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Games Entertainment

Civ:CTP Preview 47

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
palpatine writes "At 32 Bits Online Magazine, we have been testing a beta of Civilization: Call to Power for Linux for some time now. Our staff has been tirelessly working to test the new features of this exciting game, and we like it. In this preview, we take a closer look at Call to Power for Linux, including its features, the beta version, and the actual progress of a CTP game. " I played the preview release a bit. Had a few bugs that I'm sure are fixed by now. My 2 second summary is that its definitely the largest professional game of its type for Linux... but I think I really want Alpha Centauri. Of course, once I get my hands on the final CTP release, and get the LAN up at the new house, I fully intend to lose many late night hours to CTP.
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Civ:CTP Preview More

Civ:CTP Preview

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  • Handeye.com [handeye.com] sells it too, and it's cheaper than at GameCellar. So if you haven't picked up a copy, well, you know what to do.

    -Ben, handeye.com programming geek
  • The swap requirement for Civilization: CTP is for people who have the minimum RAM requirement (32 MB). That's assuming you're running X and no other apps (about 16-20 MB used). If you have 64 MB of physical RAM, then you will only need about 58 MB of swap. If you have 128 MB of physical memory, you probably won't be swapping at all.

    The requirements could say "x" MB of memory (physical or virtual), but that would confuse some people.
  • Also in the annoying category are these "news" pages that format everything so it's 5 words wide. I guess they want it to look like a newspaper, but they only have one column. THen they fill all the extra space with junk, ads, etc on the left/right sides of the article. With that they still aren't satisfied, and stretch it out for several pages as well.
  • My votes for what I want ported:
    - HalfLife would be nice, but with TF2 coming around soon, that may be a better choice. The TFC addon has been plenty of fun.
    - RailRoad Tycoon II. What more is there to say? The expansion pack demo really improves on the original game, allowing cargo storage, etc. It's a great game that you can come back to anytime.
    - For RTS, of course Tiberium Sun would be perfect, but this demo for Wazone 2100 is pretty nice too.
  • I think they meant more of developed simultaneously. The same will be true with Q3A. For most games that are ported to other platforms, the porting effort begins after the inital release. Loki has been working on the Linux port for quite some time now. I really hope that this starts a trend in game development.
  • Loki has stated (specifically, during the IRC session they had recently) that they have made deals with 3 separate companies to port 3 titles to the Linux platform: A real-time strategy game, a 3D (I assume first-person shooter) game, and something else. The announcements should come shortly after Civ: CTP ships this week (probably in little over a week).
  • Actually, you can choose to have your playing would be topographically like a globe or doughnut.
  • A long time ago Homeworld's developer's expressed an interest in doing a Linux port... and Homeworld looks like one of the more original and unique upcoming strategy games, so hopefully this guess isn't too far off base :)
  • They mentioned that Civ:CTP was going to be the first game released simultaneously for Windows and Linux. This is unfortunately, untrue. The Windows version has been out on store shelves for weeks now, and us Linux junkies still haven't gotten our Civ fix...

    Maybe I'll go play some FreeCiv to hold off the shakes for a little longer...
  • Great news! Up until now I wasn't sure if it would or not. After upgrading to RedHat 6.0 I'm finding a couple of commercial apps choke on glibc 2.1 (like StarOffice 5.0). Again, this is great news, I can't wait to get my hands on this game!
  • Posted by TrustMe:

    I agree with you on the number of pages. Just as an FYI, the editors for the magazine control the page breaks, not the server programming.

    If you have a complaint, email the person who wrote the article and let them know, this way they can respond accordingly.

    Eric Caldwell
    eric.caldwell@32bitsonline.com
    Associate Editor
  • Can anyone tell me how fast the Linux version runs on the minimum hardware? Is it usuable?

