So...it is worth getting?

orange · November 17, 2000, 15:22

I'm thinking of getting CTPII, but I really don't know if it's worth the money. Should I wait until Civ 3 comes out, though that will be a while, and continue playing Civ 2 MPG...or shall I run out to the mall with cash in hand? Thanks in advance!

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Brasiduss · November 17, 2000, 15:56

In my opinion definitely. There really are things which are different in this one that make it a worthy investment. After putting in about 6 hours so far, i really think this is one that will stay on my hard drive a while.

If you want to know why i think this one is worth it then I'll give it a shot.

1. Diplomacy: I think this is the best part of the game, everything comes back to this as it should whether it is military, scientific, economic, or religious. in previous civ style games some of the thing you di had no real affect on the AI or how they regarded you. Here everything seems to make a difference in some way.

2. AI: This is a bit related to number one, but so far the AI seems to be a lot more human. they appear to hold more grudges, and make descions based on even the newest developments. For example i had about 10 samurai on the border between myself and the Irish. Between me and an irish city were 3 irish hoplites formed in an army. When I demanded in "equal standing" tone for them to give me one of their cities for a cease fire, they rejected, but once i destroyed those hoplites and put abou 6 sami's right next to that city...ohhhh they were willing to give that city up for a cease fire now, though this time i demanded in my angry voice. Things like that let me know the AI is considering everything.

Those are just a few things, i can think up more if you need more convincing.

Mad-Kat · November 17, 2000, 15:58

I really think they've don a great job this time. This is the game CTP I wanted to be but tripped up. They seem to have listened to all ther gripes and request that I remember from CTP I and addressed them very well. I've not gotten into it deep enough to tell how good combat and AI are, but diplomacy, trading and city management are a dream to use. Read some of the posts and try and get a better feel from everyones views. I don't want to tell you it's worth getting on just my opinion, since I was a little forgiving of CTP I after some modification. My gut feeling say it's great from the little I've played. Hope that helps.

Hypocrite · November 17, 2000, 16:47

Orange: can you tell me where can I get a multi-player patch for Civilization 2? Thanks in advance, YO.

BTW, after only an hour of play my opinion of the game is a positive one. Perhaps the main reason why my attitude doesn't come off as purely estatic has to do (more than likely) with the nature of anticipation- it's 90 percent of the fun. Now that I have the game, all that's left to do is play it. But since I've conjured up images and scenarios in my head since I started thinking about playing the game, reconciling myself to the real thing and simply enjoying it is more of a task than it should be.
heh
It's a good game, it's better programmed and designed than CTP1. I liked that game, despite my grumbling that it was but a Civ 2 clone only with updated graphics and a gameplay that lacked the time and effort put into the game it wanted to mimick. CTP2 is the game CTP1 should have been, it seems to me. The true test will come next week when 3 friends and I do a 2v2 grudge match (with possibly 2 AI's) on a LAN. I'll try to keep you all 'posted.'

My advice, as you requested, is to buy the game. It is certainly worth the price.

DaddyCool · November 18, 2000, 01:49

I like it, I like it, I like it!

I *hated* the first one, played it like twice. But this one is good! Why? A few things:

Diplomacy! All the good things you've heard about it are true. I hope it becomes a new standard for these types of games. Think of what an AI can do to piss you off; trespass, build on your continent, etc. Well, when you do these things to them, it pisses them off. Maybe it did before, but, they were never so kind as to let me know.

Terrain! The tile graphics look really nice, but who cares! The landscapes are realistic. That is, continents have that continent shape, with vast deserts, mountain ranges (instead of just mountains), etc. It feels less random.

Battles! You can slow them down if you want to watch the blow-by-blow. And, there's always that satisfaction in seeing all your guys standing against one of theirs. Yeah baby! I know they sorta had this in the first one, but after seeing two tanks get butchered by about 6 spear chuckers, well, I just about chucked the game out the window. Admitedly, I haven't gotten far enough to see if this is okay now, but everyone's been saying it's been fixed.

