Have you or will you ever play CtP2

[exeter0]

belchingjester: CTP2 definitely definitely offers a lot more than CTP1.

This is obviously a subjective statement but I personally find CTP2 more immersive than CTP1 or the CIV's. (Mind you.. I am referring to CTP2 + Mods... I would not recommend CTP2 out of the box). Cradle + Frenzy is fun and challenging.

You may have read this and that criticism about CTP2 like it takes too many turns to research techs etc. But the beauty of CTP2 is that you have an excellent editor where you can tweak all game rules to your taste.

But it will be interesting to get your opinion after playing CTP2... as you would have played CIV3 first then played CTP2.

Personally am a very frustrated CIV/CTP player at the moment... I play CIV3 and I miss CTP2's stacked combat, AI, terrain micro/macro management and broader tech, terrain improvements, and government options etc.

But when I play CTP2 I miss culture and elevated unit vision (I would say unit animations as well... but since CIV3 runs so slow I usually have these turned off anyway.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by exeter0
r u aware that CTP2 provides a Production/Public Works slider?

If you want to rush public works.. just temporarily move the slider towards PW for a few turns. You can do the same for Commerce/Scientific resource.

So I can build rails over a mountain in 1 turn by adjusting the slider? No. And that was what I meant. No need to teach me to use the interface.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
So I can build rails over a mountain in 1 turn by adjusting the slider? No. And that was what I meant. No need to teach me to use the interface.

No, but you can build rails over mountains by opening tileimp.txt and adjusting the correct number.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
No, but you can build rails over mountains by opening tileimp.txt and adjusting the correct number.

No, I don't mean I want to cheat. Mostly it's fine to wait a few turns for an improvement. But sometimes I want to rush something in one turn, e.g. a fortress in an upcoming war. In Civ3 I may use not 1 worker, but may be 4 or 6. In CtP2 I can do what in this case?

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
No, I don't mean I want to cheat. Mostly it's fine to wait a few turns for an improvement. But sometimes I want to rush something in one turn, e.g. a fortress in an upcoming war. In Civ3 I may use not 1 worker, but may be 4 or 6. In CtP2 I can do what in this case?

For the record, cheating and modding is not the same.

But if you want this sort of thing, you could write up some piece of SLIC code for it, allowing you to build something faster if you're willing to pay more PW. In CtP2 you should think big though, not small (micro-management), like in Civ3. You can't rush a single tile easily in CtP2 (by default) but you *can* save up PW and rush an entire railway (e.g. from one city to the next), which in Civ3 is only possible if you have a LOT of workers.

[Raion]

I always missed messages in CTP2, and I soon got tired of it.
Maybe its all right, but I soon did not play it anymore!

I like moving workers around, giving orders to move here and there, and soldiers, but again that's part of the game of CIVIII and previous version.

If you want to start a war, or be in a war, then do the work, it a little like real life, real reality, not just a game, but a freaky adventure, -- that's CIV III. Same as previous versions.

An experience, not just a game -- that CIVIII.
Virtual reality without the virtual reality, a game but not a game, a thrill a turn, the agony of defeat, the thrill of the victory, the not knowing what's going to happen next.

CTP2 never provided that, at least, to me.

I still may try to play it again someday, but I probably will still miss the messages, 5 turns later, I begin to build something else, because the other facility was already built, but then, one had to remember when it would be built, and one had to actually find and see the message when it was finally built, or just miss it.

I grew tired of doing that.

[exeter0]

True in CTP2 you can change the no of turns to 'build a railroad thru mountains'... but I actually think it is not in the spirit of the game to put 8 workers on a tile to build a terrain improvement.

It is like suggesting that if we put 10,000 workers on it we could rebuild the World Trade Centre in 10 years... If we resourced 100,000 workers it would take 1... If we resourced 1,000,000 workers it would take only....

There is diminishing returns in over utilisation of labour. I think CTP2 models this well.

[Harovan]

But if you want this sort of thing, you could write up some piece of SLIC code for it, allowing you to build something faster if you're willing to pay more PW. In CtP2 you should think big though, not small (micro-management), like in Civ3.

This would be a good solution.

