SINGLE CITY SCREEN! (10 June 2000, 2:29 EST) One of the things many people were used in Civ2 and missed in CTP1 was the screen with all the data related to one city. Instead, CTP1 broke the data into several "tabs". CTP2 keeps the tabs(and the multiple city screen of course), but also brings back the (single)city screen! St Swithin posts: There is a City management screen, which focuses on one city and its intimate inner workings. The screen I'm talking about is a summary of all of the cities in your empire, so if you wanted a closer look at a specific city, you would just double-click it and go to the City management screen Related forum thread -MarkG
CITY MANAGMENT SCREEN USE (9 June 2000, 9:11 EST) An... Actisigner is asking for your feedback: We've got something of an internal schism regarding the City Management screen. As you might recall, in CTP, it was a list summary of all of the cities in your civilization. From there, you could 1) change city names 2) change what they were currently building 3) load/create/save build queues 4) disband cities. 5) view statistical information (i.e. food, prod., gold, etc.)
My question to all of you: what did you primarily use the screen for? This will help determine the functionality that eventually goes into the game. Thanks again! Well, thanks for asking St Swithin! -MarkG
CHANGES ON GOODS VALUE (8 June 2000, 13:05 EST) Some info on the value of goods from Mr Ogre(the most beloved man in the ctp2 forums lately :)) Goods are not all equally valuable now. Distance from the destination city of a trade route and overall scarcity of goods both modify the value of a good. It's a pretty simple model, but it adds some interest to trade Btw, if you have ideas on how a game's history can be viewed again at the end, it seems that there is room for suggestions. Post now! -MarkG
Apolyton News
1-10/June 2000
CALL TO POWER II
MORE CTP2 INFO
REPLAY AT END OF GAME ALA CIV1? (10 June 2000, 2:41 EST) It's possible! Activision had already announced a "historical timeline" feature. It seems that the plan included a record of the bgiest events of the game(something that did exist in civ1). What was not included(until now hopefully) was the animated map showing the changes of the borders through time. Mr Ogre explains: Most of the data for a replay showing events will be collected for what's planned will be collected anyway. The geographic part of the thing everyone wants wasn't planned, nor the animated part. But we will at least have a chronological record of all the big events that happen in the game. Given that, it's possible we can record the geography too and work the map replay in. It might be a good learning task for our new programmer when he gets here in a few weeks, to get him up to speed on several parts of the game. I'll think about that. Activision has really showed that it listens, add your voice, post: "Just like in Civ1!" :) As a reminder, we'll repost the results of the CTP1 poll: End Game Replay as in Civ1?
WHO ARE THE ACTIGRAMMERS? (8 June 2000, 9:55 EST) Here is part of the CTP2 development team, mainly the people involved in the AI programming, as presented by Mr Ogre(a.k.a. Joe Rumsey :))
I am the lead programmer. Steve had to leave for personal reasons about a month and a half ago. This was rough on all of us, but we're on good terms, and his decision had nothing to do with the team, the game, or the company. He's still a good friend, and I'm sure we'll hear from him on other games in the future. He and I worked together for more than three years total (not continuously, one of those years was on Close Combat a while before we regrouped on CTP1), that was longer than anyone else for either of us.
Richard Myers, who came on to CTP1 about halfway through to work on the AI, is still in charge of the AI. He also contributed AI code to Star Trek: Armada.
We also have Brian Hawkins on UI and graphics, who was also full-time on ST:A and wrote a couple of things for CTP1 (The monument screen and end game UIs, for example)
We have one more programmer starting in a couple of weeks, and one intern, Geoff, for the summer. In addition, Ian Davis, our main AI guy on CTP1 and the lead on ST:A, is doing contract work on some UI components and auxilliary tasks
Our farewell to Steve Mariotti and our thanks for his help over the last years. -MarkG
LINUX/MAC VERSIONS: LOKI/MACSOFT FIRST (7 June 2000, 16:24 EST) Yesterday we were posting on how things were going to be done with the linux/mac port of Civ3. Here's a reponse from Mr Ogre about CTP2 I can't actually comment on any plans for Linux and Mac versions yet except to say that it's up to Loki and MacSoft, respectively, whether and when they want to do ports. Any announcements would come from them first, not Activision. Interesting, no? Related Forum thread -MarkG
MISCELLANEOUS
GAMESPY ON PIRACY (9 June 2000, 21:14 EST) In the first of three installments, GameSpy Industries takes a look at software piracy in the gaming industry today.
Written by David Cuciz, this edition deals with the varying terminology associated with piracy, compares worldwide piracy rates by region, and the existing and emerging protection schemes that copyright holders are utilizing to fight back against this growing menace. -DanQ
TOP AL&PD LINKS FOR MAY (1 June 2000, 14:21 EST) Last month's new entries are taking higher places on the Apolyton Links&Products Directory! Meanwhile, we have some re-entries, the Top 10 with Civ Land and the Civ3 Civilopedia, and the Spanish site is almost on the #1 place, just 0.02 away from our Civ2 section!
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