All this talk of Civ3 and CTP2...

[hetairoi22]

Originally posted by Venger

-snip-

Advanced Metallurgy
[...]
Force Coordination
Vectored Flight

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Venger

Cool, that something positive is being said about ctp2. Until now i've only heard regular b!tching. I may by it sometime (when the price is below 20$ )

OT: What do you mean by the above techs BTW? They sound interesting.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Moraelin


The AI in CTP 2 isn't necessarily bad, it's just unrealistically peaceful. If you don't really annoy someone, they'll tend to leave you be. (And even that can be changed.)

I remember it had also some serious Problems with Traffic Jams.
Most times it built only One Road/Railroad from one City to the next.
If there were some Units to move from one City to the next for most of the time the units would pile up in the midst between the two cities and no other unit would be able to pass this congestion because of the Unit-Limit per Tile.
If you started a war against the AI this would be a real hindrance for a succesful defence, cause the AIs Units would alway be somewehere else from where it should be.
Has there ever been a solution to this problem aside from setting the AIs Preference for building Roads higher?

[Moraelin]

Just about the _only_ thing from Civ 3 that I wish CTP 2 had is civilization advantages. You know, those Industrious, Commercial, and stuff. It kind of cut on replay value, having everyone start on 100% equal footing. Maybe an option to have a more aggressive AI would have been nice, but then even in Civ 3 I most often go for other victories, not conquest. I don't really mind an AI that respects a peace treaty.

But that's about it. Everything else it either already did -- and did far better -- or was better off without.

It already had borders, and the AI actually was aware of them. At the risk of repeating myself, the Civ 3 AI doesn't look like anyone even told it about those funny lines drawn on the map. Other than that it won't settle within your borders, it will cheerfully move around like it's still in Civ 2.

It already had special units, only they were slightly more logically based on the government, not giving an inherent ability to build better ships to a civilization which may not even ever have a port. E.g., if you were a Theocracy, you could unleash your priests and teleevangelists on the enemy cities, while if you were a corporate state you could send your lawyers on them.

You COULD already tweak whether you want to go for happiness, quick building, or making lots of money, or something in between. In fact, you could do it both on a national scale, or in each city by selecting what improvements and public works you build. E.g., if you built lots of advanced mines around your city, you'd get different results than if you built hydroponic farms.

The public works from CTP2 I still consider to be a vastly superior concept to having 5 minutes between turns even with animations turned off, because there are 50 workers on automatic. And seeing a whole dozen workers pile up to build a road in the same square. It also fit a more realistic economic model than having workers that need no food and no housing in your cities. It was also a far more fit model for a national economy, than the almost independent city state model of Civ 3.

It already could capture workers. That's what slavers were for. In fact, you could even use defeated military units as slaves. Or defeated barbarians. Which is VERY realistic for an ancient civilization. You also could try to free slaves from the surrounding empires, if you felt so inclined.

It already had armies, and no, you didn't have to go through loops to get a leader first. You could just group units and send them that-a-way. As opposed to Civ3's having to move your settler and its escort one by one, one square at a time, all over a 100 square road, just to make sure they stay together. You could also add or remove units from the army later.

The combat model of CTP2 was IMHO vastly superior to Civ3's over-simplified screw-up. They didn't fight one on one, waiting their turn like in Jackie Chan movies. They actually had a battle where your samurai engaged the enemy head on, while your cavalry flanked them, and your archers provided missile support. THAT is a good combat model.

The tech tree, as was already stated, was richer and made more sense. So did the wonders. E.g., your Pyramids would give you a tourism bonus, not be a giant granary.

[DarthVeda]

The Battle Engine in Call to Power 2 is FAR superior to Civilization III.

it's really a sham, er shame...

[Christmann]

Originally posted by Moraelin
Christmann, as opposed to... what? To Civ 3 which doesn't even have ANY scenarios, AT ALL? Gee, that's got to be an improvement over CTP2. No, really.


Civ 3, by the looks of it, is at most going to get a few extra units in mods, but no real function changes ever. In fact, if it were only by the lame supplied editor, you couldn't even add ANYTHING new, just change stats on what's already there. (Thanks to whoever hacked that lame editor.)

As opposed to civ2. I agree with your points though regarding civ3; I won't be playing it much if usermade scenarios aren't created. However, CTP2 isn't made better by pointing to missing features in another game.

[Venger]

Originally posted by hetairoi22


Cool, that something positive is being said about ctp2. Until now i've only heard regular b!tching. I may by it sometime (when the price is below 20$ )

OT: What do you mean by the above techs BTW? They sound interesting.

Those were from my never released Whoopass modpack...

Advanced Metallurgy required Mass Production and Superconductor and allowed you to build the Main Battle Tank and Fast Attack Submarine...stuff like that. I had about 6 extra late game techs, and about maybe 10 units, including Siege Mechs, Terminators, Fast Attacks, Mobile AAA Battery, A-10 Thunderbolt, etc...

