What would I like about Call to Power 2?

[Mr. President]

Strange thread idea, I know. But, I have a good reason. I made a thread in Other Games about being tired of games with excessive micromanaging, and someone mentioned Call to Power 2 as a game I might like.

Of course, that's not the only reason to like a game, as I'm sure the denizens of this forum will attest to. So, what do you like about Call to Power 2, and what might I like about it?

[Devil of Truth]

CTP2 is more than just a game. Once it gets beneath your skin – you can’t shake it.

The thing I like most about it is the fact that it is a work in progress. Scan these forums for the likes of the Big MC; Dale; Hex; Immortal Wombat; J Bytheway; Locutus; Mapfi; Maquiladora; Martin Gühmann; Pedrunn; Peter Triggs; Smiffgig; Turambar and WesW and observe genius in action. (In no particular order - apologies to all geniuses I forgot to mention )

Anything you want; anyway you want it. That’s CTP2.

[Maquiladora]

Way to make me feel small DoT

The thing i like most about CtP2 (without belittling another Civ game) is Stacked Combat. When i found out the difference between a full stack of cannons and a combination of infantry, cannons and cavalry, i wondered why this hadnt been done before.

Oh yeah and you could prolly buy it for $5 or something now.

[Locutus]

Hi Mr President, good to see you decided to take a look here

You know, I used to have a whole battery of arguments to fire at anyone who showed any kind of interest in this game, but Velocyrix kind of rendered those arguments obsolete, and not by countering them either All I have to do these days (for starters anyway) is link to this thread - check it out and you'll know what I mean

(One note of caution: I've never ever read such a lauding review of this game from anyone, including yours truly; most people will be slightly less enthousiastic about it. So beware that if after reading it you decide to give the game a try you might actually be slightly disappointed - but only slightly )

[Pedrunn]

-- Combined stack -> Create a army that ca be a dozen of units. Conbining different abilities like Attack, Defense, Ranged: Look here a screenshot: battle http://apolyton.net/dir/index.php?si...s=3764&cat=197 and army creation http://apolyton.net/dir/index.php?si...s=3764&cat=197

-- Public Workers -> Instead of moving units to create Tile Improvementss, you just need a click in the mouse to create one costing you public workers (PW) wich is a part of theproduction you direct for this mean. This ultimatly decreases micromanagement.

-- National Unit Suport -> Your army will decrease the production of your empire as a whole. Different for Civ2 and other games. Here a screenshot: http://apolyton.net/dir/index.php?si...s=3764&cat=197

--City Status Screen -> Controll all of you cities in one screen. Having info of them, choosing what to build, wich mayors you. have, etc... This maybe be what you are looking for tho decrease the micro but i dont think i have a good screeshot This one show one of the tabs of the screen (The one at the top, the other one is the build screen http://apolyton.net/dir/index.php?si...s=3764&cat=197 the others is the one that makes you actuall change stuff of the cities.

-- Build Queues -> Why go to the city several times. Just makes a list of thing to the city build. And it will build in the order you set. This also is a micromanager decreaser: Look this screenshot: http://apolyton.net/dir/index.php?si...s=3764&cat=197. It only has one item in the queue (the "knight"). I wish i had one screenshot with more than one but i think you got the picture

-- Customization -> As Devil of Truth. said. You can creat almost any feature you want. Its modding ability is impressive. Therefore there are totally different games if you dowload a mod. Thos with focus in ancient age (Craddle), those in the 1900 century (WAW), etc...

The problem of the game is the AI solved with the mods. And the "apolyton unoficial" pathch the Apolyton Pack

There are a lot of other stuff. Probably other people will post here them.

[Martin Gühmann]

One main reason why I bought CTP1 instead of SMAC. I played a demo of SMAC, you had there to improve your terrain tiles in the same way like in Civ2, that was a bad idea. In Civ2 I ended to move more then 200 settlers/enginiers over my land (actual this was the whole world map ) In the end I had an army of unemployed enginiers. So what should I do with them afterwards disbanding? No there where originally a pop so I parked them somewhere on the map. With 255 cities on the map no city payed support. So I kept them.

Talking about unit support in CTP1 and CTP2 the whole empire will pay the support and not the city that created the unit. But that isn't actual a micro management issure, a micro management issure is the terrain improveing, actual this was in Civ2 a marco management issure it took the most time of the turn to move all the units over the world 1 and an half our for everthing like caravans and terrain improving, and of course the city improvement that was for my 486 the longest part an half hour just to cycle through all cities.

In CTP1 and CTP2 you have build queues. So you can put a lot of items into it and won't be bothers with something like this: Sir our city of Berlin build an aqueduct what shall we build next. No need for such messages everytime, shure you get a message if a build item is finished, but this is only a message entry in the message box that can be deleted easily by right clicking on it.

Well that where two thinks that made me to give the Call to Power series a go.

-Martin

[Alex]

What would you not like about CTP2, that is the question.

I dislike two things: sometimes there is always one more click to reach that info you want; and some of the special units are somewhat ridiculous and overpowered. But those are minor quibbles, I guess.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

The thing to like about CTP2 is the folks here doing great mods. Its been said that it is an evolving game. (and How!!)

For a mere $5 - $19 bucks you essentially have bought yourself 4-5 civ games all of which you can choose to play. All of which IMHO easily beat the CIV3 latest incarnation of Civ. I'll always be partial to SMAC(X) but CTP2 is giving it a run for its money.

[child of Thor]

It can be got hold of very cheap at the momment............
Civ3 £30ish
Call To Power 2 £5ish
hmmm................

If you like strat-games/god-games/buildemup-games/Civ-games then it's really worth owning for the money it will cost you.
It has loads of great Mods and is constantly being improved.
If there is a feature that you feel is somehow wrong, post something here and people will help you to change it if possible.

5 notes/bills? = 1.5pints of beer(London) all for many months of fun gaming. Can't be bad!

[hexagonian]

The Mods offer solid gameplay, although Ogie/Vel keep finding those darn loopholes...

[Mr. President]

Thanks, everybody. I think you've sold me. Once my exams finish in a couple of weeks, I might look into buying Call to Power 2.

[Velociryx]

You won't regret it.

Second-best money I ever spent on a computer game (still listed as second best because of the sheer length of time that SMAC has been on my hard drive).

In terms of a Civ-style, "sweep of history" game, this without a doubt the best I've ever played tho.

-=Vel=-

[Mr. President]

Do you mind if I ask a stupid question?

I read about Public Works points a couple of times in this thread and a couple of others. How does that work? The image I have is a facility, for instance, a library, having a certain number of points assigned to it, and when you order a city to bulid one, the requisite number of points are deducted from your total. Would that be accurate?

[Maquiladora]

Public Works (PW) is gathered from your Empire's total production collected. You set a tax, say 20% PW Tax, if you collect 2000 production (or shields) from all your cities production, you get 400PW (20%) a turn generated into your PW account, to build tile improvements, forts, watch towers etc.

Of course if you set 20% PW tax, it minuses 20% production from ALL your cities, so collecting PW is a very important job.

[Mr. President]

Oh, I see. So just like in real life, you would take money (or in this case shields) from the public in the form of a tax, and use it to build public facilities and buildings.