Civ3 vs CTP2

[MrWhereItsAt]

This may be more suited to the CTP2 forums, but they don't seem to work, so here I am.

Just read Locutus' disenchantment with the game, despite not even having bought it yet (you should read his post, it is a helluva lot more eloquent that most are when criticizing the game). He states he's going back to CTP2... Now I bought CTP, hated it, and thus have not been able to justify even more cash out for the sequel to the crappest strategy game in history. Why anyone would return to the series is beyond me, but I have heard better things about CTP2.

Can anyone tell me WHAT makes it different to CTP and why it would be worth playing over Civ3?

It seems to me that Civ 3 ain't all that bad, especially once you get the slowdown dealt with.

[ike0481]

CTP2 in my opinion is an ok game. A lot of people have a lot of negative things to say about it but overall it wasn't that bad. They implemented a lot of neat concepts such as unit stacking in army's (up to twelve units moving together across the map to attack with combined arms is really great compared to CivIII's combat system.) and lots of great Public Works stuff like Radar sites and sea fisheries that enhanced the game. In my opinion CivIII is still a better game and personally I would wait for the patch before spending the money on CTP2.

[MrWhereItsAt]

I don't you if you have CTP, but I bought it as soon as I could (being Civ-starved at the time and having a craving only intensified by SMAC), and it has the same combined arms (which was one of the features of CTP I actually liked) and Public Works (which I didn't). It is this reason I kinda immediately lost faith in Activision's Civs. Does anyone know how CTP2 is better than Civ3 AND CTP?

[Allemand]

CTP is the worst of the Civ group, and I swore never to buy another game from that company. However, some people liked CTP and probably also like CTP2. The question is, how can you get an impartial analysis without testing it yourself?

[Phalanx2000]

I am so furious with Civ3 that I will be returning to CTP2 (which was a GREAT game on it's own) until which time I feel Civ3 has been patched or updated or whatever to the standards that I expect. And judging by the progress so far, I'd say that will be never.

[Jerk]

If you did not like Call To Power 1 then I would NOT buy Call to Power 2 at all. I suggest you consult the Apolyton archives and read the complaints about CTP2. The worst was Activision's decision to put out a half-patch and wash their hands of it. CTP does have some things that I like versus Civ3.

1) Stacked combat. More importantly stacked troop movement. This significantly reduces the amount of clicking necessary to wage war. The downside with stacked combat was defense. You have to maintain a large army in your city because another player could come in with a huge stack of units to threaten you.

2) Public works, more tile improvements. By using public works you eliminate the need for workers and the need to sit and watch them scramble around. This reduces the time it takes for each turn.

3) SLIC/SLIC2. This is mostly something for the mod makers to use. It allows them to make dramatic gameplay changes and MUCH more flexibility. The lack of a scripting language (Locutus' largest complaint) really hurts Civ3.


There are many complainers over the lack of Multiplayer in Civ3. I myself wish there was but lets take a look at CTP2. CTP2 did ship with Multiplayer (but if i am not mistaken there was no hotseat of pbem). Multiplayer had a number of problems. The worst was the constant resynchs between the host and other players (the game would have to pretty much reload itself from the host after it realizes that it is not in synch). In my experience once it happened it would happen almost every turn. CTP2 also shipped with numerous real bugs that would crash the game. Civ3 has yet to crash on me. It has bugs no doubt but nothing that kills the game.

[Deathray]

Originally posted by Jerk
If you did not like Call To Power 1 then I would NOT buy Call to Power 2 at all. I suggest you consult the Apolyton archives and read the complaints about CTP2. The worst was Activision's decision to put out a half-patch and wash their hands of it. CTP does have some things that I like versus Civ3.

1) Stacked combat. More importantly stacked troop movement. This significantly reduces the amount of clicking necessary to wage war. The downside with stacked combat was defense. You have to maintain a large army in your city because another player could come in with a huge stack of units to threaten you.

2) Public works, more tile improvements. By using public works you eliminate the need for workers and the need to sit and watch them scramble around. This reduces the time it takes for each turn.