Venger

[N. Machiavelli]

Personally, I think that if Civ3 had incorporated the CtP 2 combat system and some parts of the AI, it would be perfect. As it currenty stands, an 'Army' in Civ3 is a single unit with alot more HP. In CtP, an 'Army' was just that. Civ3 keeps this concept of one-one combat: no matter how big your force is, you battle it out 'gladiator' style. In CtP, it indroduces the concept of 'massed' combat: a group of units attacking another group of units. Take this comparison of a knight and a catapult attacking an enemy pikeman:

In Civ3, you would first bombard the pikeman with your catapult. Mabye it will hit, mabye it won't. Mabye it will then do damage, mabye it won't. Assuming that the catapult did it's job and weakened the pikeman, you then attack with your knight. Mabye it will take out the remaining 2 HP, mabye it won't...but I wouldn't go to Vegas with those kind of loaded odds.
In CtP2, you instead have an army of of 1 knight and 1 catapult attacking that pikeman. Here, they attack at the same time, meaning that the knight is attacking the pikeman while simultainously recieving the ranged attack 'backup' from the catapult. This is how combat is done in the Real World, and there is a reason for that perhaps. If Civ3 were to adopt this style and change the combat system to be less reliant upon loaded odds, then it would be great.

Like previously said, the AI in CtP would actually honor their treaties and borders. Amazing. They could show resect to you without you having to constantly physically kick them out every turn. That and treaties can last more than 20 turns in CtP.

I doubt that these will ever be incorperated, so untill Civ3 becomes a little better after the patch. I'm playing Empire Earth, which takes nearly as much time to play a single game as Civ3.

[FALVES]

Shure, the CTP2 combat system is all nice and reallistic, except when you notice that it is still hampered by the fact that you have no control over unit placement on the tactical screen, and that you are essentially reduced to being a spectator as the battle unfolds. Watching valuable units die because of seemingly random map placement can be frustrating.
I still prefer the good old civ combat sys.

[madmario]

I really enjoyed the Alexander the Great scenario -- the others were good and enjoyable but that one was really very good and got me to reinstall the game a few times just to play it. Someone in the apolyton community designed it... Harlan? Locutus?

-mario

[N. Machiavelli]

Originally posted by FALVES

I still prefer the good old civ combat sys.

Bully for you. The system itself had some flaws, but that is a coding problem, not concept. The concept of massed armies is far superior to 'gladiator' style one-on-one Civ battles. The mechanics of the CtP 2 sys had a few bugs, but the concept was better.

[Monoriu]

Originally posted by N. Machiavelli


Bully for you. The system itself had some flaws, but that is a coding problem, not concept. The concept of massed armies is far superior to 'gladiator' style one-on-one Civ battles. The mechanics of the CtP 2 sys had a few bugs, but the concept was better.

Anybody like the way master of magic does combat? Max size of armies is 8 or 9 units. Combat happens between armies on a small tactical map. You can place the units yourself and each unit fights individually. There is actually a reason to have a balanced army with strong attack, defence, and missile units. Its also pretty fast because the tactical map is small, and it only takes a few hits to kill a unit. Only drawback is sometimes it can be repetitive. An auto-resolve feature can resolve that. Sometimes I think maybe civ 3 will be even better if it does combat this way.

Master of Magic II, /drool

[N. Machiavelli]

Originally posted by Monoriu


Anybody like the way master of magic does combat? Max size of armies is 8 or 9 units. Combat happens between armies on a small tactical map. You can place the units yourself and each unit fights individually. There is actually a reason to have a balanced army with strong attack, defence, and missile units. Its also pretty fast because the tactical map is small, and it only takes a few hits to kill a unit. Only drawback is sometimes it can be repetitive. An auto-resolve feature can resolve that. Sometimes I think maybe civ 3 will be even better if it does combat this way.

Master of Magic II, /drool

Hehe. MOO2 had the same thing. Although longer, I found that conducting combat myself yielded better results than letting the comp decide. It was the same with Lords of the Realm and the ancient, buggy, but worth-while game called "Conqueror: 1086 A.D.".

A TBS game utilizing RTS combat is awesome, and I also wish Civ had used this, but these types of games can take 10X as long and the average player has the patience/attention span of a gnat.

[yin26]

Is that like Heroes of Might and Magic? I really enjoy those battles ... HOMM 4(?) is coming soon!

Sid mentioned this specifically, actually. He thinks doing such a thing add needless and unfun complexity to the game. So now we have hours of unit by unit tedium Sid-like fun!

[N. Machiavelli]

Originally posted by yin26

Sid mentioned this specifically, actually. He thinks doing such a thing add needless and unfun complexity to the game. So now we have hours of unit by unit tedium Sid-like fun!

At least spectators in the Roman collosseums got to see blood. The closest we get is imagining a Tank's crew being burnt to a crisp when it blows up. Oh well, I've moved to Empire Earth for a while and unless the patch works a miracle, I'll stay there.

Empire Earth = Age of Empires on sterroids!

[yin26]

Yeah, I've started playing EE and then decided my life can't handle that much sustained computer intensity (my wife and daughter have become more demading ). Still, awesome game. Makes me kind of wish I was single and jobless.