But Civ3 with workers is still more scalable. Usually I do have lots of (captured) workers, so masses don't matter. And after I built the basic improvements, I automate (Shift-A) the workers anyway. Pre 1.17 they did this half good (due to the 2-workers-cap), now they do it fine.

I'd like to see an Automated-PW-SLIC code though

[Harovan]

Originally posted by exeter0
True in CTP2 you can change the no of turns to 'build a railroad thru mountains'... but I actually think it is not in the spirit of the game to put 8 workers on a tile to build a terrain improvement.

It is like suggesting that if we put 10,000 workers on it we could rebuild the World Trade Centre in 10 years... If we resourced 100,000 workers it would take 1... If we resourced 1,000,000 workers it would take only....

There is diminishing returns in over utilisation of labour. I think CTP2 models this well.

In November 1941 almost all citizens of Moscow, including women and older children, digged anti-tank trenches ("fortresses") in a few weeks. A real mass efford, but they made it, and the German tanks were stopped.

In CtP2 they'd have punched through, no mass efford possible there.

EDIT: We are talking not about a building, but about improving a tile. That's worth 100x100 miles. You can have 100 million people working in that area.

[exeter0]

Oh come on Sir Ralph!...

Moscow 1941 was a lot more complicated than that. In fact, Moscow 1941 supports my argument. The Germans literally stopped at the gates of Moscow on Hitler's orders to wait out the winter.

This gave the Russians a whole 4-8 months to prepare. It's not as if they put up barricades in just a few weeks!

At Stalingrad they didn't need to buld defences because the City itself became a crumbling fortress and made it impossible for German armour to negotiate and defend themselves.

But thinking about it.. with Leningrad you may have a point... (but they had 14 months to rpepare for a siege!)

So working with your point.. maybe in CIV type games... we need to have partial bonuses for pregressively completed improvements.

You don;t have to finish a whole fortress to receive some defensive value. I doubt hastily constructed defenses built by old women and children in 2-6 weeks would qualify for the games intent of a defense.

In building your railroad.. you need professional surveyers, engineers etc. Not much point having 2,000,000 women and children on the work chain if they don;t know where to hammer a pin or lay a sleeper (or blow a railway line over a mountain).

[exeter0]

While I enjoy the ability to throw as many workers you like onto a tile (sometimes I will through 16 resources on 1 tile... 3-5 to build a road, 4-6 to build a mine and 3- 5 to build a railroad). To clear all that annoying jungle I just have piles of workers decimating the land)...

But I am not sure that it is the spirit of the game to do this. In the interest of game balance it would probably be better to have a limit of 4 workers working on any given improvement on any given tile at a time.

Of course this would annoy us all... but therein lies the flaw in this aspect of CIV3's game system.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by exeter0
Oh come on Sir Ralph!...

Moscow 1941 was a lot more complicated than that. In fact, Moscow 1941 supports my argument. The Germans literally stopped at the gates of Moscow on Hitler's orders to wait out the winter.

I bow before your outstanding knowledge of history .

[exeter0]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


I bow before your outstanding knowledge of history .

That is a cop out reply .

I wanted to dispel the logic in your post because I think it will mislead readers who are looking at this thread wondering if they should give CTP2 a go.

This is an important issue for me 'cause I think CTP2 has many things to offfer. I genuinely think that some of the concepts in CTP2 would make CIV 4 and beyond a better game.

The more people that try CTP2 + MODS and realise this.. will also post on these forums and hopefully Firaxis will take our points into consideration.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by exeter0
That is a cop out reply .

It is a reply to avoid a senseless off-topic discussion.

I could go, open my Zhukov "Thoughts and Memories" and scan a few photos of digging women and children for you, but it's 1am here and I'd better go to bed. I'm sure you find the appropriate photos in the web. And it's simply ridiculous to believe, that Hitler stopped his poor armies only due to winter. "Hey guys, stop it now, or you will get a cold!" There must have been something else. Heavily entrenched Russian forces perhaps?

Good night!

[exeter0]

He stopped at the gates because:

1.

You are right... it was off topic.. but I was careful to relate back to CIV/CTP2...

I think you raised the analogy!