Derek did a great job collecting all the new information about CTP that we learned on the CTP Designers Chat. Here is what we learned:

• Our friends at Activision were once again very gracious and friendly with their time. In this session, we talked with with Design Team, which is responsible for balancing units, creating an efficient and fun user interface, and basically making the game FUN! The team consists of William Westwater (Pinkbelly), James Farley (Farside), Jason Feffer (Necro), Brad Santos (Dr No) and Winnie Lee (Lemur).
• We discussed the newest features of Call to Power. Space and Sea expansion, new governments, "unconventional" units, and Wonders were all discussed. These new innovations will allow players to create a myriad of new strategies and find different paths to victory.

Along with other secrets, our designers also revealed the most infamous of the unconventional units -- The Park Ranger. He was created, according to our designers, as a "funny" unit.

• Civs in CTP
• Combat
• Ecological Disasters
• Governments
• Multiplayer
• Park Ranger Explained!
• Secrets Revealed!
• Unconventional Units
• Wonders

Here's a list of the civilizations included in the game, that were revealed in the chat: Welsh, Scots, Irish, British, Jamaicans (led by Bob Marley), Borg, Greeks, Canadians, Portuguese, Hebrews.

Around 40 total, with 36 being English affiliated.

The combat system now works with short range and long-ranged units, and combat is resolved simultaneously. As Pinkbelly stated, "Once you're committed to battle, you're stuck."

[Pinkbelly] Combat is pretty simple -- your stack fights against your opponents stack.

[Dr_No] On the ZOOM Battlefield!

[Pinkbelly] Your army is divided into a front line and a back line. If your soldiers have short range weapons for their time (swords for example), they fight in front. If they have long-range weapons for their time (like bows), they fight in back.

[Pinkbelly] The computer knows who is your best front line soldiers and puts them there. Your back line soldiers (archers) only go to the front if they have no one to protect them.

[Dr_No] Special Units go to the back also [units with 0 attack strength].

[Farside] There is also Air Support from the back line.

[Farside] You do have Overrun on the zoom battlefield. Weak front row unit can be ran over to get at the second row units.

Stacks move as fast as their slowest unit.

[Necro] We also have bombard. That allows you to attack from a distance.

[Farside] You can now siege a city and use a special bombard attack that damages the city and defenders with no chance of you taking losses.

[Necro] A city can defend itself from a siege by attacking the surrounding enemy units from behind City Walls with a Cannon or Artillery. Battleships can bombard a coastal City or land units that are unfortunate enough to be within range of their 16" guns.

The two Ecological disasters in Call to Power are Global Warming and Ozone Loss. Players will have the option to turn the disasters off.

[Pinkbelly] Global Warming first alters the climate -- so that forests become grasslands and such. Then, if things get really bad, the ice caps melt and the coastlands all flood.

[Necro] Tiles get damaged and people get unhappy.

[Pinkbelly] With ozone loss, the northern and southern ends of the world lose ozone protection first. As this happens, the plants and animals beneath the newly formed ozone holes are killed.

Available government types were revealed during out chat. They are Tyranny, Monarchy, Theocracy, Republic, Communism, Fascism, Multinationalism, Democracy, Technocracy, Ecotopia, and Virtual Democracy. Some special units will only be available to a particular government.

[Pinkbelly] Multinationalism represents the time in the near future when corporations form their own governments...Imagine a world where GM, Toyota, and Volkswagen got together and formed a single government.

[Farside] Its a big cash and production government, a little low on science and bad for the environment

[Farside] VD is the Science Government. If you want all Diamond age science you may need VD.

[Pinkbelly] In Virtual Democracy, your people are truly free and equal. It is a very happy, creative government. Naturally, the happy, creative citizens make for rather poor soldiers. In Virtual Democracy, the government is composed of all people -- they vote and participate through automated personalities that reflect their likes and dislikes.

[Farside] Technocracy is good, but I want my Citizens to love me.

[MarkG] Mindless slaves in Technocracy? I thought is was about science?

[Dr_No] yes and production...its a less friendly gov than VD...ideal for the AI entity Wonder

[Farside] That with a wonder of the world that turn them into Mindless Slaves.

[Pinkbelly] In technocracy, the rich are very happy -- the poor are implanted with behavioral circuit controls.

[Farside] Each government type has a Max Empire Size limit. You can go over it, but your people get a little more unhappy with each city. The number is around 10 for Ancient governments.

Players will be able to set the amount of time used per turn. The turns can be as short as 20 seconds, or as long as needed. Players will have several options for customizing parameters for multiplayer. As of the time of this chat, serial connections and modem-to-modem were not to be included. Hot seat is included, along with Activision's plans to launch Activlink, a system for finding opponents. Players will be able to do city management while other players are moving, and chat is supported.

