Apolyton Civilization Site

January 1 - August 3 2001: Who, when, what :)

THREE YEARS AND FORTY TWO MILLION HITS PASSED

THE YEAR IN HEADLINES (part I)

THE YEAR IN HEADLINES (part II)

BIRTHDAY T-SHIRT

PARTY TIME

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY APOLYTON!"

JANUARY 2001
January 8 Official Civ3 site launched

"You read right -- Firaxis Games launched the official CivIII website early this afternoon"
January 13 Spanich Civ2 forum opens

"It is my pleasure to announce the creation of a new forum, the forum of the The Spanish Civilization II Site"
January 15 SDC3 winner announced

"The winner of the Scenario Design Contest #3, for Fantastic Worlds, is Athena for his/her entry "The Odyssey." In all aspects, it is a superb scenario. Congratulations!"
January 15 Manifest Destiny hits alpha

"Ron Hiller announced on our Alternative Civs forum the official release of the Alpha version of Manifest Destiny."
January 20 Activision announces the end of the CTP series

"We have been reviewing the posts by various forum members calling for additional patches to make the AI more challenging for them, to add PBEM and Hotseat back in, and various other requests. These requests, which sound simple, are actually long, complex feature additions that would require up to 3-4 months of programming and testing time. This is not feasible, as the Call to Power II team is moving on to other projects. So there will be no additional patches, enhancements or scenarios coming from Activision. Additionally, there are no immediate plans to make an expansion or sequel.
None of these decisions were taken lightly, however, we feel that in the end, we have delivered a game that met the design goals of the project: an empire-building game that delivers new diplomatic features, more realistic combat, better empire management options, a new interface, and a customizable gaming engine to extend the life of the game. We thank all of you for your dedicated support and enthusiasm over the last four years. We look forward to seeing the results of the various mods and scenarios that the community is working on"
January 21 CTP2 file database opens

"Our CTP2 Files Database is now open! 47 Files our waiting for you to download them thank to the work of Omnigod, our DB Manager"
January 24 Sid kills dinosaurs

"I have decided to set aside Dinos for a while to work on this new idea, as well as devoting my attention to CivIII"
January 25 Brian Reynolds interview

"Brian Reynolds, President of BHG, recently took some time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions we threw his way about all things"

FEBRUARY 2001
February 3 Civ3 will not have a unit workshop

"Dan Magaha posted on our forums to make the correction We will *not* be using a design workshop, nor will there be any type of "mix and match" unit designer"
February 14 Official civ2 site disappears

"The recent sale of Hasbro's Hasbro Interactive(HI) part to Infogrames seem to have some effect on the official civ2 sites. Civii.com is now a "mirror" of the Hasbro.com site."
February 17 Civ3 release date? There is no such thing

"We have not yet announced a release date for CivIII, Gilmore told us. You guys [Apolyton] will be among the first to know when we announce the date"

MARCH 2001
March 1 Civ3 site updated

"We will definitely have a replay function similar to the replay system in Alpha Centauri. We're also considering adding some new features to it, but at this point, nothing has been finalized"
March 5 Europa Universalis forum

"Seeing the interest for Europa Universalis rise in the Other Games forum, we decided to give the (existing) request a chance."
March 13 One year of GG&S

"Actually, one year and one week. Still, the guys from the Guns, Germs & Steel team were not too celebrational about it"
March 25 Centauri Dawn contest begins

"It's only our first Alpha Centauri relared contest, but we are very proud of it. And that's because this is not a simple "give away presents" contest, but a pure effort to produce lots and good smac fiction!"
March 27 CGW civ3 preview

"Each civilization accumulates cultural points based on the types of city improvement built and how long they've been around. When one civilization takes over a foreign city a stronger culture rating will make the assimilation easier and avoid debilitating unhappieness"

APRIL 2001
April 1 Server upgrade

"We moved to a new bigger, faster and with more... "tools" Gamestats server"
April 6 Civ3 site update

"No public works system. Classic settler now removes two populations units in an effort to kill ICS. A new worker unit does all the teraforming stuff"
April 9 Galactic Civilizations site goes live

"Stardock, the company developing GalCiv, originally produced it for the OS/2 platform but is now being expanded into the Windows environment. The site will contain up to date news on the game and game design process and allow you to interact with the development team"
April 13 First hint of Maxis/Firaxis game

"Legendary game designer, Sid Meier (Alpha Centauri & Civilization), has been spotted at Maxis on a few occasions in recent months."
April 21 Tradewars 2002 and Earth 2025 forums open

"Earth 2025 and Trade Wars 2002 are two of the most fun online games you can play waiting for Civ3"
April 29 Is it SimGolf?

