First Impressions, from those who have the game

[Dogbreath]

1) My first impresssion was that the opening graphics seemed a little weak. I changed screen settings and this cleared up a bit. :-)

2) Game defaults to medium difficulty, and since I jumped in without reading about the screen controls, it was a little difficult, both to get around and to compete.

3) After a change to easy setting and scaning the manual and tech chart, I moved into first without difficulty (i.e. cannons vs archers)

4) Game interface is quite changed and without reading about it, game can be confusing/frustrating. This is overcome with experience.

5) I had difficulty stopping the game when it auto skipped to the next turn.

6) Trade system is great!

7) Love the increasing city influence!

8) I have tommorow off from work and know where I will be!!!!!

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by Dogbreath on 11-16-2000 08:50 AM 4) Game interface is quite changed and without reading about it, game can be confusing/frustrating. This is overcome with experience.

try using the right-click of the mouse

[Stratesford]

What the hell r u talking about? the interface is hell of easy!

[Dogbreath]

As I said, the interface can be confusing without reading the manual, but is overcome with experience. Thanks to Mark G about the right click.

I've heard of the hell of dripping waters, but what is the hell of easy?!? :-)

[Monkey]

quote: Originally posted by Dogbreath on 11-16-2000 09:54 AM I've heard of the hell of dripping waters, but what is the hell of easy?!? :-)

Do you watch SouthPark??

[Dogbreath]

Sorry, I gave up TV when the Sid's original Civ came out. :-)

[Dida]

quote: Originally posted by Dogbreath on 11-16-2000 10:33 AM Sorry, I gave up TV when the Sid's original Civ came out. :-)

Really?

[Camper]

1) I only got about and hour and a half with it, and it took me that long to figure out the interface. Not that I don't like it, just that it's different. I'm withholding judgement until I get more practice.

2) I think the diplomacy and the trade systems are definate improvements.

After work I'll see if I can find some time in my busy schedule to muck around for a few more hours.

[vlad]

Well the first and very important beef about the game is no ability to see my systray or use ICQ, that sucks!! One of the main reasons I enjoy Civ2 so much is I can play online and still interact with other people. Anyone know a way to make that happen in CTP2? Bad enough it will take away my real world social life, but my internet social life can't suffer too

[dainbramaged13]

oh, quiet! you know the game takes up a ton of ram. name one other modern game with good graphics and complicated ai that lets you use icq

[vlad]

Well the main comparison will be to civ2 which allows ICQ and many new games understand that its an important multiplayer function in case of disconnect. I really don't think Ram has anything to do with it, most computer gamers these days have 256mb or more anyway. I think its a feature that will affect a large market of online civ players. That feature alone has made me regret spending $50 for the game and contemplating a return.

[Alexander's Horse]

quote: Originally posted by dainbramaged13 on 11-16-2000 09:22 PM name one other modern game with good graphics and complicated ai that lets you use icq

Civ 2!!!!!!!!!!


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Chaos, panic and disorder - My work here is done.

[meabbott]

Here are my opinions on CTP II after having bought it this morning and playing it for several hours. I tend to be an opinionated person so please tread lightly below. I also realize that some of the things that I am upset about below may have solutions I am aware of and I will be delighted to retract my complaints if they are pointed out to me (and I haven’t seen anything in the manual thus far).

If a unit with orders to go to a particular location encounters another player’s unit, it stops and the location orders are eliminated. I can understand the stop, but removing the orders is unacceptable. I should be able to tell it to continue with the move button instead of having to continually redo the order. This happened in CTP I and I expected it to be corrected.

There is no obvious way to tell if there are any units that haven’t been given orders. If, for example, you do something on a city, there is no easy way to get back into the unit orders mode. Same thing with cities. I appreciate that the city names turn yellow, but if I have a large civilization, why isn’t there a list like CTP I? Same goes for units.

On a related note, there is no easy way to tell what units are in a particular square and what state (active, fortified, sentinel, etc). There was in CTP I, but no CTP II. This makes turn to turn handling of units more difficult than it used to be. I don’t see the purpose of that.

I could have understood if some of these problems were handled by the city manager and the unit manager. I don’t understand the purpose of the unit manager since all it seems to do is list the number of any given type of units you have. How does that help you manage units? You can do only one useful thing from there and that is disband obsolete units.

The city manager is much better, but there doesn’t seem to be any way to list the cities and see who is building what – you have to scroll through each one individually. You used to be able to do this in CTP I.

I further don’t understand why the minimize button is not on the screen. Is this not a Windows application?

Don’t get me wrong, I see improvements. The graphics look better and I like the battles have been improved visually and tactically. The advances are interesting. Most of all, I love the city and nation radius system. That is terrific. I am also pleased with the increase in the number of units to 12 and the concept of armies. Diplomacy is right where I feel it should have been. From what I have seen, this is an area where CTP II really shines.

It was, however, not worth the $50 I paid for it when Activision went backwards on the fundamentals – the routine turn to turn handling is a catastrophe and I don’t understand how this could not have been mentioned by anyone prior to release or why Activision would have allowed itself to do that. It is the turn to turn handling that makes a game like this. When a player can’t easily access required information, the game has failed. In my opinion, CTP II is a failure. Now if I am merely missing something fundamental and my ranting is pointless, please correct me. I would love to get on with playing this game rather than fighting it every turn. I am particularly angry because I love turn based games and CTP I in particular. I was looking forward to CTP II and am very disappointed.

[Chronus]

Hmmmm ... meabbott now has me worried. The beauty of Civ2 was its simple, ONE SCREEN city display that showed the essentials. I know, I probably rant and rave about this too often so I'll try to contain myself. Any more news in this area from those who have the game?

I am, however, delighted to hear that the unit "Path Order" is cleared when encountering another civ's unit. Why? . . . . .

During one game in CTP1, I had a lone War Walker sittin' around doing nothing so I decided to send him off to some remote area I haven't looked at in awhile. Low and behold, another civ's diplomat appeared which stopped my Walker. Fine. I pressed the "End Turn" key for my Walker and did other tasks. The next turn, my Walker continued with his path order and OBLITERATED THE DIPLOMAT standing in its path!!!! War was declared and things got a little ugly for awhile. Talk about hysterical (to me anyway).

[Gedrin]

Well apart from the obvious tech tree short comings and the fact that ICS is not yet dead I think the new game is really good.

I mean really from programmers I expect good code that can be customized by the user. A quick peak at the files and all I have to say is wow!!!! Is that ever better organized.

Tech trees should be left to history buffs... like, well, me
Not killing ICS is a dissapointment however I will say that it will be a lot harder. However, harder != dead no matter how convincingly you argue it. This too however can be killed with SLIC so again my first criterion is satisfied.

An excellent game. However there are not many feats of wonder (6 for getting an advance first and then 8 others). In fact there is only one that I might be hard pressed to impliment in SLIC anyway... sailing around the world. All the others are quite simple... I could impliment them in my sleep. Ergo I'm rather dissapointed about them.

Final word is however: I'm not returning it.
Oh and as for ICQ... well unless you want it and CTP visible at the same time why not just hit alt-esc or alt-tab and go to ICQ?

Gedrin