Back in the middle of February, I participated in the Civilization podcast PolyCast episode 140 along with hosts DanQ, Makahlua, TheMeInTeam, and qnl. We discussed several topics relating primarily to Civilization V, including:

• An interview between GameInformer and series-creator Sid Meier about the future of the franchise.
• Discussion of recent forum topics on Civ Fanatics, including flaws in Civ V's score calculations and the best civs to use in ranked multiplayer.
• An open-mic call-in from Verade regarding our favorite game in the series and how Civ III stacked up against Civ IV and V.

You can listen to the entire podcast below, or visit PolyCast's website at http://civcomm.weplayciv.com/polycast/.

Participating on the podcast was fun, and I hope that the fine folks at PolyCast invite me on again in the future. We had some good discussions, and it was very nice to have a chance to talk to some hardcore veteran Civ players, since I sadly don't have too many friends who are big fans of the series.

Despite it's insane difficulty, the PS3-exclusive RPG Demon's Souls became one of my favorite games on the console. Unfortunately, after my PS3 died on me and I had to have it replaced by Sony, I lost my save file for this game and never completed it. I was damned close too! I had cleared at least the first two levels of each world, and had even killed the Dragon God at the bottom of Stonefeng. I was pissed when I found out that save file had not transferred onto my replacement system.

With the sequel, Dark Souls, due out in less than a month, I figured I'd go back to Demon's Souls and try to finish it before I pick up the sequel - not going to be an easy task...

Hopefully, I'll have the game beat in time for the "sequel" to arrive. Although, as far as I can tell, Dark Souls is considered a "spiritual successor" to Demon's Souls, rather than a strict sequel (similar to the relationship between Shadow of the Colossus and Ico).

My excitement for Dark Souls has even inspired me to break my year-long boycott of game pre-orders and "special edition" purchases.

Earlier today, I published my first real mod for Sid Meier's Civilization V. As you may recall, I had previously uploaded a mod as an April Fools joke. But this new one is for real!

The mod is titled "Code of Laws (Version A)(v. 1)".

As the title indicates, this mod's primary function is to add a new technology to the game, called "Code of Law", and to move the Courthouse building into that technology.

My primary purpose for doing this was to deepen the Classical Era of the tech tree. As it stands, the Classical Era of the game's tech tree is only one technology deep. This means that era goes by exceedingly fast! I've seen players and AI tech to the Medieval Era as early as 1000 B.C. in some games.

UPDATE (August 8, 2012): Mod no longer available

This mod is no longer available since Civilization V has switched to using the Steam Workshop for mods. I plan to eventually upload an updated version of this mod, and will update this post if/when that happens.

UPDATE (October 15, 2012): Updated Code of Law mod now available on Steam Workshop

A new version of this mod designed for Gods & Kings was just released on the Steam Workshop. This version is only compatible with the Gods & Kings expansion, and does not work on the base Civilization V game. I apologize for the inconvenience.

UPDATE (October 18, 2012): Update to Vanilla version now on Steam Workshop

Due to a request by Steam user The Octopus Creating New Worlds, I went ahead and published an update to the original version of the mod (for the base game) onto the Steam Workshop.

This post is a continuation of the post Anything and Everything - Upgrades for Civ V (Part I), in which I listed upgrades/changes I would like to see in the turn-based strategy game, Civilization V.

The list on the original post was a compilation of forum posts that I had made in Kevik's Civilization V forum topic: Anything and Everything We Can Add to Civ V

This April has been a busy week for video games, and a very weird one, too. And the news has varied from good, to bad, to ugly, and everything in between. Here's some of the stuff that caught my attention:

Table of Contents

• Nintendo to reveal Wii 2 at E3 this June?
• PlayStation Network down for days
• Portal 2 available
• First NCAA Football 12 gameplay video
• Civilization V patch due out