"Any such statements at this point are mere speculation, and should be taken no more as such, but sources close to Maxis who we have contacted (and who wish to remain anonymous) seem to be reluctant to officially dismiss the story"

MAY 2001
May 1 Freeciv in italiano

"The official Freeciv website announced that a localized Italian verion of the game had been completed. The same group has additionally translated the entire Freeciv website, naturally, into Italian."
May 10 Yes, it is Sid Meier's SimGolf!

"Sid Meier's SimGolf is a management strategy game that will be instantly familiar to anyone who's played any of the SimCity games"
May 11 Civ3 site update

"The eight-page Resources slideshow is very illuminating, highlighting what is perhaps the most interesting new feature of the game, accompanying a brief article by CivIII team programmer Soren Johnson"
May 17 Civ3 to be ported on the Mac

"The company that will be doing the porting is MacSoft, the same outfit that ported Civilization II and its expansion packs to the said platform in the past"
May 21 Forums upgraded

"We have converted our forums to vBulletin, perhaps the most powerfull board system in it's category"
May 23 10000 Forum logins

"Yes, that happened before the upgrade, but we didnt report about it. We now have more than 10000 logins!"

JUNE 2001
June 2 Centauri Dawn Contest winners!

"SMAC Fanatic's UNITY and Argonaut's DAY OF RECKONING are the two First Prize Winners of our "Centauri Dawn" Contest. They each win an authographed copy of Mike Ely's "Centauri Dawn" book
Many thanks to Mike Ely for the original idea and the prizes, Hydro, Googlie and Velocyrix for acting as judges and their help in forming the rules, and of course thanks to the participants! "
June 6 Medieval Pack II: A Call To Arms released

"The Medieval Pack II combines the Medieval mod with customized versions of Harlan's Graphics mod, Martin's Citymod2 and Dale's Diplomod, plus SLIC triggers from Locutus, Dale, Gedrin and others.
The Medieval Pack II adds many new units, both player-created and from Ctp1, 60 new advances, 3 new improvements and 3 new governments, as well as many dozens of smaller changes."
June 8 SMAC Forum Wars to begin

"The teams for Forum Wars - The Ultimate Challenge have been decided..."

JULY 2001
July 1 ToT SDC#3 winners announced

"The 3rd Scenario Design Contest is finally over. The winners are:
Winner: Shelley
Runner up: Harris
Peoples' Choice award: Harris"
July 6 Yin found guilty of SimGolf idea

"Unfortunately, it looks that way. Yin, by his own mistake, revealed that he is the first to mention the idea of a golf-related game by Sid Meier!"
July 6 Face of Apolyton #1: Velocyrix

"We are glad to announce that as of today we are starting a new series of interviews. Hopefully on a steady pace, we will be presenting special members of our community. We start with Velociryx, author of the famous SMAC Strategy Guide"
July 14 Planetary Pack for Linux

"Loki Entertainment has released the first patch for their Linux port of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Planetary Pack which contains both Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and its expansion pack, Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire."
July 17 Apolyton Pack for CTP2 released

"It's true! Dale's extremely fast work has given us the Apolyton Pack for CTP2"
July 17 ACSR Launches

"After several months of preparation on issues such as formatting, back issues and section layout/presentation, Apolyton Civilization Site Radio -- or ACSR for short -- has launched"
July 18 Westlake to do Mac Civ3

"Westlake Interactive, who did the CTP1 port for the Macintosh platform, will also do the Civ3 port"
July 22 Face of Apolyton #2: WesW

"This time Solver interviews WesW, author of the Medieval Mod for Call to Power & Call to Power II. "
July 23 New Firaxis logo

"This morning confirmation of the logo's legitimacy was delivered by Kelley Gilmore, Firaxis' Communications Manager"
July 26 SimGolf webcast

"Head on over to the SimCity website on Thursday, July 26th, at 6PM ET (3PM Pacific) for the first SimGolf webcast"
July 29 Jeff Morris interview

"Apolyton opens it's Civilization III Interviews Series with an interview of Jeff Morris, Civ3 Assistant Producer. Jeff gives answers to many open questions on the number of civs, the official site, the release date and much more. We hope that you find it interesting!"
July 31 Civ3 Limited Edition

"We're still working out the final details, but it'll come in a very nice tin with the game, manual, a "Making of Civ III" CD and some other cool stuff, Gilmore said."

AUGUST 2001
August 3 COC joins Apolyton

"Apolyton is proud to announce its newest affiliate and hosted site, The Cradle of Civilization."

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