Review: Civilization:Call To Power 75
Hemos spouts off about Civilization: Call To Power
I should be upfront about my past history with Civilization(s). My name is Hemos (well, Jeff, but...) and I have a problem. I play(ed) Civilization constantly. For Civilization, CivNet, and Civ2 pets wouldn't get fed, girlfriends were ignored, phone calls not returned, and loved ones, well, unloved. Heck, I even liked playing Colonization. I think that the Civ family is some of the best game programming every done, and I was extremely happy to get the beta copies of Civ:CTP.
Lokisoft has done a good job of porting to Linux. They haven't done just a straight port, but have taken into account the difference in UI from Windows -> Linux. I actually got to use all my mouse buttons, and felt like something that had been designed for my X desktop, not something that someone had kludged together hoping to make a few bucks. That's a very good thing, and I hope that the other game companes take a note from that playbook, and do similar work.
So, What the Heck is New?
Civ:CTP has a distinguished pedigree, and that cuts both ways. Because they've got the Civilization name, they are judged different then other games. They also had a problem in that this is the first Civilization game that Sid Meir wasn't involved in-he's formed his own compan. But more on that later. So, they've got this great name, but that also means that people have certain expectations, and that limits their ability to improvise. To wit, the major changes seem to come in how terrain enhancements are handled, and military. No longer will the Swiss Army knife of units, the Settlers, have to found new cities and plant crops-now you have Public Works amounts, and you can enhancement your landscape using that. I think it's a great addition, and addresses one of my major complaints. The military is the area that is most directly affected-it's much, much, better. Remember the big step from Civ to CivII? This is bigger. Combined Arms that actually make sense, and the ability to more realistically work with the military is great. The methods of scientific learning has been tweaked as well.
But How Different is it? And what about Alpha Centauri?
While those changes are great, and well appreciated, this isn't a whole new game. This is something that still stays true to the Civilization roots, rightly so. This contrasts with the latest effort of Sid & Brian Reynolds (Chief Designer of CivII). They've formed Firaxis, and have produced the hit game Alpha Centauri. Evidently they are even working on porting it to Linux. Alpha Centauri is truly revolutionary, but Civ:CTP is incredible. Alpha Centauri is the Shakespeare to Civ:CTP's Ben Jonson. My bottom line: Get it. It's worth. I give it a 29 on a scale of 13-32.
James Brief on CTP
Civilization: Call to Power
I remember a sense of nervousness overcoming my sense of
excitement. I had in my hand the box of a sequel to my favorite game I
ever played and the successor to one of the best selling strategy games of
all time. Similar to my small fears surrounding The Phantom Menace, I
wondered "is it worth it to tamper with a classic?" Civilization: Call to
Power for Linux is not simply the newest chapter in the vastly popular
Civilization series. It does not have the Sid Meier seal of quality that
has been telling gamers for years that this game will keep you up for
hours at a time and shock you when you notice that it is 5:18 AM and you
have to get up in 42 minutes. Thankfully, due to the perseverance of the
port specialists, artists and composers at Activision and Linux porter
Loki Entertainment, Civ:CTP is one of the most beautiful games to come out
since, wellCivII!
Civ:CTP is one of the most engrossing games in years. The "let's make a
Quake clone" syndrome which seemed to plague the industry in 1997-98 is
over. Civ:CTP is as original as late 1998 titles like Halflife and
Oddworld, yet it still harkens back to its rich Civilization ancestry
while introducing entirely new features.
First off, the graphics are vastly superior to Civilization II. The
Civilization series finally reaches 16-bit graphics. Each soldier can be
seen from any perspective; you are truly immersed in a 3-D world. Not
even the hot-shot Windows based Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri boasts graphics
that compare to these. The topography can be seen with superb detail, and
get this in Civ:CTP, the mountains actually look like mountains and the
fields look like fields (instead of just brown and yellow tiles,
respectively)! And the sound is even better than CivII, which was so
amazing that I used to actually listen to the CD in my discman! Civ:CTP's
soundtrack encompasses everything from beautiful Asian instrumentals to
futuristic war chants. I have always felt that music and sound are the
foundation of any great game. Who cannot conjure up the theme to Super
Mario Bros.? My point exactly. The sounds and music in Civ:CTP mesmerize
you into the glorious world that you create.