    I don't care about animations, but (for example) Alpha Centauri is quite annoying on my hardware (under Windows). [as an aside: I found Alpha Centauri kind of boring compared to Civ2, the landscape has no personality and the advances are all too theoretical/contrived]

  • If this is true, I would never be heard from again. ;)
  • Unfortunately, I ran out and purchased Civ:CTP for windoze (thinking I would then download the Linux end.) I got it home and opened it up and played it under windoze. I then went to Loki and they said that I'd have to buy it again to get the Linux stuff? no thanks.
  • Subject says it all. So we'll have a huge binary, but at least there'll be no library problems. A good idea, considering we can't recompile if there's an upgrade to SDL or something.
  • Okay, I read the review, and sure you can sail your way around the equator, but what about the poles? I really like Civilization, but one think I utterly hated about it was, at the north pole there was an impenetrible barrier. If I go far enough north, I should come out the other side! And the land mass of the pole should be MUCH less than that around the equator. At least Populous III got it right, more or less. After the CTP linux port, the first priority for Civilization 4.0 should be fixing the globe, assuming it is not fixed already. I'll buy it, but without globe support, it's no improvement to me.

    Be Seeing You,

    Jeffrey.
  • I REALLY wish they would port Homeworld, but I doubt it. They said they wanted to work simultaneously, and that'll be out in about a month. I really doubt Loki is anywhere close to finishing their next game. On a positive note, I read yesterday in an interview with the producer of Homeworld that he would like to release the source code to the game in a few years. Can't wait!

    On another note, you are never to refer to Tradewars 2000 and a game I want to play in the same sentence ever.

  • Alpha Centauri. (Score:3)

    by Fizgig ( 16368 ) on Wednesday May 05, 1999 @11:21AM (#1903260)
    I plan on buying CTP. Loki deserves that from me, and it should be a great game. But I, too, have played Sid Meir's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) on Windows and loved it. I have it on Windows, but I can't bear the hypocrisy of booting into it anymore. I've tried running SMAC on Wine and failed, but they have mentioned the possibility of a Linux port before, so it's not out of the question. So, if you care, go over to http://alpha.owo.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi? action=topics&forum=The+Game&number=2&Da ysPrune= and register your support. (slashdot's going to insert a space somewhere in that. Make sure you remove it before you try it)
  • Unfortunately, it looks like Civ: CTP may not be that good of a game. It got really mixed reviews on Gamespot because of bugs and gameplay issues.

    Too bad Alpha Centauri wasn't the Civ-type game selected to be ported to Linux. It's an excellent game -- definately a worthy successor to Civ 2.
  • I didn't like Civ3 at first but now I totally LOVE it. For me it's just as good as Civ and Civ2 were, you just have to get used to the quirks and see the cool new stuff.

    As for Alpha Centauri, I'm sure it's good but it doesn't have the theme of the civ games, which is evolving from barbarians to a modern society. Like Old Man Murray said, I know instinctively that Mongols are evil and India is a bunch of panzies. But what the hell is up with the "collective hide"?

  • Here's a gem that will help save you lots of needless image downloading. Check out JunkBuster [junkbuster.com]. It's a simple HTTP proxy that filters out ads in a manner that you configure. Source code available under the General Public License.

    Lots of people have "blockfiles" out there, and the JunkBuster FAQ has a link to an Altavista query to find one.

    Of course, I would NEVER use this against Slashdot, even though those !@$*% Adfu ads never close their TCP connections.

  • They can't do it for free, you may as well not go to any site that has advertisments. That was a pretty harsh comment about never reading anything there again. There's an ad on every slashdot page you read, every comment, every post. Maybe you shouldnt read slashdot again since they just are trying to make money here.
  • > Linux still lives on the edge of technology.

    May she always!

  • ...and I've only been running 64.

    Looks like that nails it for my Windows partition. (All I've been rebooting for lately was to play CivII anyway.)

  • > Maybe I'll go play some FreeCiv to hold off the shakes for a little longer...

    I've just gotten in to FreeCiv, and even started looking at the code a bit, so now I'll almost feel guilty buying CTP.

    But buy it I must, even if only to make Linux profitable to the other game companies.

  • One of the criticisms of CTP in the gaming newsgroups is that you can move off the north and reappear to the south. Unfortunately, that means that the planet is a doughnut rather than a ball.

  • I have no problem with banner adds. I don't disable cookies, don't run junkbuster or any of those things. Hell, I even click on the damn things every once in a while. I just think it is silly to only put 284 words (well, that's just page 1) on a web page of actual content. That's a block of text that fills about 1/4 of my computer screen. They obviously do this just to inflate their hit counts. Think of all the bandwidth they are wasting by having to serve 5 connections to read the article rather than one.

