CTP for Mac is here!

[Carch]

I just picked it up yesterday at Macworld after winning a Civ II game at the Nat'l Mac Gaming Championships. Woo!

Anyway, first impressions are... it looks *really* nice. The intro cinematic is awesome, and I like the graphics. The docs and readmes have been very helpful. I've read through some of the interface complaints here, so I'm hoping they won't bug me too much.

Looking forward to getting a few games under my belt so I can share my impressions with any Mac Civ-ers who are looking into getting CTP...

_/\ C

[Carch]

Apologies, I have *no* idea how this ended up in the "suggestions to the team" topic, I meant it for General. If it can be moved by a moderator, great, if not, oh well

_/\ C

[MarkG]

anyone else got it???

[DanQ]

Sure thing Carch... moving thread... moved.

----------------
Dan; Apolyton CS

[ETB]

Yes, I picked it up at CompUSA on Saturday, in Knoxville, Tennessee. They sell it for $49.99, but they had plenty of copies in stock!

[KingSheba]

I ordered Civ Call to Power from the MacSoft web page (http://www.wizworks.com/macsoft/index.html). They said that it was in stock and available to the US and Canada.

I ordered it on Monday and it should arive by Thursday (unless they were lying about having it "in stock").

[Carch]

People who are getting Mac Civ:CTP should be aware of a few problemlets that I've run into in multiplayer games.

#1: The most serious is that you can't restore from a saved multiplayer game. I have a PC friend who has been hosting our multiplayer games, and that works fine until...

#2: Apparently, no more than one mac player at a time can join a saved multiplayer game. Every time we try it, the second Mac player to join gets error messages from CTP.

#3: There is no PBEM option in Mac CTP (even though it claims it is based on the PC 1.2 code base. :-/)

#4: Trade with foreign civs can cause problems in multiplayer games (I have yet to have it cause problems in a solo game). What can happen is if one of your trade routes is pirated, and you then manipulate your trade, you can end up with a negative caravan count. Thereafter, no trade is possible.

#5: The chat window in multiplayer games is seriously messed up. After several dozen lines of chat, the chat lines start overwriting each other, and other ugly things happen. Doesn't seem to affect the game, but it sure makes it hard to chat.

#6: Clicking on the wrong thing in a server chat lobby can cause your typed messages to go into outer space somewhere. The only fix is to quit all the way out of CTP and reconnect. This was most disconcerting when it happened to me..

#7 In Multiplay, the result of diplomacy is shown in a message window which you can not open when you have the diplomacy window open! This means that you have to make a diplomatic proposal, cut off negotiations, read the result, then go back for more negotiations if needed. Really dumb. In the solo game, the result of the diplomacy is displayed directly in the window. I understand why they made it work that way in multiplay (it could be a human-run civ you're talking to, so the result may not come back right away), but they could at least make it so you can view the response if it *does* appear! I think this is a design problem, my PC friend says it works the same way on the PC.


There are other minor problems, but those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I have yet to see CTP crash on me, which is a good thing (Civ II Gold crashes on me all the time).

I expect we'll be seeing a multiplayer patch before too long...

_/\ C

[Finrod]

I picked up CTP last night at CompUSA. I'd love to share my thoughts... but I can't get it to run!

I've had more trouble with this than any other program I've ever installed.

Currently, I'm having a problem with the game informing me it's unable to switch to 640x480, even if I set it there before trying to start the game!

I'm trading e-mail with tech support...

Tim

[Carch]

Saw this message on comp.sys.mac.games.strategic... maybe it'll help with your problem?

---

In article <20000119154251.02734.00000322@ng-da1.aol.com>,
timelf@aol.comblahblah (Tim Frankovich) wrote:

> Phil Sulak wrote:
>
> >Tim, what kind of Mac do you have?
>
> Heh. Give this info to enough people, and we'll figure this out.
>
> PowerCenter132 with a 250Mhz G3 upgrade from MaxPowr.
>
> >What video card and monitor is
> >installed?
>
> Built-in video, somewhat generic 15" monitor - I believe the brand name
> is KDS.
>

Tim -

Here's the problem. Your PowerCenter's built-in video doesn't have
enough VRAM to handle the Intro Movie. I believe the CTP box specifies
that you need a video card with at least 2 MB of VRAM, and those old
PowerCenter machines (I think) only have 1 MB.

Here's the solution. This is copied and pasted this from the
"Troubleshooting" Read Me file that CTP should have installed to your
hard drive. It should solve the problem.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROBLEMS PLAYING THE INTRODUCTION OR WONDERS MOVIES
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

If Call to Power presents a DrawSprocket error when switching
resolutions to play the Intro movie, here's something that may help. If
the game has created a document called "userprofile.txt" (in the
"Civilization-Call to Power:ctp_program:ctp" folder), try modifying the
file with a program capable of editing DOS text files (such as Bare
Bones' BBEdit). Find the following line

HiResMovies=Yes

and change it to

HiResMovies=No

Save the file, quit your text editor, and re-launch Call to Power.

If Call to Power presents a DrawSprocket error after a Wonder has been
built but before the Wonder movie is played, open the "Graphics" window
in the "Options" screen, and make sure that "Full Screen Movies" are set
to "16-bit".

--
Phil Sulak
Mac Game Developer
Westlake Interactive http://www.westlakeinteractive.com

[Finrod]

Heh. Yea, that'll help, since that was ME he was replying to.

The game now works, though the opening movie is somewhat grainy, and it just randomly crashed after about a thousand years or so.

But I'm intrigued. I'll keep playing this weekend and let everyone know what I think.

Tim

[KingSheba]

Just an update from my previous post for people planning to buy Mac CTP on-line. The GT store (see previous post for URL) shipped Jan 19 so it should arrive in one or two days.

Hope it helps for those of you looking for somewhere to get CTP from!

[KingSheba]

Just an update from my previous post for people planning to buy Mac CTP on-line. The GT store (see previous post for URL) shipped Jan 19 so it should arrive in one or two days.

Hope it helps for those of you looking for somewhere to get CTP from!

[KingSheba]

I have a question about multi-player support for the Mac CTP:

It was stated that it does not include PBEM (although MacSoft is working on a patch to fix this among other things) but does it have hotseat?

Thanks for any light someone can shed on this...

[Carch]

Yes, Hotseat play is an option on the main screen.

I've been playing CTP on and off for a little over a week now, and I like it a *lot*. Even despite the multiplayer glitches I've run into, I find it more stable than Civ II, and a lot more fun. The alternative forms of warfare (economic and religious) are great.

I've read a lot of complaints here about the AI and diplomacy, but it's all good for me. I'm kinda wishing I never read the readme for CD's mod now, tho, because after having some of the stuff pointed out in the excellent analysis that accompanies that mod, I can see some of the rough edges. I'm looking forward to trying out that and the Awesome AIPs, too.

_/\ C

[lithium]

I picked up the game on Wednesday at CompUSA in Sacramento, CA. I have started three games so far, but haven't finished any of them. My impressions so far are mixed. Some of the features are really cool like stacked combat and PW. I also like the non modal city reports. However, most of the interface is sort of oppresive. My first game I almost quit in disgust before I found how to turn off the 'move by click' which finally made the keypad work reliably. Also the build window is poorly laid out, I wish I could see the improvment, the description, and the queue all at once instead of the constant clicking around. Also the tech tree and WoW seem to be less effective than CivII.

Overall I think that I will get used to this game and only occasionally play CivII. I think after another week or two I will feel as comfortable in CTP as I do in CivII.