vassals attacked with 3 separate stacks that I could not repel. It was an amazing campaign that I put about 50 hours into over the last month. I’m playing with modded AI on prince difficulty. It’s a real puzzle to win. I’d highly recommend it. Peak Civ “one more turn” and a reminder of how far Firaxis has fallen with Civ7.

I started a new campaign last night and really like the start location I rolled. 2 food resources and 2 silver. Great natural boundaries. 4 neighbors. Let’s see if the Reich can win this time.

I’ve said it before, but we are truly blessed with at least 3 to 4 evergreen versions of the Civilization game. If you include mods, there is a lifetime of variety here and there’s really no need for a modern Civ. Maybe one day AI will be able to crack the civ5 and 6 DLLs and there will be a mod resurgence. Firaxis is dead as far as I’m concerned.

What's the AI mod you use?

AdvancedCiv.

Nearly zero gameplay modifications other than things like changing unit movement from the end of a turn to the beginning of a turn to help with reloading a save and not have to move everyone again.

It’s much more carefully developed than other mods which just turn all the AI into warmongers. There’s an elaborate set of mechanics governing how the ai interacts with you. It’s terrific.

Thanks. In return I will tell you not to waste time on the Cavemen2Cosmos mod. It has the fun idea of expanding the Civ timeline starting from the prehistoric era, but the AI can't handle the hodgepodge of new systems and resources.