How Many Civs?

KaiserIsak · October 30, 2000, 10:23

How many civs will it be possible to play against in one singel game? Does anybody know?

Nikolai · October 30, 2000, 10:32

No offisial information on that as far as I know.

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Who am I? What am I? do we need Civ? YES!!

Pyaray · October 30, 2000, 16:37

quote:

Originally posted by KaiserIsak on 10-30-2000 09:23 AM
How many civs will it be possible to play against in one singel game? Does anybody know?

7 + yourself = 8 total civs

Pyaray

[This message has been edited by Pyaray (edited October 30, 2000).]

October 30, 2000, 17:04

quote:

Originally posted by Pyaray on 10-30-2000 03:37 PM
7 + yourself = 8 total civs

still????

anyway, i hope that the 32-by-hand bug(game crashing when you have put over 8 and then try to change the setting from inside the game) does not exist this time....

Narck · October 30, 2000, 17:25

Why not give us the option to add more

Tical_2000 · October 30, 2000, 17:55

8 civs!!??? What the hell? Is anyone else ready to throw a kitchen bomb into Activision's CTP2 Development Room? I mean, whats with these idiots?
What good are all these diplomatic options if you only have seven countries to interact with! Come on, guys. People just aren't going to stand for this. As for this 32-civ cheat, thats about as useful as a flame thrower in a dynamite factory! I want 32 legit civs that i can gather legit intelligence on and so on. This is very bad news. And what's all this jazz about lack of multiplayer support? I swear man, if Activision screws us again, I might have to lock myself in my office and develop my own civ game. Not cool, Activision. Not cool at all.

October 30, 2000, 18:25

ok, lets get a bit more serious about this and leave the name calling out of this forum.....

quote:

Originally posted by Tical_2000 on 10-30-2000 04:55 PM
What good are all these diplomatic options if you only have seven countries to interact with!

everyone loved the diplomatic interaction in smac and it had 7 civs....

quote:

As for this 32-civ cheat, thats about as useful as a flame thrower in a dynamite factory!

lots of lots of people have happily played with over 8 civs with ctp1. it's not the same(cause not everyone feels safe editing even a simple text file) but it's something...

quote:

I want 32 legit civs that i can gather legit intelligence on and so on.

since you brought up intelligence, it's also a matter of system requirements. i remember that the ctp1 requirements were for 6 civs on a normal map. having (let's say) 16 "legal" civs would mean higher (official) system requirements
and you know what that means

[This message has been edited by MarkG (edited October 30, 2000).]

Pyaray · October 30, 2000, 19:45

Wow, I had no idea that this was a hot topic. I'm afraid that decision was made long before I was brought in, and it's certainly too late to change it now. Basically, it's too late to change anything now. Any information about the game these days is pretty much set in stone. Changing design at this late of a date would be like shooting our own foot, as it would be too likely to generate bugs. So in summary, I'm sorry it disapoints so many of you, but 8 is the number.

Pyaray

October 30, 2000, 20:13

just be sure that there are no game-crashing bugs when you set it to over 8 civs by text-editing(you can of course still do that, right??????)

Pyaray · October 30, 2000, 20:24

quote:

Originally posted by MarkG on 10-30-2000 07:13 PM
just be sure that there are no game-crashing bugs when you set it to over 8 civs by text-editing(you can of course still do that, right??????)

Editing a file to make the game do something beyond what we designed it to do is not officially supported, and therefore I can't really comment on it either way.

The only thing I can say is that the game is fairly customizable. And you all will probably figure out things to do with it that we never really meant it to do.

Pyaray

[This message has been edited by Pyaray (edited October 30, 2000).]

Atahualpa · October 30, 2000, 20:32

quote:

Not cool, Activision. Not cool at all.

I second that!

The fact that there wont be any changes in the design makes me feel uncomfortable! To me a Civ game is NEVER finished. There are so many ideas and features out there. I really advise you not to cancel support after the second patch, oh and yes I do expect patches. One that includes PBEM for example!

aTa

Pyaray · October 31, 2000, 00:11

quote:

Originally posted by Atahualpa on 10-30-2000 07:32 PM
The fact that there wont be any changes in the design makes me feel uncomfortable!

Saying that we didn't change how many civs we could have, and saying that there won't be any changes in the design are vastly different statements. I assure you, many things were redesigned. Just not this one.

Pyaray

Nemo · October 31, 2000, 01:00

are you serious??!! do you people look at the polls? everyone wanted more civs!! i can understand that you wouldnt want to add them officially since it would increase teh sys req too much - but i would have at least thought you would have allowed us to edit it them (which it seems you will) BUT ALSO have screens that would hold mor information (i.e. the treaty/attitude screens). i mean it cant be that difficult to add a scroll bar and a few more boxes for extra civs on those screens. i think this sucks! i thought it was a GIVEN that more civs would be supported! - even if it wasnt 32, at least 12 would have been nice.