Gameplay is vastly improved from Civilization predecessors. One of my
biggest problems with CivII was the micromanagement. At the beginning of
every turn, you had to attend to problems in nearly a dozen cities in a
moderately sized world. Civ:CTP eliminated this annoyance. Now, at the
beginning of the turn, a window comes up with a brief summary of the
progress (or problems) of all of your cities; you can select which cities
you want to tinker with and everything else will progress automatically.
Another great feature is the battle improvements. Now, you can have up to
9 units simultaneously battle a city. Cool new land, sea, and air units
make a military approach to the game the obvious choice in my opinion!
Incredibly creative units such as the lawyer (who can halt all production
in your city), ecoterrorist (who plants a virus in your city and can
destroy wonders, production and lower population) and the slaver (a portly
unit who enslaves other civilizations' settler units and raises your
population!) prove that a lot of creativity and imagination was put into
every single new unit.
While Civ:CTP should be added to the library of any computer game
enthusiast, it is not fault-proof. Sometimes, the AI is a bit too easy in
forgetting past grievances with your civilization (is this a blessing or a
bug?). Also, the expansion of the military aspect of the game into space
was an absolute thrill to me, but may be a bit too much to handle and some
necessary micromanagement might be too much for some, but not for those
used to the micromanagement of CivII. Overall though, the pros heavily
outweigh the minimal cons. Civ:CTP is a wonderful game which you will be
playing over and over (hey, I've been playing CivII until only a month
ago!) and has kept me up to all hours of the night (6:12AM is my record so
far). I couldn't be a happier insomniac!
Buy
Now at Handeye.com!
Graphics: A+
Gameplay: A
Sound: A
Music: A+
AI:A-
Replay Value: A+
Overall: A+
-James Brief
Couldn't agree more (Score:1)
While I don't necessarily agree with all your points, I too have my own negative points about civ CTP that make me regret my purchase...
I played the hell out of civ and civ2, and played some colonization too... so CTP is not my first game in the series.
I won't list all my points... Some that come to mind:
- the interface: totally counter-intuitive. You click on a few buttons, and you are completely lost in the hierarchy of windows because instead of stacking up, the parent one dissappears and is replaced by the new window. I've been playing a few hours (around 10) and I am still very lost.
- lawyers, samurai..... wtf are they doing there?? civ and civ2 had units that were not so blatantly part of one civilization. Only the japanese have had samurais...... and about lawyers: please explain to me how a democratic civilization could have any effect with its lawyers on a despotic civilization (that doesn't even have laws, courts, etc.)??????????
- the sheer number of civilizations: what the hell is my country (Canada) doing in there??? It doesn't make sense. We are way to young to be listed as a civ. Ok, the US is a very young country too, but it has had so much impact that you can't leave it out. This is definitely quantity over quality.
- The **STUPID** unit sounds.... this is not warcraft. The units don't have to say stupid things like "let us rest", blah blah blah. And *if* you really want to have those stupid sounds, at least try to make them good quality. Sorry for being angry, but this is one of the things that was most un-civilized
As I said, just a few points. You can clearly see that activision had very good intentions, but in my opinion it just doesn't cut it. It has a LOT of improvements, but like the previous post said, for each improvement there is something else in the game that is much worse then before....
You might still like the game..... But I was dissappointed. I'll probably still play from time to time.
It's not like Activision tried to rip us off... there is clearly a lot of effort put in this game. But... oh well.
Isn't there a clear conflict of interest here? (Score:1)
I haven't played the game, so I don't know if it's good or not. But if the person telling me it's a great game is also interested in selling it to me, I'm not gonna trust that person's word farther than I can throw him.
CTP Linux website (Score:2)
http://natas.kfa.cx/~civ
Geek details needed (Score:3)
Is it glibc2 or libc5? Or have they included support for both? Does it run from CD or does it require some of my potential mp3 space? Is it installable for multiusers, or is it limited to one user per install?
Does it have GNOME / KDE support (adding itself to task bars / etc)?