Naming Armies! Yeah, this is a little thing, but I like it. I have my Praetorian Guard fortified in Rome, I got my First Legion in the west, keeping those pesky Americans in check, and my Second Legion in the north, because the Scotts have been getting kinda restless of late. Then there's the Desert Garison in the east. Haven't found anything down there yet, but who knows, right? Whatever, the boys in the Desert Garison remain vigilant (that's why I'm paying them).

Interface! More intuitive, lotsa hot-keys. I like the city manager. Yeah there's tabs, but there's a lot of info (which is a good thing!) and that seemed to me like the only sane way to do it. Population is actual people, instead of 1,2,3,etc, and your growth per turn is also in how many more people are coming. Again, a nice little touch.

The new city radius thing! It's cool for some reason, I haven't figured out why. But I like it. Maybe it's because I get to see my city radius swell, and it gives me pleasure on some Freudian level. I don't know.

Music! Usually I don't care, but I gotta say, it's good!

Those are just some things off the top of my head.

Eternal · November 18, 2000, 02:57

Cool! And you can name armies? I am definitely getting this! Here comes the Third Shock Army, baby!

Shaman · November 18, 2000, 06:22

I think this is by far the best strategy game I have ever played. Activision's programmers and QA did a very good job on it. There is a new interface and a lot of cool features.

One of the features that I really admire is borders. Yes, finally there is no confusion as to where is the border between your civ and the other ones. You get two kinds of borders:
1)total for your empire and
2)one for each city.

Drastically improved interface helps to manage everything that is going on with your civilization. Not that you could not do it in CTPI, but it just much easier. You have to love the city mayors!!! They can take care of your city the same way AI would have!!!
You can actually change their orientation such as Production, Growth, Defensive...

As to whether you should buy it or not that's actually for you to decide. In my opinion if you like strategy games and you liked CTPI, CTPII IS A MUST HAVE!

Gotta go, I need to win the first one...
[This message has been edited by Shaman (edited November 18, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Shaman (edited November 18, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Shaman (edited November 18, 2000).]

Tuerkuem · November 18, 2000, 21:38

Ralf,
soooo, the more you hear about people really enjoying the game, the less likely you are to buy it?
Hmmm... If someone tells you it's rubbish, will you buy it then?

I actually enjoyed the original CTP despite it's bugs. I was also a CivII player, but got tired of the AI stupidity.
To me it sounds like CTP2 is worth a go, even for a hard-bitten cynic.
Cheers,
Turk

Fluffygreycat · November 18, 2000, 22:39

The AI mayors are smarter than you might think, Ralf.

I've been using mayors in my first game, even though I ultimately will probably micromanage, because it saves time and I am trying to push through the ages to get a feel for the entire flow of the game.

I've been pleasantly surprised. They seem to build the "right" things, even tile improvements. [Two mayors on an island I had ignored for a while even build a neat little road between their two cities.] It takes some getting used to, though. One mayor built mines on a river/plains square, and I thought someone needed to get fired - but then I looked at the effect the available tile improvements for my tech level had on the available terrain, and it turned out it was the best thing to do. [I would have built farms - didn't have advanced farms yet. Net, mines were better - so the mayor taught me something.] Once in a while, they can annoy you by overemphasizing something - all of may mayors focusing on "offense" decided to simultaneously give me artillery, which leads to somewhat imbalance stacks, you know? But "bonehead subordinates" are sometimes part of life.

Big Dave · November 18, 2000, 23:00

quote:

Originally posted by Tuerkuem on 11-18-2000 08:38 PM
Ralf,
soooo, the more you hear about people really enjoying the game, the less likely you are to buy it?
Hmmm... If someone tells you it's rubbish, will you buy it then?

