What is your Major question for CTP2?

[MarkG]

answers would help focus the main preview on the "big issues"....

[ContradictioN]

Is the money realistic, as in, does it come in the million, billions, trillions?

and is the population realistic, like would it be possible to get 1.2 billion ppl, like china?

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by ContradictioN on 11-11-2000 07:08 PM Is the money realistic, as in, does it come in the million, billions, trillions? and is the population realistic, like would it be possible to get 1.2 billion ppl, like china?

these are your MAJOR questions about the game???????

[Drakenred]

i would tend to be more interested in a view of a negotiation sestion between you and the AI, from start to finish,

your impresion of the individual WotW and FoWs you have gotten so far,

your inpresion of the "Fix" aplied to units to eliminate Phalanx Vs Battleship-Phalanx Vs Tank problems

also,(in general) how far into the game have you gotten?

[Monkey]

Those are minor things ContraDiction.

My questions:

1) Will Activision continue support of this game AFTER release even if it bombs in sales? Example: new downloadble scenarios, new graphics etc etc

2) How does CTP2 compare with the current benchmark in civ games, SMAC? How does it compare to the granddaddy, civ2? Was it everything CTP was supposed to be? Did they take all the annoyances of CTP away?

3) Based on the current state of CTP2, will it turn into a successful franchise?

[Dida]

My main questions are
How is the AI, are they any smarter? How do they do in Diplomacy? Are they as stupid as they were in CTP1? I meant, the Diplomacy system is completly new, and we got tons of new features, but these are garbage if AI don't cooperate.

[Daniel Frappier]

1) Is the AI a good chalenge & playfull both on the terrain and in negociation.

2) How are the tools for snenario making, I know it's not you're specialty but maybe you could browse them and give us you're feeling.

3) How is the end of game replay, is it in the game, comparable to Civ I ?

4) How is the new model for city radius & trade working out for you ?

[hexagonian]

Several AI-related issues...

Is the AI capable of launching a concerted assault to take back one of its cities it lost?

Can the AI launch a major amphibeous assault, originating from a distant location and then reinforce its holdings with sea transports?

Does it stack slavers with its armies?

[Nazgul]

Salutation,

Is the concept of "Blitzkrieg" feasable in CTP2.

From what i understand of the "Blitzkrieg" (or Lightning War)is that it require Tanks + Motorized Infantery + Airpower and/or Motorized Artillery.

In CTP i couldn't create a true "Blitzkrieg" concept since there was no concept of Motorized Infantery and Artillery. Therefore if you starcked artillery or infantery with your tanks you were slowing down all the stack thus preventing any fast attack in enemy territory (unless you sticked with roads)

From the latest screenshot (preview day 5) i did notice the presence of what seems to be motorized artillery (A truck with some kind of a cannon or missile)

So what about Motorized Infantery?

Nazgul

[Nazgul]

quote: Originally posted by hexagonian on 11-11-2000 08:22 PM Can the AI launch a major amphibeous assault, originating from a distant location and then reinforce its holdings with sea transports?

If CTP2 AI is able to come close to something like that, i will have to raise my hat to whoever coded that AI

Personnaly i will be happy if the AI is just able to cross the sea.

In CTP1 once i was on an island the only thing i had to worry about was the enemy settlers and the occasionnal stealth unit.

Nazgul

[MarkG]

well, i've put aside my first game(although i want to end it to see well, how it ends ) and started a new one on impossible(deity) level
so far i've survived...

[Tical_2000]

Mark, I know this is not a MAJOR question (so you probably won't answer it) but anyways i was wondering, can u make 'empty' threats to civs. I mean, when you threatened war against the Brazilians, when they refuse, are you automatically at war with them or do you then have to choose whether to follow through? Just wondering.

[Triphosphatase]

Was Medium difficulty too easy for you? Report back on Deity. I hope Deity is actually 'Impossible' instead of 'Hard in the beginning, but will become very easy once you conquer one civ'.

[Ralf]

In Civ-2/SMAC i often had only 2-3 city-guarding units, and perhaps 3-5+ attack-units to conquer a single enemy-city.
In CTP-2 there seems to be a need for building pretty big and well-balanced 8-12+ unit armies to be able to achieve anything at all. I can see why increased 800-1000 turns can be helpful here.

- Does it cost just as many turns/resorces to build any average single military-unit in CTP-2, comparing with any average unit in Civ-2/SMAC?

Many players (including the AI) seems to overemphasize food-production and large city-population (good or bad - thats subjective, i know). I tend to emphasize somewhat smaller cities and have upto 30-40% of the tiles as forrest/mined hills.

- Can i tweak the AI to work towards the same 30-40% resource emphasize - not only through mayors, but also how the AI manage its own AI-controlled cities?

- Is it just as difficult to control big 20-25+ cities in CTP-2 compared with Civ-2/SMAC?
- Is it easier to build these mega-cities? I coudnt help noticing many really big cities, despite the fact that many of its city-area tiles wasnt cultivated.

About government-related max-limits on number of cities, and on overall empire-sizes:

- Any max numbers of cities per government type?
- Any government-related indevidual city-grow limits?
- Does happiness-problems get an increasingly bigger (and finally, almost unsolvable) problem with 30, 40, 50, 60+ empire-cities? Any practical limits? How big can an empire be without self-destruct?

About "settler-mania" (this is a MAJOR issue for me). What im aiming at is the strategy of building settlers, settler and almost only settlers early on (with some early wonders thrown in here and were) until i get at least 20-25 cities - and THEN starting to cultivate these cities, by adding city-improvements and terrain-improvememts. I dont like that and i hope CTP-2 have rules to combate this.

- How many undeveloped cities (without any, or very few city-improvements) can i build early on , before i *must* build more city-improvements? Is there any improvement-related limits on unrealistic super-fast empire expansion?

About the increased amount of game-turns: Any opinion how that affects the overall pace of the game? To the better? This particullar question you can answer in Preview: Day 6 or 7, if you prefer that.

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by Tical_2000 on 11-11-2000 11:40 PM Mark, I know this is not a MAJOR question (so you probably won't answer it) but anyways i was wondering, can u make 'empty' threats to civs. I mean, when you threatened war against the Brazilians, when they refuse, are you automatically at war with them or do you then have to choose whether to follow through? Just wondering.

oh yes! threats are just words...

btw, i'm not sure if it means something for the regards of other towards you if you threaten war and then go to war. it is certain though that it means a lot if you attack someone without declaring war on him first. if you dont, everyone's regard towards you lowers...