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Explanations, Replies
Day 2! First some replies to questions and some clarifications :
No Crash, No Crash, No Crash
Perhaps it's my way-over-the-minimum-requirements system, perhaps it's win2000, but the game is uncrashable so far.
Two incidents: one when I took of my USB mouse, which was conflicting with the DVD player, and plugged in a serial mouse. CTP2 kept working like nothing happened! The other incident when I run out off virtual memory(I had it at 200mb) and Windows throwed me a message saying it increased the virtual memory file. CTP2 didn't care again(CTP1 would probably have crashed) At the time, I was also running Photoshop and Word(for the manual), and CTP2 was running the "east India company" wonder video.
Manual in electronic format
As I noted before, the manual also in rtf format for easier access to the info. Definitely better!
Army Management
A group of unit is now called an army. CTP2 sets a "Army #347" kind of name each time you make a group. But you can edit it. In the Unit Tab on the Control Panel, each army is represented with just one unit, with a star next to it. If there are several ungrouped units on a tile, or some ungrouped units and an army on a tile, there is a right-click command to group all of them. The same for ungrouping all of the units. Removing one or more units from an army might require 1-2 clicks more from CTP1 but I think that again there is no way to make a mistake about it.
Units stats
These are the unit attributes(copy from the manual):
Music
There are 10 audio tracks on the CD. It's not something totally great, except from the Welsh song. There is definitely no irritating song in there, which is very good.
Radar Map buttons
The buttons on the radar map are the following: on/off units, on/off cities, on/off borders, on/off filtered(shows the map smoothed), on/off trade routes, on/off geographical information. Hopefully tomorrow I'll make an animated gif with the various options
Append to Multiple Build Queues!
If you're wondering what this is, here is an example: you discover the advance that enable the Mill. You open the National Manager(=city list), you select all the cities, click on the "Build Manager" button to open the.. build manager, Add mill on the queue and then click on "Append". The mill has been added to the queues of all your cities!! If you don't get the significance of this, you haven't played ctp1 with lots of cities...
Retreat Button
Check one of the animated screens to see a case where I clicked retreat as fast as I could. And yes these are catapults you see in there!
Comparing Governments
One really helpful addition is that you can finally see the numbers of cities your government can have. It would be nice if the same screen also list the number of cities you now have
Not yet 32 civs
I have yet to try and play with more than 8 civs.... Tomorrow!
Day 2! First some replies to questions and some clarifications :
- I got a 17" monitor. 1024x768 Works pretty much OK, but I think I'll end up using higher resolutions.
- As Lt John answered, the castle icons next a city shows you that a unit is fortified within the city. This means that you can see if enemy cities have units inside them.
- The recapturing-of-city FoW: only the first civ to do this get the FoW, and just for one time.
- Wonder movies: I've only seen 6 or 7, as I play the game. Two of them which where in CTP1(Hagia Sophia, East India Company) are identical. Also, the Pyramids one is identical with the first part of the intro movie.
- Also judging from the date of the exe file, my version is dated November 2.
- The declare war option: Yes, I know the importance, but for someone who doesn't know much about the game, it does sound ridiculous, doesn#t it?
- On the same subject, someone asked "With the declare war option, is there the possibility to demand a neighbor to stop a war with another civ?" Yes, you can offer/request the brake of any agreement, treaty, or pact. BUT it's disabled in the build I got. Whether or not it will be in the released game, I don't know. It CAN be enabled though by removing two lines from a text file(one for the offer and one for the request). I tried it and it SEEMS to work. As soon as we have some info on that from Activision we'll post it.
- AI files: there are lots of them. It seems that there are lists for building stuff, for the which advances to search, etc, depending of the character of the AI. Generally, lots of stuff to get into. My eye also caught a couple of help files
- Someone asked: "the Senate may once again actively block some of your decisions like declaring war. Can you let us know if you find anything to back this up?"
- I didn't find a single thing about this. It must be just part of the story....
- Another question: "Did the AI act any better/worse, or was it dong some idiotic things?" To early to tell. Not something idiotic so far.
No Crash, No Crash, No Crash
Perhaps it's my way-over-the-minimum-requirements system, perhaps it's win2000, but the game is uncrashable so far.
Two incidents: one when I took of my USB mouse, which was conflicting with the DVD player, and plugged in a serial mouse. CTP2 kept working like nothing happened! The other incident when I run out off virtual memory(I had it at 200mb) and Windows throwed me a message saying it increased the virtual memory file. CTP2 didn't care again(CTP1 would probably have crashed
) At the time, I was also running Photoshop and Word(for the manual), and CTP2 was running the "east India company" wonder video.Manual in electronic format
As I noted before, the manual also in rtf format for easier access to the info. Definitely better!
Army Management
A group of unit is now called an army. CTP2 sets a "Army #347" kind of name each time you make a group. But you can edit it. In the Unit Tab on the Control Panel, each army is represented with just one unit, with a star next to it. If there are several ungrouped units on a tile, or some ungrouped units and an army on a tile, there is a right-click command to group all of them. The same for ungrouping all of the units. Removing one or more units from an army might require 1-2 clicks more from CTP1 but I think that again there is no way to make a mistake about it.
Units stats
These are the unit attributes(copy from the manual):
Attack: The attack rating represents the unit's probability of successful attack
Ranged Attack: This represents the probability of a ranged attack. Not all units have ranged attack capability.
Defense: This represents the unit's ability to avoid being hit.
Armor: The armor rating indicates the unit's ability to withstand a successful attack
Strength: This represents the amount of damage a unit inflicts with each successful attack
Vision: Each unit has a range of vision that is equal to at least one tile in every direction
Cost: A unit's cost is measured by the amount of production it takes to build the unit
Health: The health of a unit is represented by a colored bar that appears over the flag next to the unit itself. One of these days I'll try the tank vs hoplite thing, but it seems to not exist anymore
Ranged Attack: This represents the probability of a ranged attack. Not all units have ranged attack capability.
Defense: This represents the unit's ability to avoid being hit.
Armor: The armor rating indicates the unit's ability to withstand a successful attack
Strength: This represents the amount of damage a unit inflicts with each successful attack
Vision: Each unit has a range of vision that is equal to at least one tile in every direction
Cost: A unit's cost is measured by the amount of production it takes to build the unit
Health: The health of a unit is represented by a colored bar that appears over the flag next to the unit itself. One of these days I'll try the tank vs hoplite thing, but it seems to not exist anymore
Music
There are 10 audio tracks on the CD. It's not something totally great, except from the Welsh song. There is definitely no irritating song in there, which is very good.
Radar Map buttons
The buttons on the radar map are the following: on/off units, on/off cities, on/off borders, on/off filtered(shows the map smoothed), on/off trade routes, on/off geographical information. Hopefully tomorrow I'll make an animated gif with the various options
Append to Multiple Build Queues!
If you're wondering what this is, here is an example: you discover the advance that enable the Mill. You open the National Manager(=city list), you select all the cities, click on the "Build Manager" button to open the.. build manager, Add mill on the queue and then click on "Append". The mill has been added to the queues of all your cities!! If you don't get the significance of this, you haven't played ctp1 with lots of cities...
Retreat Button
Check one of the animated screens to see a case where I clicked retreat as fast as I could. And yes these are catapults you see in there!
Comparing Governments
One really helpful addition is that you can finally see the numbers of cities your government can have. It would be nice if the same screen also list the number of cities you now have
Not yet 32 civs
I have yet to try and play with more than 8 civs.... Tomorrow!