I actually enjoyed the original CTP despite it's bugs. I was also a CivII player, but got tired of the AI stupidity.
To me it sounds like CTP2 is worth a go, even for a hard-bitten cynic.
Cheers,
Turk

No Turk, he's a sceptic. What I'm hearing from him is that he's not getting enough detail. AI has always been more like AS (Artificial Stuipidity) in these game, so he's perfectly justified in questioning this. Yes, it's good that people are enjoying this. I'm glad the game is doing well, I hope to see the hotseat and PBEM patches. I'm very glad that the AI is a worthy opponent, and that the new diplomacy system rocks. I've heard excellent things about the new trade system, too, but no details on it (I haven't read all of Mark's previews yet, had house guests this weekend).

But I would like to hear more details on how different portions of the game are working, more examples of diplomacy for example. I liked the tale of the Greeks and the Irish, I want to see if the diplomatic model is consistent or was that a fluke?
TIA,

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Big Dave

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me!

Ralf · November 19, 2000, 01:51

quote:

Originally posted by Shaman on 11-18-2000 05:22 AM
You have to love the city mayors!!! They can take care of your city the same way AI would have!!!

Considering the fact that AI:s in all previous Civ-games have had a history of notoriously weak unit- and city-building logistics - above statement really doesnt feel that reassuring.

quote:

In my opinion if you like strategy games and you liked CTPI, CTPII IS A MUST HAVE!

The problem is that i *didnt* like CTP at all. It was a horrible game. CTP-2 must be VERY different in terms of game-mechanics and under-the-hood quality.

The more i read of these over-enthusiastic and totally non-critical "reviews", the more suspicious i get.

A demo would have helped.

orange · November 19, 2000, 14:10

Thanks for the info guys! I'm gonna put it on my Christmas list

About the patch - I believe you can go to Microprose.com to get one. If not, go to MS Zone and ask around in the Civ chats. They're very helpful

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Cyrius · November 19, 2000, 14:39

WHOA! WARNING! Not all is peachy keen!

1. SPACE IS GONE. Most people don't seem to care, but if I'd have known this before I bought CTP2, I wouldn't have purchased it.

2. CITY MANAGEMENT IS GONE. You can't place workers anymore. Makes it hard to figure out if Tile Imps are doing any good. I have no idea how the comp determines what resources you get in a city. This causes a problem with making specialists too.

3. AI isn't that great. Example: Greek corracks (boats) unloaded 4 archers on my home continent/island. A while later, i asked them to leave. They agreed. They walked around a bit like they were trying, but they just got stuck somewhere inside my empire and fortified. Very annoying.\

4. Interface is rather confusing.

I don't use mayors, ever, since they always do stuff I can't stand, so I can't tell you how that works here.

Please remember this is not a new game, sequel, or even an expansion pack. It is a makeover. An extended patch with extra artwork. It works well and looks better, but really, is this worth 50 dollars? I'm not so sure.

Savant · November 19, 2000, 15:24

What patch are you talking about? Is this a bug patch? I am waiting for my Amazon order to arrive any day now and was wondering if the game ia already patched? This seems like an impprtant piece of news!

What does the patch do or what is it for?

Any answers are appreciated.

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'Blood will run'

November 19, 2000, 16:32

quote:

Originally posted by Cyrius on 11-19-2000 01:39 PM
[quote]1. SPACE IS GONE. Most people don't seem to care, but if I'd have known this before I bought CTP2, I wouldn't have purchased it.

well, you should be checking this site...

quote:

2. CITY MANAGEMENT IS GONE. You can't place workers anymore. Makes it hard to figure out if Tile Imps are doing any good. I have no idea how the comp determines what resources you get in a city. This causes a problem with making specialists too.

all tiles in the city radius are worked at a percentage according to the city size. if you place a tile improvement in ANY tile in the city radius it will help. that's it

quote:

I don't use mayors, ever, since they always do stuff I can't stand, so I can't tell you how that works here.

isnt it a bit unfair not to use a feature cause similar features in other games were not implemented in the best way??

DarkOrder · November 19, 2000, 16:41

1) Cyrius,No space is a bad thing? Nobody ever used it in the first one. I think being "stuck" on earth is a good thing. Makes you really feel like you are playing through history.

