Silver

You can't really endure cancer, it's not like HIV, cancer (serious kinds, because some are harmless.) is extremely aggressive and you might as well attempt to destroy all the cancerous cells instead of just suppressing what is already there. HIV/AIDS destroys white bloods cells and treatments only slow the loss of white blood cells. Cancer can be suppressed and endured for some time but the reality is these same treatments are killing your healthy cells along with the cancerous ones. The side effects of medication for HIV/AIDS is pretty bad but it's nothing when compared with chemotherapy and other treatment for cancer. With HIV/AIDS you can increase doses and mix around with the drugs but with cancer for many people, they reach a point where accelerating or increasing treatment would kill them and the existing treatment isn't stopping the cancer from growing and spreading. There are many promising treatments involving proteins, viruses, drugs and many other things. The thing I'm hoping for is much greater access to things like MRIs. The advances I see will be in technology and early detection with that technology. The key to success is not a magic pill or therapy, it's in detection. My dad is a scientist who researches cancer and tries to find ways to treat it so I know all about this.

I prefer the dawn of civilization kind of campaign to a guy telling me what to do. My only complaint about a dawn of civilization type of game is that they often break it up into many games, when one game would make it more fun.

It reminds me of the AoE tutorial. In Egypt at the dawn of civilization - build 5 houses.... you win!!

It obviously will be... no doubt about that, but I love ES and if I remember correctly, RE has many of the same people from ES. Age of Empires was one of the very first games I bought with my money and played and really enjoyed. If they are remaking it, I'm going to be extremely happy. Although I'll definitely keep checking back here to see if the game is finished until I die of old age. Just kidding, I hope to see the finished product in a few years and I'll definitely play and talk to my friends about it.

On topic - helmets are really amazing. My dad was biking to his Lab and a car ran a light and hit him, his bike was trashed, his helmet cracked into two pieces but he only had a few scrapes and bruises. I couldn't believe his head was fine after I saw the helmet.... WOW. For some reason in Canada, the cars and roads and police are very anti-bike. We had 5 cyclists get run over by a van and the police decided instead of patrolling the streets catching bad drivers, they'd send bike patrols to ticket people riding bikes on the sidewalk. Plus government officials don't understand what needs to be done - bike paths have a low speed limit... they're not meant for traveling to work. I remember Europe having bike lanes and everything, in Canada if you're lucky, some of the major roads have painted bike lanes. I edited because biker sounds too much like biker gangs (motorcycles). Just to be clear, they didn't really feel 'fine'. They complained that they had headaches, dizziness, etc... Not severe enough for most people to consider a hospital, but it wasn't like it came right out of the blue. Just thought I'd comment on that because I snowboard at Mont Tremblant, where that actress died. And also, these are fairly rare cases - though I would suggest to everyone here and anyone I meet that wearing a helmet for bikes/snowboards/skis/motorcycles is a good idea. But at the same time, people can take safety too far, especially some parents. I understand it, but let your kid live a little.

I know. I just think that eventually we'll find out that 1 civilization is much more powerful than the rest. I guess it's the archers + extra population that really bother me. I'm a very big fan of ranged units and a ranged bonus to me means EVERYTHING, regardless of HP. I can't tell you how many games and skirmishes I have won just because I upgraded my Chariot Archers in AoE 1 online play. Range bonus is HUGE. Is the Persian economy a boom economy? Or is it fast early on, slowing down in late game?

So how does anyone else compete?

It's probably not going to happen in my life time but I'd love some type of system/computer where your field of vision is the game, almost like you're really there. That would be my dream. Like you're on a virtual earth of a certain time period. Or you're on a fantasy world. I'd even be happy with an RTS that uses voice as part of the controls.

Because it's a game and when one civilization has numbers, you have to compensate by making the soldiers weaker or else they will run you over. Maybe someday that will change when RTS and computer games become whole virtual worlds where luck plays more of a part and location/terrain play a part because of the massive maps and physics combined with computer power. Right now - if you give a civilization numbers and equality it's going to be unfair and unfun. I mean numbers still dominates most RTS games even with weaker soldiers. It's a fine line between balanced and unbalanced. In AoE 1 Persia was perfectly fine - on par with all other civs. If you look at Assyria - they were the superpower in online play. If you didn't use them for Random Map, you lost the game.

Free-marketeers until their friends on Wall-Street need a government take over because they messed up real bad. Reality is Asia is going to lead the world out of this recession. Almost every economy in the world is recovering at a faster rate than the US. China - by the way - is one of the most capitalist countries in the world, the US is probably close to dead last these days... Honestly, you can't get more communist than owning the car companies, the banks, the biggest insurance company ... all they need to do now is own healthcare and super stores/markets. Obama's plan is affordable health insurance - so regulation on private industry and a public insurance program for the poor (they have to pay money to get it.) - It's a far cry from communist or socialized medicine but 'grass roots' (they aren't grass roots either, they're just the radical Christian Republicans) Republicans aren't too big on facts and truth. They're more interested in proving to Obama that Medicare is not run by the government (even though it is.).