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"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."
-Michael Sinz

Monkey · October 31, 2000, 02:01

People! People! We should all remain calm.

I think people were expecting 32 civ support because the original CTP had it... unofficially. While it is sad to see that the "more civs" options has been abandoned by Activision, personally I'd like to have 8 quality AI opponents rather than 32 dumb ones. Let's hope the extra CPU cycles generated by this decision will be put into good use in the AI and the general speed of the game.

Chris Horscroft · October 31, 2000, 02:28

I agree with Monkey. Activision can concentrate on 8 good civs and a realistic system requirement. The mod experts can expand the number of civs.

Atahualpa · October 31, 2000, 03:14

Does that mean that the official Scenarios that ship with the game sill have only 8 civs?

Ata

October 31, 2000, 03:16

quote:

Originally posted by Pyaray on 10-30-2000 07:24 PM
Editing a file to make the game do something beyond what we designed it to do is not officially supported, and therefore I can't really comment on it either way.

eeeer you mean "what we officially designed it to do".....

Chris, it's not a matter of any kind of expert. in ctp1 you just changed a setting in a text file....

[This message has been edited by MarkG (edited October 31, 2000).]

jbs · October 31, 2000, 12:57

Well it looks like I won't buy this game until the patch comes which is really the release date. Everyone who buys the game sooner is just an unpaid beta tester for Activision. I can not believe that you can not have more than 8 Civs and no Hotseat. Having no canals is another big disappointment. Canals have been on the wish list since Civ2 and for CTP2 not to include something as basic and requested as canals is unacceptable. Sometimes it is the very simply things that turn a great game into a mediocre game. CTP had potential but when you don't pay attention to detail and fix the simply things that potential is unrealized. It sounds like CTP2 is another game with great potential that will again go unrealized. I will not buy another game with unrealized potential. It is quite obvious that Activision did not listen to the Civ/CTP community when developing CTP2, so why should I hope that the game is any better than CTP at the release. It sounds like the same scenario. The game is not ready and features like Hotseat and more than 8 civs are being cut to met the Christmas release date. Again the bean counters will ruin a game. I will NOT support this cycle and so I will NOT buy this game until the patch comes out in 3 months to fix the problems that all the other unpaid beta testers who bought the beta version and experienced the frustration of playing a broken game identify all the problems. Looks like another typical Activision high potential low quality game.

samurai · October 31, 2000, 14:03

To all of you who have played Civilizaton since the Amiga ages and truly love this game.Buy it and worship the a new game in the Civilization series.Try to look at the bright side of things.

Ever since I first heard that there would be a Call to Power II, I couldn`t stop thinking about it.Activision has brought a game wich was genious from it`s beginning furter behind the greatness of the greatest game there has ever been constructed.

I thank Activision for Call to Power(even if it had a lot of bugs lot of bugs)and what they have done.
Also I would like to send my regards to Sid Meier who constructed CivI.Fantastic!

So I really don`t care what you pathetic "cannot buy the game until its perfect" guys says.I`m going to buy Call to Power II as soon as possible like I will keep doing it with all the other Civilization games in the future.

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The samurai has spoken

Paulypav · October 31, 2000, 15:04

I have to agree with Monkey and Samurai. I am extremely eager to get the game whether there are bugs or not. I would much rather 8 civs with strong AI than 32 civs with an AI as weak as in CTP. Pyaray has specifically addressed in other threads a number of the bugs mention in the reviews and states that they have been fixed. While Activision may fudge things from time to time I don't think one of their programmers would state a problem was fixed if it wasn't. Nothing that isn't in CTPII was ever stated by Activision that it would be there, we just assumed it would be. Is it dissappointing, Yes. Is it going to make the game suck? I highly doubt it. I'm sure the game will be playable without the patches and the patches will make it better. I think we all need to be glad that they were willing to even make a sequel and address many of the problems that have been identified.

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"In war, there is no substitute for victory."
- Douglas MacArthur

Ralf · October 31, 2000, 15:27

I rather have 3-4 really good quality AI-civs to compete against, instead of racing ahead 20+ mediocre 5-6 cities AI-empires. The latter was a problem even in six AI-faction SMAC. I mean, please guys - lets be realistic here.
To limit the number of independant AI-civs was not only a really *good* desicion. It was a AI-programming/technical/gamedesign 100% necessity.

Dont you guys understand that the more the AI had to waste time in how to respond to all those other independent AI-civs - the LESS time there going to be spent on combating the human player.
After all, theres only so and so many seconds the *average* strategy-gamer is willing to wait between each turns.