2)Have you read the manual. It may help you understand the micromanagment better

3)Just because the AI said it was going to remove its troops, it doesn't mean it has to. It makes you choose: Start a war, or keep an eye on these liars? How many times have you agreed to leave an empire only to take over a city a few turns after agreeing to go peacefully?

4)It will take a little while to get used to the interface I agree. It allows you to do 1 thing many different ways. Try out the different ways of just pulling up the build que. Pick which you like the best. This game has a lot of info, once you are more used to the interface, you will better appreciate it. I promise.

General help for those that have not read the manual: Cities start with 1 citizen. A citizen can be assigned to a specific task or be a "general worker". He can be assigned to entertainment, food (farmer), production, commerce, or science. The more food generated by a city, the faster it will grow. At city size 1, the growth is set to 2500 (max amount). As a city grows (gains more citizens), its growth will slow. To keep your food supply up you must assign farmers and/or build farms.

If your worker is a "general worker," he will gather food, production, commerce, and science, but to a lesser extent than if he were a specialist. Being a specialist only works for that 1 specialty. So if you use that 1 citizen to farm, you will receive no commerce, production, or science.

If this seems confusing, I apologize. I recommend starting an MP (LAN, so you won't have to be online) game with 5 settlers. Exclude vvery unit , 1 AI, barbarians: ruins only, put dynamic join on. Spend a few hours city building. Play with the different tile improvements, specialists and national manager. While this may seem a "waste of time," it is a great way to learn and can be fun. You can keep an eye on the AI through the ranking windows and see how you stack up.

Here is what the experts do: As soons as you start your turn, pull up the national manager push your food down and your production up. Build a shrine or other buildings/wonders that increase you citizens happiness. Keep your citizens on the verge of rioting. The extra food allows your cities to grow faster and the extra work gives you more production. Use wages to keep your citizens happy too. Focus on getting yout cities to size 7 as soon as possible. To do this, keep all but a few citizens as farmers. Keep that growth meter as close to 2500 as possible. Use tile improvments for farms only until you get to city size 7. At 7, you can put every citizen to "general work."

Explore ruins with military units and always keep at least 1 military unit fortifies in your cities. If you find barbarians, they will take out undefended settlers and cities faster than you can respond.

As soon as you encounter AI, form a peace treaty and trade maps. If the AI is not happy with you, give him 100 gold for a few turns. If he likes you, he will be more receptive to diplomacy. If he starts moving troops in and refuses all peace offerings, get ready for war.

This game is complex and big. Once you get familiar with it, it can be a whole lot of fun.
hope this helps.

Smooshies

Savant · November 19, 2000, 17:09

Markos, please kill my previous "patch" query as I just read more closely and it is a stupid post.

Oh yeah, please kill this one too?

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'Blood will run'

Cyrius · November 19, 2000, 17:27

Oooh cool I got flamed!

Well, not really. Anyways:

quote:

well, you should be checking this site...

You're right. But I did look at the CTP2 site and saw some adds and didn't see anything to lead me to belive that such a crucial feature had been pulled.

quote:

1) Cyrius,No space is a bad thing? Nobody ever used it in the first one. I think being "stuck" on earth is a good thing. Makes you really feel like you are playing through history.

Well, I know most people didn't. But for me, I felt is was the most significant thing (besides the combat system) that CTP added to the civ genre. Admitidly, it was under-developed and under-tested, and people rarely ever used it, but I felt it was a fascinating addition to the "science/non-war victory" present in many civ games. The fact that AI never utilized it and it didn't really serve much of a purpose for world dictators was a fault of the developers. Stuck on earth? play through history? Remember, part of CTP's draw was that you could (and should) play beyond the realm of known human history. I firmly belive this means going into space. I think our greatest achivements will only occur in space. Call me an eternal trekkie if you want, but space to me is "The Final Frontier"

Besides, sea cities are annoying. Get rid of them, not space. Hehe.

