OK, whats the CTP2 opinion abot the 'BIG NEWS'

[Immortal Wombat]

[Peter Triggs]

So, an expansion pack for Civ3. Ho, hum. It'll still be too much like Civ2 to interest me.

I think a more ominous event on the horizon is the forthcoming release, next Spring, of Rise of Nations. Even though it's yucky RTS - I don't think I've ever played an RTS game that's kept me interested for more than a week or two - it's got lots of interesting ideas and will be extremely modifiable. Moreover, it will undoubtedly be supported by BHG and, lets face it, how many of the modders on this forum wouldn't mind getting advice on game design and programming from the likes of Brian Reynolds, Jason Coleman, and/or Tim Train.

[Immortal Wombat]

*does the scripting language dance*

[The Big Mc]

Anybody tried nabbing the units yet for ctp2.

I tried to take the Chinook but the rotor blades move so slowly I just had visions of it falling from the sky and burning in a big fire ball.

Cruse missile works good

[Immortal Wombat]

make them spin faster then. Its a couple of line changes in the sprite script file.

[The Big Mc]

where

[Martin GĂĽhmann]

Apolyton: Has the whole CTP1/2 story taught you anything? Do you think these games helped the genre or not?

Jeff Morris: They helped us understand the impact of major changes to this system. New features must seamlessly integrate with the existing system, and that's tough the more radical the change. At first I wasn't a fan of a conservative sequel, though I'm a complete convert now.

So it looks that Firaxis learned the wrong leasson from CTP1/2 story. Avoid radical changes wasn't the problem. In fact most of them improved the genre a lot, like PW, message box/ side messages. These two features make the game playable even with a high number of cities, that is still missing in Civ3.

The real lesson of CTP1/2 was, finish a game before you release it. To be honest the description about PW for example in the manual wasn't complete.

-Martin

[Immortal Wombat]

where

In the gu**.txt file, you should have an ANIM block for each of movement/attack/death:

ANIM	1
	{
		ANIM_TYPE		1
		ANIM_NUM_FRAMES		5
		[b]ANIM_PLAYBACK_TIME	1000[/b]
		ANIM_DELAY		10000
		ANIM_FRAME_DATA
			0  0  0  0  0

		ANIM_MOVE_DELTAS	0  0  0  0  0  
		ANIM_TRANSPARENCIES	0  0  0  0  0 
	}

If you increase or decrease the amount of time (in milliseconds btw) it takes for the animation to play, you'll change the observed speed of the rotor blades. However, I think this only works up to a few seconds, not sure.

[The Big Mc]

Wombat is that the one with


##this bit don’t work yet

written at the side

tried it but the blades don’t seam to move faster

[Immortal Wombat]

could be. In which case, try adding more frames, duplicate of the existing ones, which mean they will all have to be played in the same alloted time, thereby speeding up the process of each.

[centrifuge]

Have you guys checked out some of the new features of the Civ3 XP, that were just posted at Poly Civ3? It will supposedly have full scenario creation support, but we'll see. Implementation of newly created units still seems sketchy. IMHO they appear to be presenting a fairly nice package that includes stacked units. We'll see if the stacking matches up to CTP.

[centrifuge]

Here's a link for those interested

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=49633

[Dale]

From the looks of it, what they're offering in the XP (and probably will charge another $80 Australian (AUD) for after paying $110 AUD for the beta) came ready to go in CTP2 (which I only paid $80 AUD for in the week of release). Seems a bit stiff to have to pay $190 for Civ3 for what I got for $80 in CTP2.

Oh, and I'm STILL going to have to move 200 workers per turn!

Just my opinion anyways.

[Peter Triggs]

I just came across this on Steve Moorcroft's site (Game AI) and since this this seems to be our local OT thread thought some of you might find it amusing:

If the only reason you drink is to wash down caffeine pills.... you might be a Game Developer. (04/21/02)
Courtesy of AJ Lott, Visual Designs Software

If your computer science professor interrupts you with "besides games" when they see that hopeful look of yours...you might be a (potential) Game Developer. (04/21/02)
Courtesy of Solstice

If you always start counting from zero...you might be a Game Developer. (04/21/02)
Courtesy of Joe Seeley

If a beautiful girl tells you she's done some modelling work in the past, and you ask her what 3D package she used...you might be a Game Developer. (04/11/02)
Courtesy of Harm Cuppens...

If the words "open source" get you more excited than the words "free porn"...you might be a Game Developer. (04/03/02)
Courtesy of videogameaholic...

As for the Civ3 XP, they still haven't exposed the AI and there's no indication that they have any plans to do so.

[The Big Mc]

I wonder if they are going to release any future units. Could be good for the empire
Like they did in test of time.