CTP: The Best Civ, or TBS, Game Ever?

[Nordicus]

Okay, fellow Civers.
We've heard the complaints, know about the bugs, the *ahem* reasoning about how it's the 'worst' game of all-time, but this is question here: Is it the best Civilization, or Turn-Based-Strategy, game ever?

I'll vote first.
1. Best Civ game? Yes.

Despite it's faults, its bugs, and the Civ2 stuff they left out of it, I think that the logical view is that, without having tried TOT or SMAC, it kicks butt! Pound for pound, I think it's better than Civ and Civ2.


2. Best TBS? I don't know.

I haven't played every TBS out there, so I'll decline from giving an opinion on that side.

And...
3. If you don't have an opinion about either or don't think it's in 1 or 2, what's something you like about CTP?


...I like lots of things, which I'll include later, but for now...

What do you think?


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"Verrosten est X-beine das Fahrbar Bliken Obszon
Abgabepflichtighoffenburger!?!?!?!"


"Like Wes said...."
[This message has been edited by Nordicus (edited October 28, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by Nordicus (edited October 28, 1999).]

[Pintello]

Hi Nordicus,

My vote:

Is CTP the best Civ game out there? Yes, CTP is the best Civ game out there. I have tried them all.


Is CTP the best TBS Game out there? I don't know, I haven't tried them all, but it is the best one that I have tried.

Timothy Pintello

[pchang65]

I think CTP is the best Civ game out. I have tried Civ1 and Civ2.

Is it the best TBS game out? I like TBS games for the strategy and don't really care about the graphics or sound. The most important thing to me is the strategic challenge. There is a PBEM/TBS called Galaxy. It had the greatest strategic challenge because you were only playing agains other humans. Thus, it is my favorite. The CTP AI is not that great and multiplayer games are hard to arrange (because the game starts slowly PBEM games seem soooo SLOW at the beginning). However, the flexiblity of CTP allows us to tinker with the AI, and it gives us the hope of competing against a much better AI.

[Nordicus]

pchang65:
Hmmm. Sounds like scenarios might be better for multiplayer PBEM games--ones at the start of which you don't have to wait to develop tech and a whole bunch of cities? I dunno, I haven't tried the multiplayer side of CTP yet.
Yeah, I hear what you're saying about the AI, (and diplomacy) but we're working on that, and that's another thing about CTP: you can change it, even an idiot like me.
Never heard of Galaxy--what's it about?

------------------
"There can be no maximum of creation without a concomitant maximum of destruction, no supreme good without supreme evil"--Heller, paraphrasing Nietzsche.


"It never stops, never rests, and I can see its hideous face: it looks like Jesus, looks like Lucifer, looks like me...looks like I won't be seeing you tonight..."--Thomas Knight.


"Verrosten est X-beine das Fahrbar Bliken Obszon
Abgabepflichtighoffenburger!?!?!?!"


"Like Wes said...."

[This message has been edited by Nordicus (edited October 28, 1999).]

[Nordicus]

Okay, since this a pro-CTP thread, I'm going to include some from Wes's older thread: "List the small gameplay improvements"
and his intro:


I have noticed that CTP has eliminated a number of annoyances that occurred in the Sid games. Let's list the ones you have noticed. I will list a couple to start.
1) You get a warning that a city may riot the next turn, which gives you a chance to take pre-emptive action. In the other games, you had to manually check out each city to prevent this.
2) Sleeping units in ports stay that way when a ship comes in. This eliminates a lot of hassels when moving invasion forces.

Excellent, reasonable, well-explained points, Wes.


------------------
"There can be no maximum of creation without a concomitant maximum of destruction, no supreme good without supreme evil"--Heller, paraphrasing Nietzsche.


"It never stops, never rests, and I can see its hideous face: it looks like Jesus, looks like Lucifer, looks like me...looks like I won't be seeing you tonight..."--Thomas Knight.


"Verrosten est X-beine das Fahrbar Bliken Obszon
Abgabepflichtighoffenburger!?!?!?!"


"Like Wes said...."

[Nordicus]

Wes(has some more: )

I quess I'll list a couple more. The airport. I remember thinking when playing civ II that the airport's function was largely a waste, and that it should also increase revenue or something, and that is exactly what Activision did in CTP. The stacked combat feature makes more realistic battles. In civ II, your artillery was used to battle defending infantry. With CTP, the artillery correctly is used to soften up the defenders, while other types storm the walls. Also, the AI now attacks in the proper unit sequence due to the stacking feature.
This thread was intended to be a place where we could share the good features of CTP, since so many threads concentrate on the gripes we have with it.