  • You know what's annoying? (Score:3)

    by Rombuu ( 22914 ) on Wednesday May 05, 1999 @07:59AM (#1903270)
    Sites that print 3 paragraphs a page to stretch an article out to 5 pages so they get extra hits on their banner adds. Shame on you 32bitsonline. That's the first and last time I ever read anything on your site.
  • I have bought the Windows version. I played it for 3 days, maybe spent 30 hours with the damn thing. I then realised that it's a waste of time. I put the CD back in its case and it's sitting on the shelf now. I don't plan to dust it off anytime soon.

    I love CIV, CIV2 is good too. I liked the Alpha Centauri demo and I wish I bought that instead of CTP. Why? The interface is a nightmare. It's not only bad, it's a total screwup. Unit balance is nonexistent. Climbing the technology tree (which is huge, but has a few chokepoints) is worthless, since musketeers will defeat your fusion tanks. Or you'll defeat fusion tanks with musketeers. The endgame is very tedious. CTP becomes a chore before you know it.

    Don't get me wrong: Buy the Linux version when it comes out. You'll support Linux. You'll get hooked. You'll enjoy the game for some time. But then you'll be wishing that you spent that time with something else. Sleeping. Staring at the ceiling. Whatever.

    Marton
  • The article mentions that the game doesn't work
    with glibc2.1.

    Does anyone know if this has been fixed ?
    Or If a fix is planned ?
  • I love the idea of more games moving into Linux (being a gamer makes loving Linux tough) but what's the deal with all the civ wannabes. I saw the other day that Microprose had their own. That makes three in my book. After playing Alpha Centauri, none of 'em have much of a chance. Any game where the ultimate goal is to join consciousness with a planet and become one with the universe, is a cool game.

  • yep -- glibc2.1 does work! (Score:3)

    by schmack ( 32384 ) on Wednesday May 05, 1999 @07:56AM (#1903274)
    glibc2.1 seems to work fine for me! to back that up here's a post at 32bitsonline from one of the developers:
    • "CivCTP does run on glibc-2.1 systems out of the box. The only problem arises when trying to start a network game - the new glibc 2.1 dynamic loader doesn't properly load the network libraries, and you are not able to get to the network screen.

    • We will release a fix on our web site at http://www.lokigames.com/, along with the 1.1 patch, when it's ready.

      For the record, glibc-2.1 was still in beta while we were developing the game. - Linux still lives on the edge of technology. :-)"

  • what's next? (Score:3)

    by Replicant 37 ( 34336 ) on Wednesday May 05, 1999 @08:43AM (#1903275) Homepage
    I emailed Loki to congradulate them for making such a great game available for linux and asked what their next project will be. Here's what I got:

    "Hi Mike,

    >Hot damn! CTP is gonna rock!!!!!!!
    >I can't wait to snag my copy off the shelf in an actual computer store!!

    Great!

    >Have you guys decided what your next project will be?
    >If so, DO TELL!!!

    We've already signed on the dotted line,
    but can't announce our next titles until later this month.
    Hope you'll be impressed.
    :-)

    Thank you for your support,

    Kathryn Sorhaindo
    Loki Entertainment Software"


    I wonder what it will be...

  • Games for Linux are cool! I mean, the games are one of the areas where windows still offers better choicec than Linux / Unix. As more desktop users move over to Linux (or at least install it on a partition on their harddisks), games are needed.

    For myself, I have grown tired of games. I settle for some old Amiga-games with the UAE emulator...

    // Simon
  • >I don't care about animations, but (for example) Alpha Centauri is quite annoying on my hardware (under Windows). [as an aside: I found Alpha Centauri kind of boring compared to Civ2, the landscape has no personality and the advances are all too theoretical/contrived]

    I can completely agree with that. The first couple of times through, and even after reading the manual to figure out what everything was, I still didn't feel like I had a great idea of what was going on in the game. Civ: CTP seems a lot more familiar, and gives you some frame of reference. I did like Master of Orion (MOO) and MOO2, but things there were a lot more straightforward, and explained better.

  • Looks like it's going to rock! (Score:3)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Wednesday May 05, 1999 @09:48AM (#1903278) Homepage Journal
    I called the local CompUSA about it yesterday and they said they don't have it yet and that they've already had a couple of calls on it. Interesting.

    For those of you who don't have a distributor who's carrying it near you, you may consider trying to special order it through the local software store. It might cost a bit more, but it will show the local stores that there is a demand for Linux games.

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