One day there was a link to Apolyton in a news item, and it took me here for the first time. First I just read the news, but so one day something made me notice the forum. I don’t remember what it was, but it was early April then and it might have had something to do with the recent CivIII-site update. It didn’t take long before I wanted to register to be able to post. I registered on Apolyton as vgriph and kept that name under my newbie period. First I only knew of the CivIII General/Suggestion forum. I don’t know how long it took, but suddenly I was pointed to the Community forum after posting a site-related question in the CivIII forum. That opened my eyes to the entire forum and not just one of the forums. I wanted to be more then an unknown poster in the Civ community. I wanted to be connected to something, I wanted to be known in the community. To get to know the community better I read through all posts, not archived, in the CivIII General/Suggestion forum to get some history of the forum and learn what kind of posters everyone were. This was back then when my time was almost unlimited. I actually replied to some of these old threads, if I had anything to say on the topics.

The time went on, the forums were changed to vBulletin, and I got renamed. Some posters had already knew me under my old name, but still I was unknown to the common, so a change couldn’t hurt, and Gramphos were simply a better nick. Then suddenly the news told me that the site were three years old, when I’ve only been here for a little more then three months. Now one more year has passed and many things have happened to Apolyton and me. One year ago I could never dream of writing this, but yet I am writing it now. I’m the newest registered staff, so for me this year spans almost my entire time here.

After the birthday last year a lot of fact gathering about CivIII took place and the hunting for new screenshots and unseen details and comments become a part of the normal day. This was the time when rumors circled around and many things were misquoted or changed by the developer. If you didn’t have image evidence it was almost impossible to prove anything, and sometimes even the images were old models. Some issues were actually not solved until the game was released. The clubs were created, the forum filled with pessimists, realists and optimists, and one of the big subjects was the inclusion of multiplayer in Civ III, where the pessimists was right.

When CivIII got out in the US I got my hands on a BIC-file, and found out that the format was very simple. As the editor didn’t allow new units to be created I begun on a project, which turned out to be bigger then I ever could dream of: I wrote a small program with the power to duplicate units in a BIC-file. Thanks to the great feedback I kept on developing the tool and extended it to copy other parts of the BIC-file, and the CopyTool was born. I’ve been working on this project now and then since that early prototype was created. New tools were integrated in it, and it was renamed to Civ3MultiTool.

Even thou I’ve been working on this utility since CivIII was released are there many other things that has happened to Apolyton during that time. The Civ II section has grown again with the democracy game, in which I started as a science minister, and many civers has joined the game. It’s sad that I lately have visited there less, because it is a great game, and idea. It’s just that my spare time has reduced alot lately. The entire concept of this gaming type is great idea, which suits perfectly for TBS games, and I’m happy that it has been brought over to CivIII as well.

This is my view of the year; there is only one thing missing: The reason why I’m writing this. Since the release of CivIII my base forums changed from the CivIII-General to CivIII-Creation and CivIII-Files as I was, and still am, interested in whit people do with the editor and what they want to do, but can’t, as well as what is extra hard to do. When then the activity of the General forum reached a level where more posts were posted then you could possible read, there were always a new post once you had written a reply to one, I escaped to Creation where the activity were moderate. This was in the time when I tried to read every single post in the General forum. As that simply was impossible I started to browse other forums more, and Creation was the best of them. Now and then I checked back to the General, but I based myself in Creation. The activity in General is now up to a level I can handle, and of which I think I don’t miss so mush.

In the beginning of this year the Creation forum started to fill with unmoved files, and many posters and creators become irritated on the situation. I interested myself in trying to get those files moved in one way or another, as well as keeping up with my tool and keeping it updated, so I tried to get Markos to do something about it; and so he did. I was made ACS CivIII Files Manager. The first time as file manager was hard, as there were so many unmoved files, and my real life required some time as well. From then it’s been quite easy to handle. First I was checking at least twice a day for new files, but now it’s gone down to a more moderate level. The recent opening of the Apolyton directory has also involved some work for me, especially before it’s open making sure that all the current CivIII files got added correctly.

And by this I thank Apolyton for an interesting year, with many changes to the better.
/Gramphos