My own take on Civ:CTP... (Score:3)
I've been playing Activision games since the days of Pitfall Harry on the Atari 2600. I've usually been impressed. And I loved Civilization and Civilization II. So I was looking forward to Civilization: Call To Power.
Boy, was I disappointed. I suppose once every fifteen years or so, y'all are allowed to drop one. I will, however, still gripe about it.
UI gripes:
I should not have to click build, choose something, then _click build again_ to make it happen.
Sometimes, moving my last unmoved unit automagically causes a new turn to happen. Sometimes it doesn't. I've not found a rhyme or reason to this.
On the standard size map, sometimes the tile your mouse pointer is over is not the same tile the move-to line ends at. I didn't have this problem on the huge map.
It's hard to make an argument for an "intuitive" interface when everyone I know who's played the game winds up accidentally moving pieces they didn't mean to halfway across the board because they were selected, but not on screen, so they didn't have a green box or flashing cursor, and I clicked on a city I could see... It wouldn't be as bad if there were an "abort orders!" button I could mash so that my idiot unit wouldn't walk its entire movement rate, leaving the city I just took unfortified, and not have a way to get back that turn.
I may have missed building some impressive improvement that shows me the whole world a la building the Apollo project in original Civ. But space units have unlimited movement. I _can_ just wander one across the whole planet (Hey, why do they only have a sight radius of _one tile_?!) if I want to see the world. But I shouldn't have to! I'm playing a computer game so that the computer can take care of the drudgery. I shouldn't have to sweep a three-tile window across the whole planet to see it-- I shouldn't even have to drag a screen-size window across the whole planet to find the wormhole! But I do, for some reason.
Game logic gripes:
If I can't swap technologies with someone because I have no embassy, how come he can swap technologies with me?
If it's called "diplomacy", how come everything is "take it or leave it"? If he wants to swap his Communism for my Fusion, why can't I come back and say, "No, but I can give you Theology for it...."
Why are the Egyptians asking me to stop pirating their trade routes when I hadn't pirated their routes for over a hundred turns?
If I use the mouse to automove a cargo pod from point A to point B, and the line happens to cross a space city, the cargo pod stops at the city and whatever's aboard it stays at the city. And the cargo pod disappears. Sure, the unit had orders to go over there, but let's stop here instead and ditch the pod...
The units need some tweaking: So here I am, rolling along in my tank, about to assault the puny Americans with five legions in their city.
Legions. You know, footmen with swords?
The tank loses.
I did it twice more, thinking it was just bad luck. Now, admittedly, maybe I should've been picking on someone my own size... Sure, they were in the mountains. Sure, they had city walls and were fortified... But it's a friggin' TANK! How do footmen with swords kill tanks?
Along the way I picked up whatever technology it is you need to build Mechs, er, War Walkers. So I built an army of three Mechs and three Tanks. Took their puny town with ease.
Except now my tanks are gone. Vanished.
Seems that tanks aren't allowed onto mountain squares. So instead of staying behind like smart little tankers, they rolled right on into the mountains, keeled over, and died. No warning, no nothing. What really pissed me off was losing a leviathan this way. "Land, space, and air" my butt...
The AI for figuring out a trade route should not route through enemy cities. Gee, I wonder why my trade routes keep getting pirated? Oh, well, build another caravan...
I can't build roads farther than 3 tiles from a city? How do you explain I-10 through the West Texas desert?
General gripe:
I can't name my own civilization. Okay, so this is minor. I don't seem to be able to name anything, actually, but perhaps I haven't found that box.
The game tries to do some good things, but overall, I think it flops. I readily admit-- I had high expectations for this game. It's a sequel to
one of my favorite games ever, and it's done by a company that has done good stuff for many years-- perhaps my expectations were too high. On the other hand, I feel Activision's expectations for this game should have been higher, too.
-F
Re:My own take on Civ:CTP... (Score:1)
>>Why are the Egyptians asking me to stop pirating
>>their trade routes when I hadn't pirated their
>>routes for over a hundred turns?
>Another bug I've never seen. Perhaps it's fixed in the Linux version.
