Let me just say this...

[David Murray]

Hi,

[David Murray]

Hi,

Okay, case-study time. I've just finished playing again. I had been invading the English's country with my ten-unit army made up of three artillery, 6 machine gunners and a spy I accidentally forgot to remove from the assault pile. I throw them towards Liverpool, with full health. In Liverpool, are some ancient and renaissance units. 3 cannons, 2 catapults, a knight, a mounted archer and a couple of hoplites/phalanx (whatever you want to call them). Guess who gets beaten. Yep. Just because the ancient army is entrenched in its positions and gets defence bonuses, I loose by a fairly comfortable margin. In real terms a modern army would simply have mopped the floor with ancient, poorly trained units like those. (The cannons may have posed a threat to the machine gunners but the artillery should just have wiped them out.)

If you guys are suggesting that ancient units using metal weapons, muskets, stones and wooden vehicles can destroy a modern invasion force is in the name of "fun", you are well out of order. It is this persisting anomally that is detracting from my fun of this game. Why should I bother to even upgrade when I can just throw ancient units around?

To me, having ancient units when there's new technology is just daft--and there should have been an upgrade facility, where you could just have clicked on units, paid a price, and had them upgraded. Saving all the hassle of completely rearranging your armies. But no.

As for worker placement, well, that's pretty minor, and my cities don't seem to grow/not grow any differently. I like having the option to build farmer specialists, etc.

But I agree totally with these reviews--in itself it's a fairly good game. But they didn't include half the things they should have. The combat system isn't always very accurate. Diplomacy isn't as resplendid with options as it should be.

If they had included the ability to auto-upgrade units, and perhaps just included a few more options in diplomacy, I personally would have been over the moon with CTP2. As it is I'm simply just unmoved and rather p-d off by the rave previews and sycophantic adulation its got from Civ "fanatics".

[Mat'agh]

First off, why do you say that older units are poorly trained? Roman legions for example had excellent training. Just because they don't know how to use modern weapons or modern tactics does not mean that they are poorly trained.

In fact, an older army would have a chance, however remote, of defeating a modern army. This would be in the lower percentile, but the chance could still exist.

I can't remember who said it above, but remember that the battle does take place over a long period; alot can happen. There are ways that Hoplites could damage an Artillery unit. Remember; it is not so simple as the units are charging each other on an open field, the battles are simplified. Imagine if one vehicle is trying to "run over" a Hoplite, and while attempting to do so crashes into another vehicle. Your unit was just damaged, right?

In real history, the more advanced unit did not always, win, and victory was not always guaranteed. How many times did natives ambush and slaughter European soldiers? In one battle in South Africa, the Zulus massacred an entire army of British Regulars in an open field. Just because you have better technology and training does not guarantee you victory 100% of the time.

Many generals have been baffled as to why their armies lost; even when the circumstances were vastly in their favour, there is always the remote possibility that a weaker and inferior enemy will be able to win.

It would not be realistic if the most advanced unit in the game could win every battle without receiving any damage.

[Fraze]

I'm no history expert but take Rorke's Drift for example, the Zulus gave the British a seriously hard time (even with the advantage of Michael Cane). As for the US you certainly made a big deal out of killing all your Indians.

Edit: I just remebered, the Hi tech USA army went to Vietnam in the late sixties early seventies.

They lost.
[This message has been edited by Fraze (edited December 10, 2000).]

[David Murray]

lol...okay sorry, you guys make some fairly good points, but let me try and counter counter them now.

Firstly, the issue of battles taking a long time. The battles don't really last years, although the wars often do, unfortunately the turn system couldn't just be slowed down to the appropriate days or weeks or months a battle would take place, the game would take forever.

Secondly, we have to be pragmatic about this. Sure, hoplies might be able to take out a modern army. Yes, and it is also a 'possibility' that Al Gore will become the next Preisdent because George W will admit that the Republicans used dirty tactics to win. But be reasonable, it's not very likely.

My resolution is this, and it has already been proposed: Units that are just one age apart, i.e. ancient-renaissance, renaissance-modern, modern-genetic, genetic-diamond should have a chance, although the higher bracket should have the advantage. If you're two tech levels down, quite frankly your unit deserves to be obliterated.

This would make technology a priority, would promote realism, would make the game more fun and exciting, and would probably finally end the situation of cannons and pikemen taking out stealth bombers.

[David Murray]

Oh, and remember my post wasn't just about combat...remember I mentioned stuff about trading food, diplomacy, etc...none of you seem to be as bothered about that. Like I said, diplomacy is good, and trade is easier, but why did Activision cut out so many diplomatic options that could have been included and not include things like the ability to ship food aid?

This game is only a couple to a few mods away from being perfect. Maybe I'll take up mods myself.
[This message has been edited by David Murray (edited December 10, 2000).]

