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Old November 23, 2000, 14:52   #1
Tilemacho
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--- 1st game review ---
(took my 5 hours to write...)

Ok here you can find my thoughts during my first CTP2 game.

I have a celeron 400 with 192 RAM and Voodoo 3000 16 RAM. I bought 128 RAM during the game so I compared 64 to 192 RAM:
64: Load= 32 sec next turn= 25 sec at turn 407 (year 1732)
192: Load= 25 sec next turn= 22 sec ...
The huge difference was after playing for 5 hours continuously. With 64 RAM loading a game took about 2 min and next turn 1 min15 sec, whereas after I upgraded there was no difference at all no matter how long I played. The game didn’t crash at all although I didn’t try any scenario or the cheat options.

I played at medium level, 8 civs, huge map and I won the scientific victory after 703 turns (year 2103). I conquered only one civ completely because I wanted to check more the diplomacy options and because the “max city” restriction was always a problem for my plans to expand. The game lasted 7 days and I must have played more than 40 hours to finish it!

In general I liked the game very much (I have played civ1, civ2…quite a lot, SMAC only the demo and CTP1…a lot PBEM) and I can definitely say this is the best title!

Diplomacy is really good (I think there is a little problem with the AI to withdraw his units, especially naval units) and the combat system excellent. Although I don’t always understand how the units are placed, usually I like it. Borders are also very good and the fact that cities grow over the environment as the population increases is fantastic.

I 'm one of those guys who really liked micromanagement. I can't say that I don't like the new system but I think the main reason why it is still functional is because ICS is now even worse! Remember that the first 6 workers now work on 9 tiles! In my last turn I have a coastal city surrounded by tundra with only 1 advanced farm and size 22!!! Something like that would never have happened in CIV2 or CTP1. In those games you should be very careful when choosing where to place you city and you should take care if you wanted it to grow (I liked that!). Of course I don't think players will place cities very close to each other any more, both because it is very nice to see your capital reach size 58 (my largest city by the end of the game) and because you will try to max expand your borders with only 20 cities (max cities in Monarchy and other ancient Governments).
BTW here are the max tiles a city can work according to its size:
Size 1-6 = 9
Size 7-18 = 21
Size 19-33 = 45
Size 34-46 =57
Size 47-… =69

Something I like very much is the way population increases. You no longer have stores that get filled. Instead every turn your population increases according the excess of food in the city. Also the overcrowding effect works nicely. It prevents people from coming in the city although it might have an excess of food. e.g a city has positive food production to able 1500 people to come every turn but because of the overcrowding effect it increases only by 1200. (Note: no matter how much food you produce the max number of growth is 2500 every turn…I don’t like that)

I like the "Feat of Wonder" idea but I am a little bit sceptical because I think they make the best civ even better...

The game has all the information you need but you need too many clicks to get it...the most important is that the city manager and the build manager are separate. I can live with that but at least give me the option to open them both and be able to work on both at the same time...it's quite stupid to open the city manager then click to go to the build manager and then click again to go to the city manager to see something I forgot...and then click again to go to the build manager to finally build what I want.
I also hate the fact that inside the city manager you only see the fortified units. I mean this is completely stupid, a little F in the image would let me now what unit is fortified and what not!
Also the units in a specific tile should be easily seen. I don't want to click to the tile, go to the unit tab if it's a city and the click an arrow to see the units in this tile/city. I consider this information perhaps the most important and I want to access it easily (I don't exactly remember the CTP1 system but I think it was much better).
Also I want every time I double click in a city the city manager to show up. Now if there are any unfortified units the army manager pops up ...now that I remember I also want to be able to tell that diplomat or spy to stay there and never bother me again, why can't I do that! This could be easily overcome if everyone could fortify...!!! I also don't understand why aeroplanes and ships can't fortify, why can't that cool Moray Striker (super submarine) fortify in my SeaBase2 ? (I mean I don't really care if they get a defence bonus, I just don't want them to bother me every time an enemy unit passes by)

Something I like about the build manager is that I can insert, delete, move-up or move down an order! Something I miss is the fact that I don't know in how many turns will a city increase size.

But I have to say that I like the National Manager. When you double-click it autocenters to the city and you are able to select all your cities and overwrite the current queue or append a new order! I would only prefer to be able to open not only the build manager but also the city manager from it. To say the truth when I double-click I would prefer both to center and open the city manager! (Activision give that option please! )
About the auto-center ability of the game: I hate it when I have to move a unit in the edge of my 17 inc monitor and it doesn't autocenter!!!

Now, about the boarders in sea. Although I don't consider this a very big problem I think there is room for improvement. A possible solution would be: in ancient age the boarders extend only one tile inside the sea, in RenaissanceAge 2 tiles and in Modern Age become as they are now(your opinion?).