They're not asking you to stop pirating. They're asking you to sign a pact pledging that you'll refrain from piracy in the future. Breaking such a pact is an act of war. It damages your reputation, whereas pirating their trade route in the absence of a pact would not. You can see a list of treaties currently in force on the Diplomacy screen.
Re:Stars! The purist turn-based multiplayer game (Score:1)
I agree completely, Stars! is the BEST strategy game I ever played. It's complex, demanding, extremely well balanced and runs on a 486 with Win3.11 just fine. The diplomatic tactics I used.... My gil-friend almost dumped me for this game. Hardly more charm then AmiPro for Windows though, if you just look at it.
It runs more or less perfectly (self-contradicting statement) in recent versions of WINE. So just check it out, a free demo version (good enough for a start) is available for free (2 MB??)
When will Stars! SuperNova, the planned sequel, be out? Anyone?
Re: RTS for Linux -- when? (Score:1)
Actually, there is a Linux port of StarCraft. As far as I know, it is not in any way sanctioned by Blizzard (grr, fools). If you search around the Linux gaming sites, you might come across it. Unfortunately, when I tried to access their web site, it was down and thus I forgot to bookmark it.
At any rate, you could always try running it in Wine [winehq.com]. I've never gotten that to work, but the error I get suggests that it's because of my Banshee video card.
Good luck!
==========================================
Joakal
"In a world without walls and fences,
Re:My own take on Civ:CTP... (Score:1)
YAPBPR... (Yea another point by point response...)
You make some good points, and the games does have some problems, but I think the pros outweigh the cons. Still, let's see what you said.
Agreed. I've been bitten by this a few times, especially since you don't need to hit "build" after assembling a queue! This may be in your settings. The game defaults to "Auto Turn" or something like that, which means that, if none of your units have movement points remaining, the turn automatically ends. I play with it turned off. I've never seen this behavior. It could be a windows-only bug. In the Linux version, at least, the game always shows a red or green box with a line if a unit's selected, even if the unit's off the screen. I haven't decided if I like the unlimited space movement or not. I've been using it to my advantage, but it seems a little unbalanced, not to mention a little unrealistic. You could probably write a script to cause your units to search the globe, although I don't think much of the scripting language. I just use spy planes for exploration. Since you don't have an embassy, you don't have any good way of talking with him and carrying out the negotiations for exchanges of technology. He, on the other hand, has a representative in your civilization that can go talk to you whenever he wants. The diplomacy doesn't seem very good, but I don't recall that CivII's was much better. I tend to play without regard for diplomacy, perhaps telling another ruler to stop trespassing every now and then. Another bug I've never seen. Perhaps it's fixed in the Linux version. This sounds like a serious bug, and it's certainly the worst that you've mentioned. I've never seen such a bug, but I tend to overattack. I'll have to try you situation and see if it's present in the Linux version. As I recall, CivII had similar problems, but they were (eventually) ironed out. I've encountered similar situations. Once where I conquered a mountain town, destroying the town in the process, and another where I built a mountain under a leviathan. In both cases, the units were stuck, but remained in the game. I was able to build a road to them and let them free. Your encounter was probably a bug in the windows version. I've never had this. I have had my trade routes pass right next to enemy cities, but never through. Likely another fixed bug. This is a fairness rule, and also relatively realistic. The game would be a lot less balanced if anyone could build anywhere. You can always build next to other of your tile improvements, though. I'll bet that I-10 was built by starting at an end and working toward the other end. That's how roads far from your civilization must be built, too. You can change your civilization name, but there's no box for it. You need to go edit one of the configuration files. (I don't remember which one.)Most of your complaints seem to be the result of bugs in the game. From my experience, those bugs were either not present or fixed in the Linux version, and I think that CTP is a very good game. I'd encourage you to see what people's reactions are to the released Linux version, and, if the feelings are positive, try it out. If you likes CivII, I think you'll like CTP, as long as you don't run into a lot of annoying bugs.
--Phil (Apologies for the long post.)
Where to get it (Score:3)
--Phil (I, too, think it's a great game, and recomment it highly.)
Re:Geek details needed (Score:3)
I don't know whether it works with libc5, but glibc2 is fine. It'll work with glibc2.1, too, but network games won't work. (Yes, that's the voice of experience speaking...)