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by David Murray on 12-10-2000 02:03 PM my ten-unit army made up of three artillery, 6 machine gunners and a spy I accidentally forgot to remove from the assault pile. I throw them towards Liverpool, with full health. In Liverpool, are some ancient and renaissance units. 3 cannons, 2 catapults, a knight, a mounted archer and a couple of hoplites/phalanx (whatever you want to call them). Guess who gets beaten. Yep. Just because the ancient army is entrenched in its positions and gets defence bonuses, I loose by a fairly comfortable margin.

if you had bombarded the city first for a couple turns, you had no problems...

quote: If they had included the ability to auto-upgrade units, and perhaps just included a few more options in diplomacy, I personally would have been over the moon with CTP2. As it is I'm simply just unmoved and rather p-d off by the rave previews and sycophantic adulation its got from Civ "fanatics".

so the difference between "over the moon" and "unmoved and rather p-d off by the rave previews" is an unit-upgrade feature and a few more choices in the diplomacy?
wow...

[jkadabomb]

Man O Man. David Murray you must be an unlucky person, I have not run into a battle like that. In fact I had 5 hoplites, 1 pikmen all fortified behind city walls and on ballista towers and 1 infantrymen took them all out.

[David Murray]

Jkadabomb, I'll believe it when I see it. Anyway. Mark....

The whole premise of CTP2 was improved functions, no? As in, this wasn't supposed to be a revolutionary, revamped game. Right?

Well, the diplomatic, combat and other gameplay alterations are pretty but pretty specious and artificial...so I guess maybe if they'd done their job right, I would be happy. But because they didn't, I'm not.

Does it all make sense to you now? Good-oh!

(As for bombarding. Yeah. They had 5 bombarding units in that city. I sure as heck wouldn't have lasted too long in battle if I sat about letting 5 units bombard my stack, huh.)
[This message has been edited by David Murray (edited December 10, 2000).]

Edit: granted I could have bombarded first, but this isn't about strategy, it's about the combat system.
[This message has been edited by David Murray (edited December 10, 2000).]

[Chronus]

Hmmmm. I can agree with Murray for the most part. If these miraculous victories by the weaker armies are occuring a lot then, yes, something is obviously wrong.

However, as others have pointed out, there are occasions when the inferior army wins, even when they are way behind in technology. Did not the Eithiopians beat back the Italians in WWII? Did not the Polish/Russian resistance destroy German tanks with mere flaming bottles filled with fuel? Did not Luke Skywalker destroy the mighty Death Star with a single photon from an X-wing?

Other circumstances can also be considered when such outcomes occur. The mighty Mongol army, for example, tried to invade Japan twice but was destroyed by storms. The fact of the matter is, even the best laid of plans are thwarted by reality.

Please do not give ancient units an absolute zero chance in defeating a better equipped army. Bring it down to a .01% chance if you like, but reducing it to 0%, as history shows, is NOT realistic.

[Alpha Wolf]

what level are you playing on? I'm constantly defeating fortified armies inside cities with an equal sized attack force (no pre bombardment). I havent seen any positive effect of cities yet towards defense. In fact a just had a single barbarian warrior beat 2 fortified warriors inside a city. On the battle screen it showed 0 under the city part.

I have to agree somewhat with both sides. Any army should have some chance, but wasnt the armor rating supposed to prevent archers from shooting down planes?

And has anyone looked at the costs of units? Seems like building costs are not very consistant.

------------------
History is written by the victor.

[Sabre2th]

are you people saying that a samarai can't occasionally beat an infantryman or marine in hand to hand combat? (in real life)

[David Murray]

Heh. Reminds me of that Indiana Jones film, can't remember which one. A big Samuri warrior-like dude starts doing fancy manoeuvres with his big samurai sword, but then Indi just nonchalantly pulls out his pistol, shoots him and gets on with the movie.

BTW the first game I played was on medium level, just to get myself used to things.

[JamesJKirk]

Indiana Jones was never in Japan, it was a mideastern guy with a sword...okay, on to "real" things:
I enjoy having a hard time taking on enemies with slightly more antiquated militaries than mine, would you rather it that anyone with a modern military could take on anyone anywhere using anything less than what he had, you have to win some and lose some, it wouldn't be much fun to stomp over the world uncontested

[kabouki]

Hi,

Ok, I believe it is not very believable that a spearman can defeat a tank, but I think that the game needs to balance playability with real warfare. But I think this is a minor issue. (Actually it's pretty irrealistic for a spearman to knock down a Stealth Bomber )

There are things that could be better in other ways:

The upgrade capability to obsolete units.
The ability to set by percentage the distribution of each type of specialist and workers in a city and on the empire, so that there is consitency on the growth of cities and you don't have to turn entertainers to other specialists every time the city grows (for very large cities of course).
The diplomacy is better, but could be better.
Pop-up windows when a city completes a task and if wether or not has other items in queue.
The ability to arrange units in a stack before combat begins.
More realistic wonders.
For FoW I would propose a fame system for Cities, considering it's population, resource production, improvements and WoW, so that conquering a City with High fame could be a FoW instead of considering a FoW the recapture of a City.
And last but not least a "realistic" tech tree.

Nevertheless I think CTPII is a good game, it improves on CTP because the greater area of influence of a city, the substitution of gold based science for trade based gold and science are two major steps in favour of playability. The end of space cities might seem a bad decision at first, but it let's you concentrate more deeply on what I believe a Civ game is about.

I play Civ games since the first days of Civ1 (back in 87) and it's refreshing to have games like this.
[This message has been edited by kabouki (edited December 10, 2000).]