Tweet
Just a couple of things... No, there has never been a nuclear-powered battleship, but there have been Fleet Carriers built with nuclear power that total over 80,000 tons displacement - larger than any WWII battleship ever built. Also, while most battleships ever built used high-speed turbines, the German Battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisnau used diesel engines: at 26 - 28,000 tons they were actually in the Battleship size-range.
As for CtPII, I just got it today, have had time to read the book and peruse the chart and will, hopefully, have time to play it some this weekend. Here are my first impressions from the chart data:
1. The Tech Tree sucks like a starving leech. Among the Low Points: no development of steam power to enable the industrial revolution, railroads, battleships, et al. Fascism BEFORE Nationalism, which sounds like no one in Activision ever studied political history. Horse riding comes after Ballistics and ballistae towers - despite the fact that cavalry appeared before 1000 BC and the first catapults not until 350 BC! Cannon after muskets, Monarchy (one of the oldest forms of government!) after philosophy, Democracy after Fascism...why go on: it's a hopeless hodge-podge of half-baked semi-historical crap, as if they just needed something to hang terrain and city improvements and units on.
2. The units and strengths aren't much better. The archer has a better ranged factor than the Infantryman, which is the only gunpowder non-mounted troop you get until Machinegunners?! Aircraft still take years to fly to their target and back. Units of minor historical importance, like the 'Fire Trireme' (which should be the Byzantine Dromon, the Greek-fire-spouting warship) are included but the Legion, rifle-armed infantry and the chariot are not. Civ games have always concentrated ship types on the warships, but now the trireme is gone, replaced by the Coracle, which was never a warship, only a transport. The ironclad is slower than the ship of the line, and neither of these capital ships, nor the battleship, all carrying the heaviest artillery of their time, has a ranged factor!
3. The real interactions between governments, societies, Wonders, City Improvements and tech are bungled. How can a Wonder like the London Exchange act on Brokerages in a Communist state in which Brokerages shouldn't be operating at all? How can Aristotle's Lyceum affect Monarchies, Theocracies, Democracies, and Communist states all in exactly the same way, when some are inherently antithetical to science and some aren't?
Anyway, I'm disappointed. The only saving note so far is that I still have all the CtPI mods and the unit animations for Spearmen, Nobles, Horse Archers, etc made up by the very talented folks for the Downloads. If the slic2 is half as good as it's supposed to be (or even only as good as that in CtPI) I'll be able to modify the Tech, units, strength figures and government attributes to POSSIBLY get something resembling a semi-historical game, instead of the mish-mash of fantasy and froth I have now.
As for CtPII, I just got it today, have had time to read the book and peruse the chart and will, hopefully, have time to play it some this weekend. Here are my first impressions from the chart data:
1. The Tech Tree sucks like a starving leech. Among the Low Points: no development of steam power to enable the industrial revolution, railroads, battleships, et al. Fascism BEFORE Nationalism, which sounds like no one in Activision ever studied political history. Horse riding comes after Ballistics and ballistae towers - despite the fact that cavalry appeared before 1000 BC and the first catapults not until 350 BC! Cannon after muskets, Monarchy (one of the oldest forms of government!) after philosophy, Democracy after Fascism...why go on: it's a hopeless hodge-podge of half-baked semi-historical crap, as if they just needed something to hang terrain and city improvements and units on.
2. The units and strengths aren't much better. The archer has a better ranged factor than the Infantryman, which is the only gunpowder non-mounted troop you get until Machinegunners?! Aircraft still take years to fly to their target and back. Units of minor historical importance, like the 'Fire Trireme' (which should be the Byzantine Dromon, the Greek-fire-spouting warship) are included but the Legion, rifle-armed infantry and the chariot are not. Civ games have always concentrated ship types on the warships, but now the trireme is gone, replaced by the Coracle, which was never a warship, only a transport. The ironclad is slower than the ship of the line, and neither of these capital ships, nor the battleship, all carrying the heaviest artillery of their time, has a ranged factor!
3. The real interactions between governments, societies, Wonders, City Improvements and tech are bungled. How can a Wonder like the London Exchange act on Brokerages in a Communist state in which Brokerages shouldn't be operating at all? How can Aristotle's Lyceum affect Monarchies, Theocracies, Democracies, and Communist states all in exactly the same way, when some are inherently antithetical to science and some aren't?
Anyway, I'm disappointed. The only saving note so far is that I still have all the CtPI mods and the unit animations for Spearmen, Nobles, Horse Archers, etc made up by the very talented folks for the Downloads. If the slic2 is half as good as it's supposed to be (or even only as good as that in CtPI) I'll be able to modify the Tech, units, strength figures and government attributes to POSSIBLY get something resembling a semi-historical game, instead of the mish-mash of fantasy and froth I have now.
Comment