About the Ship of Line not being able to bombard land units. Although I didn't like it at the beginning I now think it's better that way because of game-balance purposes. I remember from CTP1 that all my 1v1 multiplayer games ended soon after the one player became able to built Ship of Line...maybe a better solution would be to make bombarding very ineffective until later stages of the game.
I would also prefer the Legion unit instead of the Samurai but I don't consider this to be a real problem.

I think it is very stupid that ships that can't see submarines can't fight them when they are visible (e.g near a sonar bay) but can bombard them!

About the trading system. Although I think it is ok I found the CTP1 system were you tried to build monopolies much more fun. Also it seems to me that there are very few goods even in the max setting. I would also like it, if the goods gave to the city something more than just the ability to trade. e.g I would expect a forest with hardwood to have production higher than just 5! Finally I don't like that every time I cancel a trade route I lose one caravan.

Something else that I find very stupid is the fact that a spy can be seen by a diplomat!!! I agree that a diplomat can see a laywer or slaver for example... but other spies should only see a spy.

I like the fact that roads still exist when you place a railroad something which counts for the other tile improvements too.

About the Majors. They are fine but I don't want them to use my PW! Maybe there could be an option to say that a Major will use PW only if they are over 5.000 for example.

About piracy. I think they don't destroy the trade route, they just take the money. If this is true it's very good.

I like the Urban Planner (modern settler). makes a city of size 3 with some buildings. I wonder why the Sea Engineer doesn't work the same way.

I have a feeling that the Tank unit is tooooo strong but I am not that sure about it.

I think the internet is a very strong wonder. It gives every city a computer center. In my game it increased my science by more than 20%. I also don't like that although I had the internet I was still able to build a computer center in each city which of course did nothing...this should be fixed!
Furthermore I couldn't find when the wonders actually expire. This should be in the top in GL I think.
Is it just my idea or are there to many wonders to increase science?

About the advances: I think the engineer should be earlier available in the game but I might be wrong in this one. In general they are fine. The only thing that bothered me is the absence of future advances which should give you extra bonus! They were in CTP1 why not in CTP2?

Buildings: I don't get why a temple is now called shrine and the marketplace bazaar. Also it is impressive that most buildings have minor effectiveness compared to CTP1 and CIV2 (e.g Bazaar, Academy and Mill only +10%), I think this is because workers produce much on their own as I said before.
Television has to be changed! It gives +5 gold per citizen and has an upkeep of only 5 gold!!! To let you see what that means: most of my cities size 20 didn't produce more than 100 gold per turn, but after I built television in them they produced 300!!!

Not important but I loved the CTP1 hover tank icon. I did build them just to view the image! The new one is **** in my opinion...please change it back! To say the trough I also like the war walker and the cannon more in CTP1.

The AI is good I think, although I started a game in very hard and I managed to kill 2 other civs very early (I think I will definitely win this game now). The reason perhaps is that I found 2 archers in ruins and went to attack them with a stack of 4 units (2 warriors and 2 archers). But I noticed when we exchanged maps that they had explored only a very small region (I think this is the problem because if they had explored a little more they would have found the ruins before me a saved themselves).
Note: I found in a ruin in my first game Electricity! I think only ancient advances should be possible to be found in ruins.


Bugs:
1. The is missing a link for the PT boat in the GL
2. In the scoring tab they say 30.000 population but it 300.000. I think they mean 30.000 and they just put a 0 more somewhere.
3. the buildings after wonder thing.


Finally I can say that the game is worth buying. Once again I felt that "one more turn feeling" which to say the trough had missed since Civ2! Of course there is a patch needed to correct several problems and to make Hotseat and PBEM available.
Sorry for the long post, please post any questions or your comments on my "review".

Tilemacho...


[This message has been edited by Tilemacho (edited November 24, 2000).]
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Old November 23, 2000, 15:18   #2
MarkG
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thanks for the extensive review Tilemaxe, some comments

quote:

Originally posted by Tilemacho on 11-23-2000 01:52 PM
Remember that the first 6 workers now work on 9 tiles!
yeah but not on the maximum
quote:

In my last turn I have a coastal city surrounded by tundra with only 1 advanced farm and size 22!!! Something like that would never have happened in CIV2 or CTP1.
different games, different numbers
quote:

Also the units in a specific tile should be easily seen. I don’t want to click to the tile, go to the unit tab if it’s a city and the click an arrow to see the units in this tile/city.
double click to open the army manager
quote:

Also I want every time I double click in a city the city manager to show up. Now if there are any unfortified units the army manager pops up
you can alternatively do right-click/city manager
quote:

I also want to be able to tell that diplomat or spy to stay there and never bother me again…why can’t I do that! This could be easily overcome if everyone could fortify…!!!
place him on a tile next to the city instead. it is crucial to have them in "sleep" cause they will "wake up" when an unconvetional unit approaches
quote:

About the auto-center ability of the game…I hate it when I have to move a unit in the edge of my 17 inc monitor and it doesn’t autocenter…!!!
true, it should be corrected.... in the man time hit "a" to re-center
quote:

Maybe there could be an option to say that a Major will use PW only if they are over 5.000 for example.
if you consider "ok" to edit a text file, see strategies.txt in aidata folder
quote:

I think they don’t destry the trade route…they just take the money. If this is true it’s very good.
it's true. also, in the trade screen, you can see who pirates which trade route
quote:

The only thing that bothered me is the absence of future advances which should give you extra bonus! They were in CTP1 why not in CTP2?
i didnt exactly like it since civ2... future tech 1,2,3? kind of stupid...

 
Old November 24, 2000, 01:31   #3
ElitePersian
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TileMacho is right about a LOT of things, Activision really needs to release a good patch with A LOT of fixes - not 10 different patches with minor fixes. I will buy this game as soon as a "good" patch is released, a patch that fixes most of the problems people were complaining about.
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Old November 24, 2000, 18:26   #4
MarkG
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posted in our (P)Reviews section
http://apolyton.net/ctp2/preview/tilemacho.shtml

if you have a long review like this, mail it to us and we'll post it...
 
Old November 24, 2000, 19:54   #5
Tilemacho
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Thanks Ralf! I was really hard for me to write this review since English is not my mother-language, and it makes me very happy that others liked it

It 's quite possible that I forgot many things to write, so I would be happy to answer any questions you might have!
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Old November 25, 2000, 01:09   #6
Ralf
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Thanks Tilemacho!!

This is what i call a high-quality informative player-review. Not another one of those "story-telling reviews" (...and then suddenly the Romans attacked and conquered my three border-cities, but a couple of turns later, i finally managed to do...) with lots of superlatives in them, but with very few non-biased "dry" descriptions and actual examples in them.

The problem with "story-telling reviews", is that it gives no substancial feedback to the yet undecided customer on how the all-important game-mechanics actually works (or fail to work) in practice. And - also important - how it works (or fail to work) under totally different playing-styles or preferences.

The latter is, not least important. Tilemacho obviously liked the overall game - but that didnt automatically turn him into Activisions PR-guy. Instead he tries to explaine the game-mechanics and expose what he think is weaknesses in the game.

Or alternatively; simply describing whats happens on the screen, if he tries to do this or that, and then let the review-readers decide for themselfes.

Again, good review!
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Old November 27, 2000, 18:52   #7
Azmel2
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Thanks for the review Tilemacho. I wanted to try and answer a couple of your questions:

quote:

Originally posted by Tilemacho on 11-23-2000 01:52 PM
About the Majors. They are fine but I don't want them to use my PW! Maybe there could be an option to say that a Major will use PW only if they are over 5.000 for example.



I'd like to use this opportunity to show how the scripting system can be used to customize the game. This might be more complicated than most folks will want to get, but it serves as a good example for players and mod makers alike.

The solution would be to add a new strategy record to strategies.txt that looks like:

STRATEGY_LARGE_PW_RESERVE {
PublicWorksReserve 5000
}

When this strategy is loaded, it will increase the public works reserve so that mayors (or AI) will only spend PW above this limit.

You must then use SLIC to load this strategy explicitly for human players. This should be done by adding to one of the slic scripts (I'd use diplomacy.slc) the following event handler:

HandleEvent(NextStrategicState) 'ChangeHumanMayorStrategy' pre {
// increase PW reserve for human players
int_t db_index;
int_t ss_priority;
db_index = StrategyDB(STRATEGY_LARGE_PW_RESERVE);
ss_priority = 500;

if (db_index >= 0 && IsHumanPlayer(player[0]))
{
ConsiderStrategicState(player[0], ss_priority, db_index);
}
}


quote:

Originally posted by Tilemacho on 11-23-2000 01:52 PM
About piracy. I think they don't destroy the trade route, they just take the money. If this is true it's very good.



Yup, that's correct. As long as the pirating unit does not move (or get destroyed), they get the money from the route.

-- Richard
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Old November 27, 2000, 20:38   #8
MarkG
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cool azmel!

now, is there a way to keep the mayors from puting laborer specialists in cities when your civ is creating too much pollution and you're close to disaster?
 
