CIVILIZATION:CTP PREVIEW
PART 2: PAGE 9

Other than that, CTP supports Internet, TCP/IP on LAN and IPX. Hotseat and a Play By E-Mail will be added with a free downloadable patch. For the most used option, Internet, CTP has an integrated matchmaking system. Certainly the best feature about multiplayer, you're presented with a list of Activision's servers around the world, showing how many people are on each server and what's your speed with it. On each server, there can be several lobbys where you arrange games and chat with other players.

Choose your ActivLink server...

Blah blah, multiplayer, blah blah...

There are some other small but important in some cases features. For example, you can exclude any unit, wonder or city improvement from the game. This way, if you don't want a game with slaves or ecorangers, you can. Also, you can start with more than one settlers and as many as gold as you like. Furthermore two players can start with different number of settlers and gold in order to create a handicap between a "deity" and "chieftain"! Finally, beyond the typical infinite and limited time per turn options, there is "carryover"(time you don't use is carried over to the next turns) and "speed cities"(the time you have is analogous to the number of your cities).

So, I don't want to pass some final judgements here, but I think we have some good chances of having decent multiplayer games.

XI) GRAPHICS/SOUND

And what about graphics and sound, the "garniture of games"? :) You can see the graphics in the screenshots. The dream of every civer who hates 256 colours. And lots of animation. Walking, fighting and dying units, resources even trade routes have animations. Personally, I have turned off resources and trade routes though. They made the map too "alive".

As for the sound part, first of all the songs are great, to the effect that I've listened to it without playing the game. But then again I have also like civ2's songs, especially some of the ones on MGE. Songs that lots of people didn't like, so you might not be able to trust me on that one :) But the big change is that now units speak! Yeah, I know this is almost unethical for a die-hard tbs player, but you might get used to it. Or you can turn it off.

As for the wonder movies, they are very good, and all of them computer generated. This will make you miss civ2's "real" videos, but still some of the movies are simply great. Something really nice is that in a couple of the movies, you can see the units as they appear in the game. For example in the Ramayana movie, the archer is exactly the same as in the game!

PAGE 8 IX) TRADE X) MULTIPLAYER

PAGE 10 XI) GRAPHICS/SOUND XIII) SCENARIO/MAP CREATION/CUSTOMISATION

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