I only played 16 games, right at the release. So yes, most players were 'noobs' myself included. I lost interested because the game sucked. (In my opinion and in the opinion of my friends.) Edit - I had some really good fights and no, we didn't have cookie cutter strategies that get the maximum potential of all units in the shortest time possible. We made them up as we went along. Russian was my favorite Civilization because of numbers. A friend played British and used that cannon rush that was very effective at the time. As for the rest of your post. I was speaking in general terms when it comes to shipments. I don't remember them but a villager shipment or a food shipment is not as big a deal as 13 strelets, or 3-5 raiding cavalry or whatever the offensive shipments are.

I played online right after the release of the original AoE III, I stopped playing in early March of '06. Early on in the game some civilizations get shipments of up to 13 troops. That is powerful. I don't care about 1 villager shipments or 500 food shipments. The British have a rush strategy that is very effective. It involves a small army with cannon shipments. If used correctly you can out rush any Russian player. You're right, maybe I was playing against people worse than me because I never lost a game. I lost interest pretty quickly though - along with all of my friends. Single player is no fun and I never play anything but supremacy or random map or whatever the name is these days - start in the first age with a handful of villagers and 200 or so food. Edit - this post comes off as arrogant but I'm not. I try to be brutally honest. I didn't come up with a strategy, I borrowed from players I knew and friends in real life. We played in computer labs on the original AoE and were big fans of the game. We'd play each other all the time and it was great. This was not an all me thing, I was one of many. And we try not to use the same strategy over and over but in some cases (Original Age of Empires) one civilization is just way too strong (In the case of the original it was Assyrian.). At the end of the day some like it and some don't. I'm not a fan of HC. It could have worked but in my opinion the above is why I think it has failed. Most internet reviewers thought it was positive but a minority was against it. I just happen to be in that minority. I'm just voicing an opinion. I did it on the Age of Empires forums and left instead of complaining over and over. Unfortunately soon after leaving Age of Empires III. Microsoft and MSN The Zone stopped supporting multiplayer for the two earlier Age of Empires games and their expansions. To be fair to them - there weren't many people still playing those games (on The Zone at least.).

Totally agree with that. I don't have a problem with the idea. The problem is I didn't like how it was implemented. Games became a little too focused on shipments because of their power and how you get the levels for a shipment. Another problem I had was leveling up the HC. Third problem was the power of some cards. With the help of some friends, we literally found a way to end the game in a few minutes exploiting the British house creating a villager and HC shipments.

And it rewarded those who could play more often. Is there going to be treaty?

Because soccer players act like they've been shot and mauled by a bear when they are lightly tapped in the leg or even when they haven't been touched at all. It's also a little slow paced for me. And I'm Canadian.

Care to add why?

Yeah but when this game does come out I'd wager that the vast majority of players will be using Roman or Greek. I try to run against the norms unless a civ is overpowered like the Assyrians in AoE. It's also fun to find a counter and just use it on people who stick to 1 civ.

WoW doesn't have politicians either. This is the key in my opinion The Great Depression was in part caused by the 'Own your own home' spewed by politicians in the 1920s. That's about the time when the people stopped SAVING before BUYING. There was of course inflated stock values.... and that came crashing down because it was all pure speculation. George W. Bush was a big pusher of the Own a Home programs and Clinton, Bush (many other presidents, I'm sure) and Senators had de-regulated markets over the past few decades. That put inflated prices on homes, which caused more and more people to default, which caused stock prices (mortgage backed securities) to drop next to nothing. Surprise, Surprise, consumers in debt again just like in the 1920s, this time it wasn't wall-street that burst with overinflated prices, it was the housing market which in turn brought the whole house of cards down. I don't agree with the gold standard completely... but I guess when you see the Fed, government and Treasury boards fail time after time with their monetary and fiscal policy, it's much better than the alternatives.

Your list for Wow basically described most internet users, forums and most games.

Oh... I guess if you're talking about any who is in a position to command troops it makes sense, I thought you meant higher ranking people who generally control large numbers of troops and assign officers to smaller groups of them. I'm too tired to disagree with you, especially on the equipment issue... I stayed up late and had to wake up early to finish writing a paper for a political science class. A good commander or even a good leader of a state does not always have access to the best equipment and morale of troops is something that a commander can't always ensure. I wouldn't be surprised if good commanders were sometimes forced to take on children from families who are in a more privileged position. Anyways I think it's fair to say that there are many things you have to look at and it isn't as simple as X commander had more victories therefore he is better. And while Sun Tzu is really abstract and general in his comments there are still many that are very practical. I haven't read it in a very long time but I do know he addresses tactics and espionage and all that good stuff.

What about troop morale, available equipment, etc...? I don't think it's as simple as the better commander... What about good officers? Motivating the troops and effectively carrying out orders, etc... It's late and I can barely think but I'll leave you with this Chinese name - Sun Tzu, I have his book, The Art of War, if you can believe how nerdy I am.

I like RTS because I played it a lot more and I like having to look after an economy in the early game and not neglect it as the game goes on. I'm not a big fan of head to head fights unless I have a huge advantage in strength and numbers. I prefer to choke the economy of the other team.

I'll be dead honest, I suck at Rome Total War, I mean I'm really bad except when I'm in battle... it's just I got bored of it so fast. If anyone can give me tips on what to build and how to replenish troops and move around faster that would be appreciated. I'm not very good at turn based games, I guess. I am more of a free type of player (no turns all real time) and just out build, outwork and out maneuver other players.

There's 175 people dead or something extremely high. And some of the fires are thought to have been set deliberately.

Never heard of it, I guess I should probably immerse myself more in the gaming community.