If we're lucky, the game will be able to run from the CD. If the CD doesn't ship with everything tar.gzed, the CD could probably just be mounted in the appropriate place. If you wanted to mess with some of the config files, hopefully a strategic symlink or two should be able to keep the videos on the CD.
It's quite multiuser compatible. Configuration changes made from within the game are stored in ~/.civctp, as are save games. I don't recommend running multiple instances, though, unless you have a lot of CPU and RAM to throw at it.
I don't know about GNOME/KDE, but I doubt it.
--Phil (I epsecially like the fact that Lokisoft made the effort to make the game multiuser friendly.)
Re:Save your $$$ if you're a Civ 2 freak (Score:4)
Well, I've been an avid CivII fan, and I beta tested the Linux Civ:CTP, so I've formed my own opinion about the differences. I've found that I like CTP. Since I like it, I'll gloss over your supporting statements and jump right to the negative ones... :)
Actually, you can. It involves editing some text files, but you can add your own civilizations. From poking aroung in the game directories, it seems that a lot of the configuration is done in text files, so people should be able to do some extensive tweaking of the game. They've been replaced by different wonders and technologies. This isn't a bad thing, just a different one, and, from what I've seen, the new stuff seems pretty balanced. The game is a product of the times, where most people are more familiar with mice than keyboards. You can do almost everything with a keyboard, though. Look at the "keyboard" section of the configuration menu to see what you can do. Why not? This is game that has some basis in real life, but it isn't bound to real life. (Consider that I had the same warrior unit around for thousands of years.) I don't see anything in CTP that mightn't have happened with CivII. It is an American game. Likely they picked civilization name that they thought would be more familiar to Americans. If you don't like them, you can change them. I think it adds a new element to gameplay. CTP has a lot more stealth units, leading to different strategies. Clerics are stealth units, so regular units can't see them. Check the great library for which units can see stealth units. In a number of games, I ended up surrounding my cities with cheap units like warriors or such, just to keep clerics and lawyers away. Converting in the first place a city is expensive, too, although I don't remember the cost at the moment. That's a loss I don't miss much. I never listened to my advisors, mostly because I knew what I was doing better than they. For learning CTP, I think that the tutorial does a good job of introducing all of the concepts. I liked it, and I think it is a worth successor to CivII--Phil (And boy, do I love those building queues.) blockquote
ashamed (Score:1)
The EQ
Re:Stars! The purist turn-based multiplayer game (Score:1)
Another good place for more information about Stars! is the rec.games.computer.stars [games.computer.stars] newsgroup. There you can talk to other people about Stars! strategy, find out about new multiplayer games starting (the usual method is to play one turn per day, sending in the turn files by E-mail. There are also "blitz" games played in about 4 hours on IRC somewhere -- the channel is #Stars! and the server is StarLinkIRC (*not* StarLink), although I could be wrong about those because I haven't been there too often) and read humbling posts by the "greats" of Stars! such as Jason Cawley (hi Jason!) and others. By the way: before you join any multiplayer guide, read the Stars! Strategy Guide [webmap.com], otherwise you will get yourself creamed in your first game.
How addictive is this game? Let me put it this way: whenever I click on the URL box in Netscape to type in a URL, I have to restrain my fingers' urge to automatically type "www.webmap.com/stars/websites.htm".
And the authors, Jeff and Jeff (known as "the Jeffs" or "Jeff^2" on the newsgroup) have the best response time I've seen of any closed-source project. Despite the fact that they're trying to devote their entire time to Stars! Supernova (the next version of Stars! which will have fancy graphics and introduce some pretty major play changes), they still respond with new patches not only to bug reports but also to game-balance issues!
Summary: Get Stars! [webmap.com]. Read the Strategy Guide. [webmap.com] Read the newsgroup. [games.computer.stars]. Play the game. Be happy.
-----
3d hardware (Score:1)
Re:Geek details needed (Score:3)
Still, that said, it is a superb game. I, personally, am waiting to buy it from a "brick-and-mortar" store... (If we don't buy it, why should they carry it)... So Im am waiting patiently to make my purchase... My beta expired about 2 weeks ago, and I'm suffering symptoms of withdrawl.