Space cities and space ships were to me a more important goal than wiping out all the people on the planet. It was the main reason I played through all the bugs, bad diplomacy, and crappy AI. I know most of you don't feel this way, but I'm really sad to see it go. I'm seriously considering getting CTP1 again and trying for that giant spaceship I never got the chance to build...

quote:

all tiles in the city radius are worked at a percentage according to the city size. if you place a tile improvement in ANY tile in the city radius it will help. that's it

Do'h! I didn't know that. Thank you, that is helpful information. A little bizzre though. A starving city isn't going to send 75% of its people to mine the mountains and 25% down to the fertile grasslands just because there's more mountains around than graslands. But, I'm glad to know my TI will never go to waste.

quote:

2)Have you read the manual. It may help you understand the micromanagment better

DarkOrder, I admit I booted up the game first, but when I found I couldn't place workers I realized I would need to figure out what was going on instead, so I dove into the manual. Unfortunately, the manual is really poor quality and spends most of its time discussion what production and commerece is. I found nothing in there that said that every tile in the city radius was worked simultaneously by a portion of the population.

quote:

isnt it a bit unfair not to use a feature cause similar features in other games were not implemented in the best way??

Um, well, er... No comment.

Actually, I prefer to have the maximum amount of control over my cities. I don't think I would let my best friend control a city. I'm a bit of a control freak.

quote:

4)It will take a little while to get used to the interface I agree. It allows you to do 1 thing many different ways. Try out the different ways of just pulling up the build que. Pick which you like the best. This game has a lot of info, once you are more used to the interface, you will better appreciate it. I promise.

Of course you are right in a way Dark, but I spent hours, two days even, desparing over the fact that I couldn't rename a city, until I found out the only place you can do it is by right clicking. Really, a button on the city manager screen would have made much more sense to me. I've had other problems with the interface too. Having had two UI-design classes, I just feel the UI could have been more, well, user friendly...

Hmm, I really don't like this new concept of specialists. If you have enough population/technology, what is to stop you from turning your whole city into a bunch of different specialists? This effectively negates the terrain&TI in the city radius. Is this right? I don't know; maybe.

At what point does turning a worker into a specialist actually decrease what you would have gotten from the land? Certainly, its possible, if you have a slew of mega-mines, at some point making a worker into a labourer which would hurt your production instead of helping it.

Also, the old way of just building farming cities appears to be over. For example, I was once able to build a city on the edge of a desert, giving it mega-fisheries on its three ocean tiles; then, after all the fisheries were generating a big surplus of food I could put future people into being labourers and get a sizeable amount of production. Now I can't, since those first few workers work everything equally, I won't ever get the full impact of those fisheries, unless I put everyone into workers, and then they spend a great deal of effort working the worthless deserts. See my dilemma? I haven't tested this, and I really hope I'm wrong, but this is how it seems to me.

DarkOrder · November 19, 2000, 18:06

Sorry Cyrius, but you are wrong. Forget about population. It is used to figure scores, pollution, cost and other stuff. Concentrate on the citizens. Citizens control what is being done in your city.

1 general worker(or general specialist if you prefer

) gathers Food, Commerce, Production, and science (in MP later age games, they do not) from all the tiles that your city controls.

(these numbers are not exact, so don't quote me on them. I place them for information purposes)

general worker:
Food 25%
Commerce 25%
Production 25%
Science 25%

Entertainer specialist (this specialist is used to quell rebellion and not needed for the rest of my explanation):
Entertainment 100%
Food 0%
Commerce 0%
Production 0%
Science 0%

Farmer/food specialist:
Food 100%
Commerce 0%
Production 0%
Science 0%

Commerce specialist:
Food 0%
Commerce 100%
Production 0%
Science 0%

Laborer specialist:
Food 0%
Commerce 0%
Production 100%
Science 0%

Science specialist:
Food 0%
Commerce 0%
Production 0%
Science 100%

To add to this you have a growth chart
and a happiness chart. Low growth slows how fast your city size increase(how fast you gain more citizens).
Unhappy citizens will revolt and become barbarian.

so if you have a city size 1 (1 citizen), you are limited in how much production, commerce, science and and food you can pull in. You have a choice: Make this 1 citizen a specialist and neglect the other stuff or stay with the general?

