CtP II: Canary in the Mine Shaft?

Dom Pedro II · November 4, 2000, 18:35

Any day now, supposedly, Call to Power II should be released with a variety of new features. Some of these include retreating in battle, borders, and much more improved diplomacy. These are many points that we are insisting on. Is this the trial run for many of the features we want in Civ III? There are still many areas that CTP II does not cover that we want, but either way I'm still interested to see what the results will be from the new game. It can help us to improve what we've already got. We can streamline concepts and decide whether some things are practical or not.

UltraSonix · November 4, 2000, 23:43

I think this is the reason that Firaxis(Hasbro?) aren't putting up that bloody site of theirs - they also want to see what CTP2 is like, and if they can ~~steal~~ utilise any good features.

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards... Despite any stupid advertisments you may see to the contrary...

Dom Pedro II · November 4, 2000, 23:51

Hey, when in doubt, reverse engineer...

November 5, 2000, 01:55

UltraSonix
If you were Sid and company would you not look at CTP 2 and see what they did and then talk to your engineers to see what you can do better. Remmember Activison said two years ago that they took a very hard look at Civ 2.

Look at Intel and AMD. One builds a 900 chip than the other build an 1000 chip. Today I would guess that they are both trying to build 1100 chip.

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[This message has been edited by joseph1944 (edited November 05, 2000).]

UltraSonix · November 5, 2000, 03:03

quote:

If you were Sid and company would you not look at CTP 2 and see what they did and then talk to your engineers to see what you can do better. Remmember Activison said two years ago that they took a very hard look at Civ 2.

Which is what I'm saying that they're probably doing - hence the site is taking a long time to go up...

quote:

Look at Intel and AMD. One builds a 900 chip than the other build an 1000 chip. Today I would guess that they are both trying to build 1100 chip.

AMD's already got a 1.1 and 1.2 Gz chip! (And Intel had a 1.13Gz for a while)

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards... Despite any stupid advertisments you may see to the contrary...

Biddles · November 5, 2000, 12:09

Intel has chips faster than 1 GHZ, they just hold them back and release them slowly so they can milk us for more money.

TheLimey · November 6, 2000, 18:00

Intel holding back silicon? I don't think so. They're already playing catch up with AMD over the P3 vs. Thunderbird. The P4 1.5G is slower on legacy (everything at the moment) code than a P3-900. Rambus is a mess.

Intel is, to put it bluntly, in bad shape until they can get more concept silicon to market. This will cause more OEM's to put AMD in their systems.

Intel is still a giant, and the big guy on the block, but they're certainly not firing on all cylinders.

Maccabee2 · November 6, 2000, 18:51

I think Firaxis *should* "steal" from Activision. After all,didn't Activision get their Civ:CTP idea from Sid to begin with?
From what I've seen so far, it will be at least six months before I buy CTPII, if not a year or more, just to wait for decent reviews. I just can't afford to work as Activision's betatester. I might as well wait for CivIII. Anyone want to sell a copy of AOE or AOE Gold? For less than $25?
BTW, all my fellow Americans, don't forget to vote, or the *real* Chinese will steal more of our technologies and we'll someday see a message on our TV screens not unlike a diplomacy message from any Civ game. "Pay us tribute at once or we'll squash your miserable civilization without mercy!"
Use it or lose it!

Adm.Naismith · November 7, 2000, 09:29

Ultrasonix, I don't think that:

quote:

... this is the reason that Firaxis(Hasbro?) aren't putting up that bloody site of theirs - they also want to see what CTP2 is like, and if they can utilise any good features.

Look, CTP2 news are around from some weeks now, and they are improve an existing game engine.

Firaxis, OTOH, must be rebuilding lot of code from scratch (graphic engine for sure, they told us months ago). You can't easily add feature as minor CIV and leader unit without change CIV2/SMAC source code a lot.

I suppose they are trimming game to see what can realistically fit into the developement frame (I suppose Hasbro is hurrying Firaxis to have something to cash for). Firaxis is probably try to decide how much meat must leave around the bone they are throwing at us.

Too little and we'll start moaning and asking detailed questions, too much and they'll have no hype left for next eight (or more) months 'til game release, and may be some buggy feature they must discard later and apologize with us for early announcement (see CTP2 PBEM/hotseat left out from Activision because of too bugs/time constrain).

Or simply Hasbro/Firaxis is growing too much, and burocracy inefficience is killing them

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant