a guide for us new to alt civs?

[lord of the mark]

I dont follow alt civs mainly becuase it is too confusing. There are projects that have boards here, Free civ, and GGS, and ones like MD which get attention but dont have their own board. then there are several mentioned which seem to be dead, afaik. ANd while MD and GSS seem to be distinct games, one gets the impression that Free Civ is just a Linux port of Civ. I dont have the time or inclination to go hunting websites for each project. It would be useful, therefore, if someone could put up a simple comparitive fact sheet on the different alt civs. What their gameplay goals are, what platforms, what programming languages, current status (this does NOT need to be frequently updated - just would be good to seperate out those at alpha test, those released, those dead for 5 years)

I realize it may come off as obnoxious to ask for this, when im not volunteering to do it - just consider it a friendly suggestion.

[MarkG]

yeah the alt civs section needs some re-organization...

[RonHiler]

That's not a bad idea at all, having a single comparitive chart. It would make it a lot easier to examine the games in an overall manner. As long as we stay away from it becoming a "competitive chart" (because I think they have a tendancy to become so).

If you want me to, and if I can find the time, I might put something together. Don't wait for me to do it, though. At this moment I have roughly one billion and four things to get done this week (and it's already Tuesday!). If I do it, fine. If somebody else beats me to it, also fine

Ron

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by RonHiler on 01-23-2001 08:34 PM That's not a bad idea at all, having a single comparitive chart

i was talking in general about a re-organization but this sound good!

the issue is, how do you describe the various parts of a civ game...
i wouldnt ask you to do the whole thing, but if you have any ideas on the above....

[MarkG]

somehow i managed to get the wrong idea, and thought we were talking about a comparison on the game models of each game...

anyway, a comparison like the one "lord of the mark" suggests in much easier

let's see, we've got
- type of game(civ-like, generic 4x, etc)
- design goals
- distribution type(open source, freeware, shareware, commercial)
- current version
- scheduled release date
- platforms(win, linux, mac, os/2)
- programming language
- need of help?

[MarkG]

as for the game itself:

- graphics(16 bit, 8 bit, etc)
- map(isometric, flat, 3d)
- tiles(square, hexagons)
- unique/generic civs
- victory types
- number of max civs(7,8,16,32...)
- simultaneous moves(yes,no)
- customizable units(ala smac)
- borders
- tile improvement model
- stacks/tactical combat
- goverments(civ2 like, smac se, etc)

more is needed obviously...

[Mark_Everson]

Sounds like a great idea! I'll try to put together a list for Clash this weekend.

------------------
Mark Everson
Project lead for The Clash of Civilizations
(That means I do the things nobody else wants to do ;-) )
This Radically different civ game needs your suggestions and/or criticism of our design.
Check our our Forum right here at Apolyton...

[RonHiler]

Sounds like a good list to me. I think we may have a bit of trouble getting six games onto one page with all that info, heh.

I would add a couple of items:

Contact (e-mail)
Web page (link)
Discussion (link)
Play types (single player, multiplayer, (hotseat, PBEM, Massive multi, etc.))

Ron

[Mark_Everson]

Hi again.

We need to agree on a format, or whoever puts it together will have a bear of a time. I propose that for the short things like most of the items in Markos' lists we look for very short answers and organize it in a table. To my mind that's probably the critical thing, since for most of these games you need a good chunk of a page of text to get at the real meat of what makes 'em different... And that is probably too much for those with a low level of interest to wade thru six or so times.

What do you guys think?

[MarkG]

just provide the answers in as less words as possible, and let me worry about the format of the resulting page

[RonHiler]

I totally agree. That's sort of what was in my mind. One word answers would be good, where possible, and maybe no more than ten words max for any given answer.

We need to keep this all on one page, which will be difficult enough with six or seven games in the list. But if we can do that, a casual observer could quickly scan through and pick out the features most interesting to him or her, and then click on a web link to get more detailed information about the project (that's why I suggested adding the links).

(errr, nevermind, MarkG has already volunteered )

Ron
[This message has been edited by RonHiler (edited January 24, 2001).]

[heardie]

Okay I can do that. Appears GGS guys dont come here every day

[Mark_Everson]

OK, so who do I send it to when I'm done? Is it Markos, or Ron, or both?

[MarkG]

just post it here!

[heardie]

Mine will be reayd in 1-2 days, just gotta coonfirm a few things with the rest of the team.