Old November 27, 2000, 21:37   #9
Samudragupt
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Hi everybody
But if we use Azmel's solution arent we also in a way stopping the AI from utilising its PW's. Because if I am not mistaken the mayors controlling our cities are the same as the one controlling the AI's ???



------------------
Your face our ass whats the difference - Da'Duke
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Old November 27, 2000, 22:08   #10
ak
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If you add the SLIC routine he describes, I believe it will only affect the human player.
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Old November 28, 2000, 11:51   #11
Apollon
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"You must then use SLIC to load this strategy explicitly for human players. This should be done by adding to one of the slic scripts (I'd use diplomacy.slc) the following event handler"

I belive that's your answer

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Old November 29, 2000, 16:13   #12
Mr Ogre
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This is a good opportunity to describe the right way to make a mod pack. The first step is to create a new "scenario" using the editor: Open the editor and click Save Scenario. Click the New button, and fill in the details for the new mod pack (which may contain multiple mods, but will only contain one for this example.) Click OK, and then click New again (you should be viewing an empty list of scenarios before clicking New the second time.) Fill in the details for the new scenario. At this point, you will have a complete pack and scenario, which if loaded will have no effect at all on gameplay.

So now it's time to change something. There are two parts to Richard's PW mod, a change to strategies.txt and an added event handler. To change strategies.txt, you need to first replicate the standard version in your mod. Assuming you named your mod pack directory "PWModPack", find it in [installdir]/scenarios/PWModPack. Inside that, there will be a scen0000 directory. Inside the scen0000 directory, you can recreate any part of the standard data. For this example, you need to create .../PWModPack/scen0000/default/aidata/strategies.txt. The "default" directory should already exist (creating the scenario created it) but you need to make the aidata directory. Then copy the standard strategies.txt into that directory, and add to it Richard's suggested record.

Finally, open .../PWModPack/scen0000/default/gamedata/scenario.slc (which should already exist as an empty file) and copy the event handler to it.

Then to play your Mod, just click the Select Scenario button on the launch screen, and choose it like you would any scenario.

Just to finish this with an example of how to distribute a mod, I've zipped up everything needed for this mod and placed the zip here. If you unzip this to [installdir]/scenarios (which should create a directory named [installdir]/scenarios/PWModPack), you'll have everything you need to play this mod.
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Old November 30, 2000, 04:52   #13
Tilemacho
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Coooollll............
Thanks for your responce Azmel!

I never thought Activision would read my review...and now they made a mod !!!

Keep up the good work

Just a few more things that I think could be added in the patch.

1. A building that eliminates overcrowding once and for all! It'a not that fun to have that super-city and not being able to make it over size 60

2. Make a building option dissapear after the wonder is built (e.g. shrine after the Hagia Sofia wonder...)

3. Make all the ancient wonders become obsolete after some time

4. Make the AI much more agressive (and impossible level real impossible... )

thats all for now...

Again thanks for your responce...I think that if you here the civers here in Apolyton you can correct every single imbalance the game has and make it a real classic one...!!!



[This message has been edited by Tilemacho (edited November 30, 2000).]
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Old November 30, 2000, 17:20   #14
Pyaray
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quote:

Originally posted by Tilemacho on 11-30-2000 03:52 AM
2. Make a building option dissapear after the wonder is built (e.g. shrine after the Hagia Sofia wonder...)



A comment. The reason you can still build the buildings that the wonders pretend to be is because you could lose the wonder. What would happen if the city that has that wonder was captured, and you didn't have a single one of those buildings built in any city. Leaving that option in the build queue was an intentional decision.

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Old November 30, 2000, 17:29   #15
MarkG
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so it's not a bug, it's a feature


btw, while you have the wonder, if you built the improvement, will it work? if not, will it start working if you loose the wonder?
 
Old November 30, 2000, 18:03   #16
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hmm well I still don't like that feature. But it is personal opinion. Maybe I'm an optimistic player. I never expect to lose a wonder. I think this has happened only once in civ2. And yes it was a happiness wonder and did cause some riots. But I quickly recovered and stomped them completely with no remorse. But I digress.

This doesn't bother me too much, because I pay attention to what wonders I have and their effects. I rarely make the mistake of building something I don't need.
 
Old November 30, 2000, 20:05   #17
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quote:

Originally posted by MarkG on 11-30-2000 04:29 PM
so it's not a bug, it's a feature


Words to live by!
quote:


btw, while you have the wonder, if you built the improvement, will it work? if not, will it start working if you loose the wonder?


No. Yes.

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Old December 1, 2000, 23:16   #18
Grumbold
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Also important, if you build the building "just in case" do you pay the upkeep costs for it while it is effectively neutralised by the wonder?
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Old December 2, 2000, 09:12   #19
Tilemacho
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You sure do!!!

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