Apolyton Review: Day 1 (and Day 2 and Day 3 and Day 4 and Day5!)

[Guest]

Firaxis: Wrong way to treat Fans!

Great review Yin, I agree with most of your points in whole, and in part with the rest. I, also, feel like a Beta tester (shouldn't we be getting paid for this?)

I have a funny feeling that Firaxis knew about most of the bugs that are currently being reported, and that it is a tactic used by them so that they'll be able to soothe us with a patch or two. This being so that the MP issue would become less of an item of irritation for us civers than having a non-buggy SP game!

They are tyring to give a new scent so we'll fall off of their trail. They had to know that a sloppy manual and very little specifics on game play would piss more than a few people off, wouldn't they? Is that how you make a game harder to win; "Don't tell them the rules which govern the game (I'm sure the AI knows), they'll have to play a few thousand times to decipher the rules for themselves." Which is exactly how I fell they are doing to the loyal fans of the Civilization series of games; is this any way to treat anyone who is loyal to a product of yours?

So go ahead Firaxis, give us the patch you've probably already have ready (you knew the problems were there before you relesed it!), and get MP installed (with an expanded manual and vcarious other little add-ons, so you could charge us for the same game twice!), and please don't think I'll be quite as guilable as I was this time around when it comes time to roll out Civ 4.

[Fidel]

that ***** joan d'arc

hey markos, i see you are having fun.
just one correction for day 3 review,that peace agreement part is not accurate
as for invasions - i have seen 3 transports, together with some carpet bombing to soften my defenses.
i was playing yesterday 11:00 - 03:00. yes, it is really THAT pathetic. my gf is coming back only today and i have some classes to prepare so i thought, well lets give it half a day of play....huh....i should have known better
americans were nasty but my hoplites were too much for their puny civ. abe was VERY agressive, i liked that touch, just like in real life, it is only that this time my orthodox hordes finished him off in coordination with egyptians.
there was a long war in the middle ages, then a long peace and then, around 1800 a full fledged modern warfare hell started.
first i must note that something about diplo agreements has to be tweaked. e.g. if i have mutual protection with france, iroquis and aztecs and france has a mutual protection with me, aztecs and egyptians, sometimes a declaration of war between aztecs and egyptians can lead to 'everyone against everyone' declarations of war.
well what happened (after i reloaded) was that egyptians got thrashed by everyone. it was a total war, conscripts were dying in thousands, corinth and philadelphia were razed to the ground (there has to be some tweak so that razing is not such a favourable option), greek people were making two full tank armies every two turns. hector and achilles were leading the charge and the egyptian vermin was erradicated. france provided naval and air support and even staged a MASSIVE invasion into egyptian heartland (but that expedition was wiped out after afight broke out (us. vs. romans) over the spoils of war.
war was SO LONG that the war weariness did not surprise me. modern warfare is FASCINATING! it really feels engrossing and SO MUCH FUN. massive clashes. (two notes: first type of fighters becomes obsolete almost instantly - that has to be changed, because they are useless; second - pressing shift really blitzes AI turns).

i managed to grab some strategical resources (although both my uraniums depleted - and i thought that i will have it comfy )) and built UN (here: HOW do i know who has how many votes in the UN? also, how do i plant spies after building intelligence agency (it still gives me just those two options - investigate and steal).

now i wage war by proxy (very cool) i am pumping techs and resources into iroquise who are fielding modern armor agains french (they share the continent). french are my main contenders and they do not have rubber . i am surprised they did not really beg for it but i guess it could be made that AI literally begs for a cool resource instead of giving me just one tech for that

i will try NOT to finish that game today. i look like a wreck and had 5 hrs sleep. i was dreaming about mech infantry upgrades.

P.S. isnt caesar just a pain in the butt?

[Guest]

Re: that ***** joan d'arc

Originally posted by LaRusso


i managed to grab some strategical resources (although both my uraniums depleted - and i thought that i will have it comfy )) and built UN (here: HOW do i know who has how many votes in the UN? also, how do i plant spies after building intelligence agency (it still gives me just those two options - investigate and steal).

I think you just have to put an embassy in each civ you want to plant a spy on; the embassies you may have placed in the past are taken away every time you go to war with a civ. Hope that helps.

[Jaybe]

A note re the tile info box:
It can easily (and safely) be closed by pressing either esc or return.

[DaddyCool]

Hey MarkG...I think the numbers next to each city in the spaceship dialog means (number of turns for the city to build that part if you switch now / number of turns if that city started from scratch)

[MarkG]

i spent another 7 hours today on a game i "had" to finish so "day 4" will be posted tomorrow morning....

[yin26]

bigfree1: Thanks. Yes, I think they were at work on a patch before the game was even mastered.

[TCO]

Mark,

1. I love the webmaster!*

2. I like the style of the "impressions". Nice screenshots (really really appreciated). And a very nice light touch that gives us the feel for the game. I take back my earlier comments that we don't need a review from you. This has a different slant than the other reviews that I appreciate.

3. Joan looks hot in modern clothes. I think she just need a man to love her and bring out her feminine side...



*but not in the "Greek" style...

[yin26]

Markos:

Excellent work. I just read all 3 days. I think it's the perfect approach for the Webmaster to take ... lots of images, not too much commentary, some slight criticism but mainly just stating the facts as you experienced them.

More 'professional' gaming mags should take a similar approach.

[TCO]

I liked Yin's review also. It was innovative in concept.

[MarkG]

thanks for kind words guys
i dont have many criticisms because i have now played just 2 games and i have not decided whether or not some things are reak issues or just rules of a game that is not civ2(e.g. "it's not broken, find a better strategy idiot!")

[yin26]

GP: Thanks.

Markos: Any word why it took you so long to get the game. I would have thought you have a pre-view copy? ... Anyway, look forward to more of your stuff here.

[Fidel]

mark, i also played greeks - are there any particular civs that really hated you? americans wanted to scorch every town i had. i am just wondering if there is something preprogrammed in their attitude.

[TCO]

It's not an anti-Greek think. They just decidee that in this release the Amies would have a little edge. Like in the Patton speech...

[Fidel]

Originally posted by GP
It's not an anti-Greek think. They just decidee that in this release the Amies would have a little edge. Like in the Patton speech...

that is why he was the first one to be beaten to the pulp i love this game