COLUMN #116; BY MISTERHUNGRY (20 May 2000, 11:48 EST/Misc) MisterHungry is taking Civilization head on in debating its historical roots in his debute article "Why Civ Is The Greatest And Worst Game Ever".
COLUMN #115; BY ALEXANDER SESCUAN (13 May 2000, 20:57 EST) Alexander Sescuan, an experienced Civ2 and Smac player, makes suggestions for future civ games, in our latest article: Column #115 entitled "Terraforming Alpha Centauri". -MarkG
SLIC 1.2 DOCUMENTATION! (19 May 2000, 21:07 EST/CtP) Better late than never. Joe Rumsey, one of CTP's programmers, and SLIC expert, sent us the documentation for SLIC, updated with the changes of the 1.2 patch. We still have several months until CTP2, it will be certainly helpfull.... Thanks Joe! Comments on the CTP Creation forum
HOW THE COW GOT SLAUGTHERED (15 May 2000, 4:08 EST) One of the most discussed units that never made it on CTP, was the cow unit. If you dont remember, the cow units looked like a... cow, and could boost the food production of a tile. Since it was a unit you could move it wherever it was needed. In the end, the unit was cut, but the sprite was there(check out Mr Temba's Cow Mod that enables it).
Today, Mr Ogre of Activision, when the question of whether the cow unit will be back was posted, answered negatively and explained how it got... slaughtered the first time... We all got a real kick out of it too, and it was useful for its intended purpose, but it was also far too useful as a defense against stealth units. No, it couldn't see stealth units, but you could build cows all around your city and effectively stop stealth units from getting to it. We called it the Wall of Beef defense. We could have made cows more expensive to make that unreasonable, but then you'd have been better off just building more farms. So they had to go. -MarkG
PROJECTED 2001 RELEASE (18 May 2000, 20:55 EST/Alt) According to a report from Computer Games Online, Stardock Systems' revamped Windows version of Galactic Civilizations is set to go public beta this summer and be released early next year.
The game is being recreated from scratch, but is taking advantage of much of Stardock's in-house technology, including its artificial intelligence engine known as the SDS/AI, used in Stardock's last game title, Entrepreneur.
GALCIV FOR WINDOWS: E3 (11 May 2000, 19:48 EST) Games Domain in the UK is reporting from E3 2000 at the Los Angeles Convention Center that Stardock Systems is diverting more resources in developing a Windows version of Galactic Civilizations; this will be an ongoing process over the next 18 months. GalCiv will also be a vehicle to help promote Stardock's forthcoming Drengin.net service. Drengin will be a low fee subscription service that will make episodic "AAA quality" games available over the net.
AVERAGE INTEREST IN DINOS (14 May 2000, 7:52 EST) Our 3d Dinosaurs poll, titled "Your interest in Dino so far?", has ended with a total of 505 votes. Here are the full results
5(already an addict)
65 / 12%
4(I've started renting movies with dinosaurs for some reason)
WHICH IDEA DO YOU LIKE BEST? (14 May 2000, 7:58 EST) Our 4th poll is about some of the ideas mentioned in the 6th Diary. Here is the exact part of the diary 1. Create a head dino character, an "alpha" dino or King/Queen Dino. This would be a single dino around which the rest of the herd revolves. This 'HeroSaur' could have special traits
2. Humanize the dinos. An interesting solution. One easy way to do this is through the baby dinos. When a new dino hatches, it would actually come out as a baby, and would follow its mother around until it gets old enough to go out on its own.
3. Emphasize the story of these dinos so that players become invested in that story. A simple technique Sid is experimenting with is the DinoCam, a kind of window on special events in the game, such as births, battles, and deaths
4. A vicious enemy. Be it the terrible harshness of the environment or an enemy dino so huge and violent it makes the player's heart leap
5. A home. Allowing the dinos to influence the environment, through nesting, digging, "fertilizing," or otherwise shaping an area to the player's liking, would create a physical space into which the player has invested time and effort
6. Expressive animation. Giving the dinosaurs more character than the grim reptilian faces they probably possessed would engage the player and help them to project emotions into the dinosaurs.
7. Big goals. Give the dinos something to drive them forward to the endgame. Give the player something big to grasp for, such as evolving a dinosaur to stand the test of time. =)
SMAC AND SMAC-X FOR LINUX: COMING NEXT WEEK? (18 May 2000, 20:32 EST/SMAC) Looking on Amazon for the SMAC-X for the Macintosh, I discovered the entry of SMAC for Linux instead. But it's not just smac. Amazon's entry is Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri with Alien Crossfire to be exact. Apparently, there will be a "pack" option availiable only. Pre-ordering is possible and the listed price is set at $49.99. Perhaps the most important is that the page mentions May 27 as the release date. Loki's page for SMAC doesn't offer any more information on this nor is SMAC availiable for pre-ordering on Loki's electronic shop. We'll have to wait and see... -MarkG
MAC SMAC-X REACHES GAMERS (18 May 2000, 20:07 EST/SMACX) iMac722 is probably the first Apolytoner who got SMAC-X for Mac. At least he was the first to post about it. If you too got SMAC-X for Mac, please post your impressions on the forums -MarkG
TOP AL&PD LINKS FOR APRIL (12 May 2000, 23:48 EST) Good efforts are awarded on the Apolyton Links&Products Directory! Recently added, the OCC Guide and the Colonization page grabbed high places during April
Again, we ask for your ratings in order to collect as many opinions as possible. -MarkG
MANY MAPS ON NEW SITE (17 May 2000, 23:55 EST) The Civilization community is growing again. Azenion's Civilization II Site was just launched recently and contains 91 original maps, from the same author to boot, available for download in a single ZIP file. Each map comes with an online preview in the form of a screenshot. -DanQ
65 / 12%