Peace,
Loren Osborn
EBX still clueless (Score:2)
about the Linux version, first got dumb looks,
then hostility (or maybe I read discomfort as
hostility). It was sort of weird.
The guy did end up giving me a card with
the district mgr's number or whatever, but
the thrill is gone if I have to ask for it.
I got the cold shoulder even though I was
buying $80 worth of games...
Hmm. Wonder if I'll ever shop there again?
Agrh. Still haven't gotten mine yet. (Score:1)
*huddles in the corner and wimpers for the lack of civ*
Re:Woo hoo! More game reviews. (Score:1)
Care to write a more formal review of it from the 'end user' viewpoint?
I'd love to be able to go get the Linux version
Re:EBX still clueless (Score:1)
"Excuse me, can you help me find Quicken for the Gamboy?"
Hah
Re:Call To Power vs. Alpha Centauri (Score:1)
Re:Open source alternatives (Score:1)
Re:Agrh. Still haven't gotten mine yet. (Score:1)
no more city information windows in CTP (Score:1)
there the average score for CTP is 81 % (Score:1)
CTP is great!!! (Score:1)
I've been playing the Windows version for a month now. I had to retire my P133 to server status and bring in a o'c Celeron (~500Mhz now) to handle that greedy little program.
Methinks I'm gonna go to Fry's, CompUSA, or MicroCenter on Friday and give my money for a Linux version.
To those AlphaCentauri loving geeks, "Hey, at least CTP *is* available for Linux."
What happened to the Mac version? Hehe, a fully threaded BeOS/Linux/Solaris server version would be nice, too.
Oh man... It's way too early for me to think this hard.
--Al
Catapults were the bomb, but... (Score:1)
Now, you can't take any wheeled or horse units into mountains without roads.
(I never played CivII. But, I damned near flunked out of college on quarter playing the original.. Ah...)
Lawyers are nasty but corporate branches......
Personally, I like the religious and economic warfare. Slavery (although being African-American I built abolitionists very quickly) is an essential element in the history of most great civilizations from the Romans and Vikings to the Americans, Chinese and Japanese.
However, WTF is this about the Jamaican and Cuban civilizations? Haiti (the 2nd independent black nation after Ethiopia) is more of a civilization than those two.
Oh, to the nut who surrounded his cities with warriors. No, that's what diplomats are for. They can see slavers and clerics!!!
Man, I love the theocracy!
Re:Save your $$$ if you're a Civ 2 freak (Score:1)
-Markvs
Way! (Score:1)
The units need some tweaking: So here I am, rolling along in my tank, about to assault the puny Americans with five legions in their city.
Legions. You know, footmen with swords?
The tank loses.
I did it twice more, thinking it was just bad luck. Now, admittedly, maybe I should've been picking on someone my own size... Sure, they were in the mountains. Sure, they had city walls and were fortified... But it's a friggin' TANK! How do footmen with swords kill tanks?
There was floated back in Civ 1 the idea that as time passes, the other guy doesn't REALLY have Legions (or whatever the unit supposedly is). He actually has a modern fighting force, but it is poorly trained, equipped or whatever and so is only worth the VALUE of a Legion. (Obviously, this is moot in Civ 2 with the Firepower rating system).
The real world example would be Vietnam: a US Rifleman (in civ 1) was 5/5/1. The ARVN had the same stuff, but was only effective as a Musketeer, and in Civ 1 would appear as one. (3/3/1).
So the Legions you lost to were armed with rifles or whatnot, they're just poor troops. (I know, it didn't help me deal with loosing 3 battleships to an unfortified Phalinx in the desert, either.)
-Markvs
Re:Catapults were the bomb, but... (Score:1)
Which is nice, I guess. I just wished they called them something else! (Irksome game detaiil).
Now, you can't take any wheeled or horse units into mountains without roads.
Which is a good innovation.
(I never played CivII. But, I damned near flunked out of college on quarter playing the original.. Ah...)
Lawyers are nasty but corporate branches......
...
Personally, I like the religious and economic warfare. Slavery (although being African-American I built abolitionists very quickly) is an essential element in the history of most great civilizations from the Romans and Vikings to the Americans, Chinese and Japanese.