I place citizens as food specialist early on so I can grow my city to size 7. I can do this in say 10 turns.
Another player may have a city size 3 at this point. He may have more units on the map, but once I place all 7 citizens back on "general work," I will be able to kick that cities arse.

speacialists are not all powerful. Buildings (shrine, granery) cost money every turn. If you have all specialists, you will lose money each turn. If you move all citizens into production, you may be able to build a hoplite in 2 turns, but your citizens will starve. Starvation kills citizens.

Do you see where this leads? It is better to have more citizens doing general work, than have a few doing specialist work.

The real use of citizens is to gain something more quickly. Want a large city fast? Use farmers until you have the size that you want. Need warriors fast? Laborers for a few turns.

The most important thing to remember is this: The larger your city, the harder it is to acheive more growth, production, gold, etc. That is why you must use tile improvments to help your specialists out.
How much you pay your citizens, how many hours they work, and how much food you give them all factor into this. So do the amoubt of Production you assign to Public Works and the amount of commerce you assign to science research. I haven't even touched on pollution or crime.

Your desert city can still be acheived. Use your specialists on farming until you get enough citizens to work production. The problem with cities in bad locations is this: The amount of resources is much less. The best place to put a city is on a river through grassland or plains. You can place cities in the desert, tundra, glacier, or mountains, but it will be much harder to "grow" such a city. Luckily, at later ages you can terraform this lousy land.

Did this help?

Smooshies

[This message has been edited by DarkOrder (edited November 19, 2000).]

DarkOrder · November 19, 2000, 18:38

oh, forgot to add. There are the genetic age and the diamond age. The game goes to around 2300AD and the way the world is now, it will require a major effort by a large number of countries to actually begin to explore space. As for the science victory: It is present and very difficult to acheive (without cheating). You can win without war with the Diplomatic victory, High score/time runs out victory, and the science victory.

Just depends on how you play the game. You can not win the game without creating some military units though. Just like T. Roosevelt said, "carry a big stick..."

Smooshies

Cyrius · November 19, 2000, 18:52

Ok, so you're saying that a specialist still works the land in the city radius, only focuses on a particular commodity? I swear that I read in the manual that specialists draw only from their own expertise and not from the surrounding land. I could have been wrong I suppose.

I think you missed my point with the desert city. In CTP1, you could focus effort onto just a few tiles in a city, which was a good thing if you didn't have much land to work with. Any citizens left over got put into whatever other commodities you needed (as specialists), and they generated those commodities at the same rate: 10 per turn, I belive (not sure though). Now, I can't focus anybody anywhere, and if specialists really do work the land, then this means that a cities' succesfullness is soley based on its terrain. I know before everyone wanted to build a city half on grassland and half on Mountains, but it was at least possible to build cities in more risky situations, such as on the coast of a jungle or a mountain range which borders the water, and not have those inland tiles be such a total waste (they were just ignored).

I dunno. I'm just grumbling about the change I guess. :P

orange · November 21, 2000, 00:03

quote:

Originally posted by Savant on 11-19-2000 04:09 PM
Markos, please kill my previous "patch" query as I just read more closely and it is a stupid post.
Oh yeah, please kill this one too?

Savant - "Edit" feature. It's above each post. Click on the one above your two posts and delete everything. Viola

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~ The poster formerly known as "OrangeSfwr"

Taliseian · November 21, 2000, 19:10

I think what he means is that when you have "General Workers", they work all the tiles equally in the city radius.

If you have any "Specialized Workers", all they do is their speciality. That's why if you put all of your workers on "Farming", you can grow a size 1 city to a size 7 city very quickly...but at the cost of your other production (science, gold, pw, etc...).

This way, if you improve any tile in the city radius, you don't have to assign a worker to it, it is already worked as necessary.

And as the radius grows, more and more tiles are available to be worked/improved upon.

(Hope I have this right...I've only played a game or two and haven't read the manual completely yet...)

--edit to fix a spelling error--

Taliseian
[This message has been edited by Taliseian (edited November 21, 2000).]