3) SLIC/SLIC2. This is mostly something for the mod makers to use. It allows them to make dramatic gameplay changes and MUCH more flexibility. The lack of a scripting language (Locutus' largest complaint) really hurts Civ3.


There are many complainers over the lack of Multiplayer in Civ3. I myself wish there was but lets take a look at CTP2. CTP2 did ship with Multiplayer (but if i am not mistaken there was no hotseat of pbem). Multiplayer had a number of problems. The worst was the constant resynchs between the host and other players (the game would have to pretty much reload itself from the host after it realizes that it is not in synch). In my experience once it happened it would happen almost every turn. CTP2 also shipped with numerous real bugs that would crash the game. Civ3 has yet to crash on me. It has bugs no doubt but nothing that kills the game.

Civ 3 is a lot less bugged than people say it is. There are three gameplay bugs: the 9999999 gold bug, the air superiority bug and the coastal fortress bug. There are probably some hardware related crashing/slowdown bugs as well, although I haven't seen many reports of crashing. This makes it among the least bugged games ever released. I mean, think about it. It was only last year that Diablo II was released. How can you call Civilization III buggy in comparison with that? Indeed, how can you call Civilization III a bad game in comparison with that rubbish ;-)

Then there's the lack of multiplayer and the unfinished editor. Both annoying, both will impact negatively on the game's longevity. The editor is supposed to be fixed in the patch at least. As for multiplayer, I see their problem. It would be nice if they at least incorporated LAN and PBEM support of some sort.

Other than that its all just personal preference. Some people can't cope with the corruption, and some can't cope with their modern armour occasionally being beaten by older units. Dealing with these things is simply a case of altering your playing style.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Hm, p'raps I should rephrase... What is different about CTP2 that makes it better than CTP and Civ3? CTP had combined arms, PW, future advances yada yada also, BUT ppl seem to like CTP2 if they got it and dislike CTP if they had only that. I wonder, is there anyone who got CTp and STILL bought CTP2 after and enjoyed it? Or did the original spoil CTP2 for everyone like it did for me?

Is there anyone who has CTP, CTP2 AND Civ3 and can summarize the best features of each as distinct to the others? Oh, and as far as Multiplayer is concerned, not only am I a longtime (since Civ in '91) TBS player, I cannot even imagine playing against any but the AI, not the least because of my infinitely slow Net connection, but also 'cause of the impossibility of finding another player at the times I can play - 12 hours difference to Europe here, you know! (Making it 10 am)

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Jerk
There are many complainers over the lack of Multiplayer in Civ3. I myself wish there was but lets take a look at CTP2. CTP2 did ship with Multiplayer (but if i am not mistaken there was no hotseat of pbem). Multiplayer had a number of problems. The worst was the constant resynchs between the host and other players (the game would have to pretty much reload itself from the host after it realizes that it is not in synch). In my experience once it happened it would happen almost every turn. CTP2 also shipped with numerous real bugs that would crash the game. Civ3 has yet to crash on me. It has bugs no doubt but nothing that kills the game.

This resynching problem was mostly fixed by the v1.11 patch that was released by activision. Admitably I always used a fast computer and a cable modem but I almost never had any resynchs. The soul exception was that the game would resynch if someone tried to cheat using the "infinite build" bug. Fortunately it was easy to tell who cheated and when so you could just not play with people who were known cheaters.

Even with it's few problems the multiplayer on CTP2 was the best TBS application I've seen. You played against real humans and the game had a great many variables so things stayed interesting. Firaxis was very short sighted not to include this feature in Civ3 and I'm going to keep playing CTP2 until they fix that mistake.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt I cannot even imagine playing against any but the AI, not the least because of my infinitely slow Net connection, but also 'cause of the impossibility of finding another player at the times I can play - 12 hours difference to Europe here, you know! (Making it 10 am)

Finding players is never really a problem. Everyone uses ICQ to find each other so you can always find SOMEONE on the internet with which to play. I see Australian players all the time so I'm sure it can't be that much more difficult for Kiwis.

As for 12 hour games... no problem, you just save the game and continue later.

[MarkG]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36588