You also forget about just about all of eastern europe and russia... Slav is latin for slave. The serfs of russia, austria and germany were no better off.
However, WTF is this about the Jamaican and Cuban civilizations? Haiti (the 2nd independent black nation after Ethiopia) is more of a civilization than those two.
I would even say Nubia (supposed ancient civ we don't know enough about) would have been a better bet. But where are Poland, Morocco, et cetera? Hmm. I wonder how many folks know that Cuba's flag is Puerto Rico's reversed and that both colonies (when taken from Spain) had governments set up by Freemansons?
Oh, to the nut who surrounded his cities with warriors. No, that's what diplomats are for. They can see slavers and clerics!!!
...
Man, I love the theocracy!
I'm a Republic kinda guy myself.
Re:Regarding legions (Score:1)
A Legion (5000 men, for example) against 12 T-72s? I don't know, but the tanks should almost always win.
Save your $$$ if you're a Civ 2 freak (Score:3)
Good stuff:
You can que up city production.
The graphics are better.
The combat is better, especially the city battle screens. This may be the best improvement in the game. You can actually see the units arrayed against you!
The more government styles, and the fact that you can compare them side by side before changing.
Trade routes make sense, as only cities with goods can trade.
Space, undersea, piracy, et cetera. All nice.
Units now "see ahead", like naval units did in Civ/Civ 2.
Bad stuff:
Why can't I custom name a civ anymore?
Where are the old wonders and most of the old technologies?
Where are the catapults?
The game went from being keyboard (and mouse to move around the map) to mouse (and keyboard to do things that are too annoying to do with a mouse).
A good deal of the advances make no sense. No concieveable socitey, for example, could have knights and samauri. (I won't get into this, or how many other discrepencies there are, in comparison to Civ 2)
The opening Civs are suspect: Why is Canada in there (for example), and countries like Poland not? The pics seem to be more for the countries the expect the game to sell. (Babylon and such not withstanding)
The whole conversion thing is a serious detriment to gameplay. In one game I had 15 cities, and in but 4 turns 10 of them had been converted to the religion of another civ that I HADN'T YET SEEN! Further, I had units fortifed around the cities, so I should have seen their cleric coming.
The cost to convert BACK a city is rapacious, and they can just try to re-convert it again the NEXT TURN. UGH!
The advisors are gone. Athough fairly useless in the past, at least in Civ 2 there were amusing and (while learning the game) would let you know how you're doing.
Anyway, I can go on and on. It's really an okay game if you've never played Civ before, but I had expected much, much better.
-Markvs
What about terrain generation? (Score:1)
I didn't like CTP at first, but after playing it for a couple of weeks I really love it as much as Civ2.
However, the terrain generation really gets on my nerves. In Civ2, you could pick "Earth" as a terrain, I loved playing on that one. You can't have pre-made terrain in CTP, it has to be generated. Which brings me to the generation: it sucks. It puts tundra tiles in the freakin' equator! Unlike Civ2, it is not mostly hot in the equator, but all kinds of terrain seem to be disperesed all around. If you set the slider to have a more "uniform" terrain, it creates big lumps of mountains and other forms of terrain which doesn't seem realistic.
I think they should really improve on that, I would like to play on some real-world, or at least on some believable terrain.
Oh yea, and bring back the F-22, who cares about the F-15!
Other than that, great game, love it.
Identical Situation (Score:1)
I had the identical thing happen... I wandered into EB, since I was just passing by, and was wondering if they carried it.
- Dumb looks.
- "L... l... leeenecks? Uh... whut's that again?"
- Uncomfortable silence after I explained.
- "Ummm... nope. But here's out mail-order number. Maybe you can ask them... they might have heard of the game.
Except that the number is a US number, you have to pay by credit card, and pay the X-border charges (I'm in Canada). If I wanted to do it that way, I'd have ordered over the net (I even have a sneaking suspicion that EB's mail-order branch won't have any clue either). Dammit... why do I keep going in there??
--
- Sean
Re:How about FreeCiv ?? (Score:1)
Where will FreeCiv be by the time the next generation of commercial Civ games start popping up?