Multiplayer also allows players to carry over unused time to their next round. So, if 60 seconds are allotted for each turn, and you use 30 seconds on your turn, you can have 90 seconds to make your next turn.

[Dr_No] You can start the game with any technologies you want

[Necro] You can set a small map for short, get-down-and-dirty game, or large map on a LAN to play all day.

[Dr_No] You can also exclude Units, Wonders , Improvements

[Pinkbelly] We have an option so that your time changes based on the number of cities that you have.

[Necro] You can play multiple human with additional Ai or just Human.

[Lemur] through activenet, you can see all of the players connected to the server

[Necro] There is also diplomacy to exchange technology, maps, etc...

[Dr_No] Set teams (sharing Line of sight)

[Pinkbelly] The name Park Ranger is meant to be funny. I mean, he's this super powerful weapon of destruction that the ecological fanatics of the future think of as a nice, warm, happy thing. We make the Park Ranger slow and expensive to make up for its awesome power. The Park Ranger is a nanotechnology bomb.

[Dr_No] Its an invisible hover Van (VW) with a ludicrously powerful weapon inside. You can spot it with a spy, and kill it easily with any military unit

[Lemur] it has almost no defense

[Farside] AND it cost a bunch!!

[Pinkbelly] You spot them with Population Monitors or other special units

[Lemur] AND you can only use it once

[Dr_No] It also destroys all tile improvements and Units adjacent to the target city and will not be visible.

• A new aspect of the game is that it will be divided into 5 "ages," according to a respective time in history. Each Age will be 100 turns, with its own look and feel. They are expansion, sea exploration, modern, undersea/space colonization, and finally, the discovery of alien life.
• Many of the new units are female!
• The Patrol mode has been cut, along with the helicopter. Players will still be able to airlift units through cities with airports. Air transport units were mentioned, however.
• The team said that they would release the game "when it's done," and that they were having a big party at Disneyland. Everyone is invited!
• There will be multiple entertainers (instead of just Elvis), based on the type of buildings and improvements you have in your civ.
• There is no ceiling on the amount of gold your civ can have. Trade route limits, however, do have ceiling.
• The "infinite cities trick" is not possible in CTP. Explained by Metamorph, "A common problem in civ1 and civ2 games is the 'infinite cities trick', whereby you simply plop down cities every two or three squares to take advantage of the economic curve insofar as a city of size 1 producing on 2 squares." Also, in CTP, to have many cities in your civ, you will have to have one of the high technology governments. Virtual Democracy, for instance, allows for a large number of cities.
• Players will not be able to "rush" to a government, where the player skips basic techs in order to research only techs that achieve a certain government.
• Estimated price of Call to Power: 49.95 US dollars.
• The wormhole lets you visit another universe, where you can recover alien cells and create your own psionic alien.
• Underwater cities can be bombarded, but are very hard to invade.
• Your cities can start a revolution if they become too unhappy. They will form their own civilization, and you can use spy type units to try and force enemy cities into starting revolutions.
• 100+ technologies available!
• Railroads will now cost movement points. Mag level trains will be included during future times.

[Pinkbelly] Fascists have the Fascist.

[Dr_No] Fascist can use military Units to suppress the population into obedience

[Pinkbelly] Theocracy has the Cleric [and Televangelist].

[Necro] Clerics have played a major factor in the development, colonization and shaping of many Civs over time. Missionaries sent to convert the natives abroad played an integral role on North America's history.

[Pinkbelly] Unconventional combat is a big part of our lives today. The wars fought with money or with propaganda are probably more common than any others.

[Farside] Lawyers have proven their power in the real world.

[Dr_No] You can only capture slaves..otherwise it would be cheesy

[Lemur] you also don't want to have too many slaves around...they might revolt

[Pinkbelly] If you have a Slaver in your army and you win a battle against the enemy, you take some of the enemy as Slaves.

[Dr_No] slaves require no wages and only half food

Slaves can be freed by an enemy abolitionist unit. She will either smuggle them out through the underground railroad, or start a Slave Revolt. Slaves that successfully revolt will start a new civilization and do everything they can to destroy you. They can also be freed by the Emancipation Proclamation Wonder. Slaves can be protected from slave raids by being behind city walls. However, this makes your citizens more unhappy. Your settlers can become slaves by being captured by an invisible enemy unit--the slaver. Military units stacked with settlers can protect them form slavers.

[Pinkbelly] GlobSat gives you worldwide radar. Space lets you see the ground.

The previously mentioned Emancipation Proclamation wonder frees slaves worldwide.