note: This is The Column, a part of Apolyton where primarily Markos and Dan write whatever we want :). Well, not just the two of us. The Column is open to everyone. If you feel like writing submit your article to civ2@gamestats.com

PREVIOUS ARTICLES

#37 INTERVIEW GONE ASTRAY DanQ reproduces his respones to a never-before-published interview. #38 KILL THE REVIEWERS!? Fed up with CTP's negative publicity, MarkG isn't going to take it anymore. COLUMN ARCHIVE

INTRO
Sitting down to write this week's column, I realized I wanted to discuss other things beyond the topic I set last week closing the 38th column. Therefore, I'm glad to present you something you've never seen before! Our first multi-topic column!! Why aren't you laughing?

MY THANKS, FIRST OF ALL
It seems that last week's column touched a lot of people. Beyond the larger than the usual number of responses on the forums, I received several mails with comments any article. On the forums, the response was mixed, with reviews of my one article (in order to feel like the reviewers? :)), but also with some "damn right!" kind of comments. The mails were even more positive for my review... anyway, thanks to everyone.

WHO SAID I DIDN'T LOVE SMAC?
Onto something else. Someone said on the forums that I'm not so supportive of SMAC. A few days ago I mentioned to YYYH that I loved how the map looks in SMAC if you do a full zoom out, and he responded "you're praising SMAC? that's odd!" So, I asked him "did I ever say I dislike it?", to get the response "I never see you defending SMAC like you do CTP...it was assumed". And I'm asking you: if I "defend" CTP in the SMAC forums, does that make me a SMAC-hater? Anyway, I don't feel like justifying why I find SMAC to be a great game. It is amazing though, and a bit sad too, how some people think that a CTP-lover is always a SMAC hater (and vice versa of course).

WHY I PLAY CTP FOR NOW
Now, to the topic I was planing to address today. Despite SMAC being a game worth to be called "Civ3", and despite the fact that I love science fiction, I prefer to play CTP because it deals with real history on an earth map. Starting from the terrain, while the idea in SMAC of taking an ugly alien planet and making into a nice green earthy one with forests, farms and no fungus is intriguing, I prefer CivII's and CTP's earth graphics. Then there is the tech tree. With my not perfect knowledge of english, I would have to have a dictionary open all the time if I was to understand what I'm discovering. Of course, I have more or less learned what I can get from each advance, and what each city improvement does, but I'm still missing something. Finally, while the idea of factions with distinct ideologies which are represented in their strategies is great, I prefer playing against Germans and Russians. By the way, CTP had a flaw there, not putting actual leader pictures in the diplomacy dialogs, and having "diplomats" with some ethnic characteristics. This can be changed though, and Harlan Thompson has already come up with a mod which replaces some of these pictures. A note, which brings me to the next topic, but let me close this paragraph by saying that for all those I reasons I suggested that SMACX should be an "earth mod"...

CTP's POTENTIAL
My final topic for the day, is the potential of CTP. Some judge the game as it is right now. I prefer to see how the game will be in a couple months. We'll have a full working map editor, the ability to play on pre-made maps fully featured (not like now), a scenario editor, as well as an art utility to put in our own graphics (mainly for units). And the last one is the more important. Only with the ability to change the unit and terrain graphics, we'll see CTP really continuing the CivII tradition, with the hundreds of fan created files. For better (and not for worse :)) Activision seems to have understand this. A weak spot seems to be SLIC, the language used in scenario events. While it seems to be powerful, it also seems to be a bit difficult to use. But the best hope for CTP, is the fans that are willing to spend lots of hours not playing but modifying the game files. And these people are the one who Activision should really care about...

END
It's time to put an end to this column. I would just like to make a note for everyone: in the whole article I used the word "I". I don't claim to hold the one and only truth (like some reviewers :)), I'm just writing my opinion. If you disagree, mail me or write in your opinion in a column and send it to markg@apolyton.net. Be sure that we will most likely post it (side note: if we don't it will be because of it's length or abusive language). We haven't rejected a visitor subjected column so far by the way...

The opinions expressed on this page do not necessarily reflect those of Apolyton CS or GameStats. They are just the personal opinions of the writer.