Well written negative review (Score:1)
Re:Well written negative review (Score:1)
Civ CTP in Sweden? (Score:1)
(I'm nit talking about a Swedish version - just the English language, Linux version will do me fine).
How about FreeCiv ?? (Score:1)
I'm avidly waiting, so I've done some research.... (Score:2)
10% Give it around 80-85% and staight that some units are really unbalanced. Those units are the same in all the reviews: Slaver, Evangalist and Ecoterrorist. From what I've read it sounds like they are a one unit zergling rush, they can destroy you early on, so you have to build the best defenses you can, but theres always a big chanche they won't be used. Reminds me of driving insurance...
20% of the reviews slightly to greatly bash the game, giving it a 40-60%. Mention some bugs, but nothing that sounds too bad, and I believe the patch is fixing most of them. Diplomacy is slammed, and Alpha C. is praised.
Those were for the windows versions. All linux pre/reviews have been pretty good, and it seems (looking above) they come from some serious CIV addicts.
Re:Call To Power vs. Alpha Centauri (Score:1)
's in there!
D'oh
Call To Power vs. Alpha Centauri (Score:2)
RTS for Linux -- when? (Score:1)
When will we get a half-decent real-time strategy game for Linux? I looked through the available information on the up and coming titles by Cavedog, Blizzard, Westwood and none of them mention Linux! Damn, I would give my right nut for Linux Starcraft.
Open source alternatives (Score:5)
However, if you care about free software (and, if you're reading slashdot, I imagine there's a chance you do) why not think about open source alternatives?
Freeciv [freeciv.org]. OK, it's probably not as good as CTP. It's at least as good as CivII, and it has net play built in.
But more to the point - if it's not as good as CTP, then help us make it so! Contribute ideas, or better still, contribute graphics and code. FreeCiv has a modular 'ruleset' based model, so total conversions are possible with less code changing. (OK, not _no_ code changing, some things are hardwired).
Open source gaming is only just taking off - but games developed cooperatively by the community, with all those people thinking of ideas, have the potential to be out of this world..
Jules
Re:So where the hell IS it??? (Score:1)
Civ:CTP (Score:1)
Re:Call To Power vs. Alpha Centauri (Score:2)
I know a lot of people don't like AC going with future tech, but I'm a big science-fiction fan, so I love it (even if the techs don't always make science sense, but since when have any mainstream SF stuff done so?). I don't find it any harder to relate to than telling my stone-age people to research the wheel (AC's blind research option is a very nice tough, btw).
As for gameplay, AC seems a lot nicer than CTP. AC does still have some problems (the infinte range Planet Busters cheif among them), but overall is a much better single-player game than CTP. AC has pretty much taken care of the old "musketeers killing battleships" problems, while CTP has them even worse than before. Of course, the AI isn't great for either game, but I've yet to see a good AI anywhere.
I simply vastly prefer AC, especially with all the little sound and video files for when you discover a new tech or finish a Special Project (The Network Backbone video is absolutely hilarious). For now, it might be worthwhile to buy CTP as a linux version simply because it is a linux version, by way of encouragement, but if you're simply looking for a great game, it's not the one to buy.
Arithon
How can I build a Death Ray if they won't let me have any busbars?
I Disagree (Score:1)
It does make it superior if you're only running Linux.
For example (assuming you are using MS Windows):
Say a new program "Foo: 2000" comes out. It's supposedly the best game in the whole entire world. Better graphics than anything that's ever been made before (better than `Episode 1'), awesome AI, and totally perfect interface.
It's only released for MacOS.
Now how great is that game going to be to you, if you don't have the platform it runs on?
~unyun~
Disappointed (Score:1)
Re:Woo hoo! More game reviews. (Score:1)
Nerds play video games. Learn your stereotypes. =)
Re:Geek details needed (Score:1)
| "brick-and-mortar" store... (If we don't
| buy it, why should they carry it)...
A point worth repeating. If people want to see software (in general, not just games) for Linux on the shelves, stores need to see that Linux-users are a viable market group. Randy
Re:Disappointed (Score:1)
Re:So where the hell IS it??? (Score:1)