Tical_2000 · October 31, 2000, 18:18

Listen Mark G., Am I not entitled to post my personal opinions in these forums? I heard there was 8 civs and that was very dissapointing for me. But then you lashed out at me like I said something about your mother! As a loyal civver, I really don't need your feedback. Its obvious you're in kahoots with the folks at Activision but no matter how much you back up their game, we will still decide for ourselves whether we like it or not. I don't care if people like the diplomacy or whatever in SMAC, ok? I'm talking about CTP2. 8 Civs is a joke! Computers get more advanced by the month, and I think they could handle at least 12 or 16 civs by now.

jbs · October 31, 2000, 19:03

I could understand Activision not having more than 8 Civs in CTP1 and I thought it was great that you could modify it and increase it. But NOW Activision nows that we want more than 8 Civs and I expected CTP2 to have at least 16 possibly 32 different Civs. If Activision can't get something as simple as more Civs right, what does that say about the quality of the whole game. It is not our job to fix Activision's game. I want a game that I can play out of the box this time and not depend on a CD or somebody else to fix it. I guess I just have higher standards than most people. I expect quality in products I buy!

Nemo · October 31, 2000, 20:39

ok, originally i thought that more than 7/8 civs was not supported becaseu of system reauirements. but i just realized something...i just put together a computer form spare parts i have scavaged, and just realized that this frankenstien computer exceeds the sys req for CTP I and i only paid $12 for the whole thing (i needed a wire). now, if i can put this thing together for practically free, it has now dawned on me that a pentium 200/32mb (possibley 64mb) ram is WAY obsolete. i consider my pII 450 at the bottom of the barrel these days. so my point is this - if the number of civs was sacrificed because of crappy old systems, that is not good - games are notorious for pushing teh computers to the next level. imo, CTP II should have a sys req of PII 350 64mb ram. even if the sys req by passes my 450, i would understand, and not complain. but catering to a 200 or there about is not right.
p.s. sorry if i offended any one with a low end system, but, wth, i put one together for $12.

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"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you have to support it for the rest of your life."
-Michael Sinz
[This message has been edited by Nemo (edited October 31, 2000).]

Slax · November 1, 2000, 01:12

Only 8 civs? This is really brutal. I was expecting an increase to the number of supported civs, especially for gigantic maps.

I still look forward to the game, but no pbem and only 8 civs ticks me off.

CIV 3 designers are so happy right now.

November 1, 2000, 02:59

quote:

Originally posted by Tical_2000 on 10-31-2000 05:18 PM
But then you lashed out at me like I said something about your mother!

if name calling is part of your opinion, what can i say?

quote:

As a loyal civver, I really don't need your feedback.

what, i dont have the right to my own opinion on my own forum??

aCa · November 1, 2000, 03:08

quote:

Originally posted by jbs on 10-31-2000 06:03 PM
If Activision can't get something as simple as more Civs right, what does that say about the quality of the whole game.

Since that sounded like a question I'll answer that one for you. IT DOESN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE GAME! Theres your answer.....

aCa@civ

Maccabee2 · November 3, 2000, 18:36

JBS, you are right on the money. (No pun intended.) If CTP2 cannot be easily edited to more than 8 civs, I will be disappointed enough that I won't buy it. That factor, along with no MGE, would break my camel's back.
I am your typical, lower middle-class, 60-70 hours per week, underpaid office grunt. My motto is quite literally, "So little time, so many games." For that reason, I patiently endure the usual mockery that goes, "What!? You've never played Doom?! Or Quake?!" I have intentionally forgone the privilege of spending precious money or time on games that challenge my reflexes but not my intellect. I have been hooked on strategy games since childhood. Battleship, Stratego, Risk, Axis and Allies, all were narrow conduits for my imagination until someone jeapordized my marriage by lending me Civilization, the original game. It quite literally expanded my horizons. Different civilizations that I encountered in the game quite literally drove me to the library repeatedly to satiate the curiousity (about the history of each culture) that welled up as I encountered each virtual diplomat. I would daresay, it has improved me as a person. (How many arcade-type game players can say that, unless they are speaking of their marksmanship.)
By nature, many if not most of us who play civ-type games do so because it fuels and gives flight to our imaginations. We build virtual worlds on the screen. Therefore it is only logical that we would want as few limits as possible to how we can tailor the world. We are not unreasonable, nor are we imbeciles; we don't spend all our weekends at tailgate parties. *Give us the tools, and we will design scenarios that would make an Activision CTP game the most popular TBS game for the next decade. Did Activision think that the basic, randomly-generated Civ2 game was all that fueled its popularity? It was its customizability that gave the game as many lives as the Phantom in the Sunday cartoons.
Although I'm no software engineer, it follows that we know quality when we see it. So, I'll wait and see. If the game's reviews, both by the online mags and on this forum, reflect greater and easier customizability than in CTP1, I'll risk it. Otherwise, I will save $20 or $30 by buying AOE. Or not. I'm still playing Civ2, and I love it. If I bore of that, I'll switch back to library reading until my gaming itch becomes unbearable again. I think there are over 300 scenarios currently downloadable *for free* for Civ2. My options are limitless. Activision is not the only game in town.