[This message has been edited by Nordicus (edited October 28, 1999).]

[Nordicus]

And Monkey

Personally I like how the happiness button in the city tab will tell you why the city is unhappy.... How about the active defence idea? I like that too...

[Nordicus]

And Slax

I like that railroads don't give you infinite movement. You can no longer
move out of a city, travel all the way around the world on the enemy's
railroad, and attack another city in the same turn.

I LOVE bombarding. "LIGHT THE FUSE!"

I like the differentiated shallow and deep oceans.

I like that mountains get larger graphically if there are more mountain tiles
together.

I like the trade system. No more moving caravans, and its special resource -
based.

and more...

[Nordicus]

And Hexigonian

Pathing allows you to see how many tiles a unit can move.

The interface in CTP has gotton a lot of criticism, as many people have
complained about the tabs (too small, too many clicks, no more city screen)
One advantage of the tab system in CTP is that it doesn't block out the
map. The city labor screen is movable too.


Some players complain about the spreadsheet
quality of CTP. However, I find it gives you a clearer picture of how your civ
is doing. I also like the complete city list that allows you to compare cities
based on production/hapiness/science/gold and helps you strategically plan
which cities get what improvements.

I haven't played CIV or CIVII, but I have a copy of CIV Test of Time, so I'm
drawing comparisons from that.

[Nordicus]

Wes with more:

I like how if an enemy unit occupies a tile you were working, the computer
automatically moves the worker back to it when the unit moves off of it.

[Nordicus]

John LeMaitre

Although this has more to do with me (and the Apolyton site!) than with the
game, I like the fact that I can now change the civs and civ leader graphics
on my own. There was no way I could do that (as far as I can tell....) on
Civ II.

I also like the increased number of Wonders, and the fact that the game
doesn't end so early. I also like the fact that the AI wonder can really be a
gamble!

I also like that CTP is more multi-cultural, in that a higher percentage of the
Wonders, civs, and music are of non-EuroAmerican origin. (Some of my
faves, such as the Maya, were skipped in Civ II. Now they even have their
own wonder!)

[Nordicus]

And another one from our man, super-mellow, Timothy Pintello

I like the customizability, is that a word, of just about everything in the
game.

[Nordicus]

Monkey once more:

Just found out the other day that there is right click help for most things on
the user interface. Very useful IMO... I like how if you right click on an
improvement or unit on the queue list it gives a small description of it... I
didn't know you can do this until the other day... i used to alternate
between the build screen and the queue list to see what an improvement
does...

[Nordicus]

Doc Dee had this to say:

It's hard to remember that far back (I've not played civII for about a year). But how come public works don't rate a mention? Micromanaging a horde of food hungry engineers/settlers was a nightmare, particularly when you'd disbanded them on a continent because it was already maximally developed. I also love the different levels of mining, farming etc - and the advanced farms DO NOT require that annoying supermarket to be built. Also micromanaging (and I know this has already been mentioned) is trading. It's a shame all goods are equal in CTP (I'd like things like oil to be worthless initially, but hugely valuable in the mid game), but being able to set up trade
routes without guiding your little camel/truck around the map is a big improvement. Another biggie (unless I misremember civII) is that you can kick out settlers without starting wars (ie by killing them). It's good to see some positive threads about CTP, since certain forummers appear to enjoy bullying those of us who actually like the game. It's a flawed game with the potential to be the best TBS so far. I just hope that they continue to improve it to iron out all the little things that still bug me/us - eg AI and diplomacy.

[This message has been edited by Nordicus (edited October 28, 1999).]

[Nordicus]

And Lev

It took getting Test of Time to bring to my attention how many things CtP got right. Bombarding, stacking, pathing, graphics(!!!), trade. The government model is much better than CivII, especially since it's expandable and configurable, though I do like SMACs "social engineering" matrix even more.
One thing I =really= appreciate: the alert-box system. I hated late-game in CivII, having to click through endless alert messages at the beginning of each turn before I could do =anything= else, even just save and quit. In CtP, I look at the messages when I want to, and if I wanna save and quit at the beginning of a turn, all the messages are still waiting for me when I get back. Come to think of it, I also really like how, no matter what is going on, I can open different menus or tabs without having to wait other stuff to finish. Nicely done, Activision! I do have some gripes, but those are for other threads. :-)