Reasons why i'm looking forward to Call to Power

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Author Topic:   Reasons why i'm looking forward to Call to Power

Trombone1 posted 03-23-99 08:22 PM ET
To say the least i was extremely surprised when my friend informed me that the game had recieved a 98%. I thought it was very good, but not quite thAT good. I'd probably give it a 93-95%
Many things contribute to me saying that it is not quite as good as civ 2. but a few things stand out.
ITs simply not earth. One of the major merits of civ was that you felt at home. You were on earth, playing the russians, or romans, not the morganites, or the hive?? It feels more like home, it feels kewl beating down those affiliated with the UN. SMAC just isn't the same feeling. it feel far flung, but not quite as kewl as civ. The home feeling is very important remember how good x-com was? One of the big things was because it was that home feeling of protecting Earth. Civ II attracted not only strat gamers, but also history buffs, and the like. Much stronger relation to the game with civ II than SMac
and the other major concern would be the fact that i have to rediscover everything. I fail to understand why i must rediscover flight, the internet, and lasers. for gawds sake you landed on the planet in a bloody space ship near the year 2500, darn it. I played the game expecteing to be researching teleportation devices, building killer satilites, and defending with mechnized infantry at least in the first turn. Why is it you start so low? its too much like civ, it needed to be more radical. The gamereally just isn't different enough. I mean . . really . . .i thought we were in the future now?? The game feels low tech . . . anyways
thats enough for now, i hope i'm not the only one who thinks this.
i expected some more though. Perhaps some
more sophisticated things would make it much more believable, remember good old earth 2?
but the difference is this is like the year 3000, right now we have the ability and the knowledge to store on a singe harddrive the siZe of a check book box. Apporximately 20.0giga bytes of information. This is hundred of thousands of books, each pictures, skematics, and the like. With that kinda knowledge and 500-10,000 people you'd expect a little more. Don�t forget that everyday we get more and more info into that little hardrive, and lets not forget CDs
and DVDs and whatever comes next.
Also what kind of colonist are these? as i recall they should have a very large supply of technology from unity, i'd expect a necessary supply of materials, computers, and manufacring materials to start up the hi tech quite fast. Hmmm som how i don't believe they'd be that badly off, and if tyhey were they could at least change the story line to represent it . . What would you do if you were sending umm . . lets say 3000 colonist into space?!??!?! Even though unity was destroyed in the crash lets not forget what would most likely be included in each colony pod!!!
I myself would fill it with good stuff, collapasable air power, machines for facorties, plenty of spare parts, and the bare minimum reasources.

Jasper McChesney posted 03-23-99 08:32 PM ET
Earth 2, there's an idea: perhaps a mod for it? Or at least the sort of tech you want.
I'd love doing som crazy future tech and more radical societal changes.
MarkG posted 03-23-99 08:47 PM ET
"ITs simply not earth"
Yeah, I know what you mean, but there is the earth map(you'll find in our Files page)
Markos, Apolyton Civilizatin Site
http://civilization.gamestats.com/smac
Victor Galis posted 03-23-99 08:54 PM ET
How are you going to fit collapsible factories into the Unity. Are you out of your mind!?! The ship was finished and launched in 2060, not 3000. It was WAY over budget, and now you want them to have collapsible factories? This is teh FIRST ship humanity sends out, at a whopping speed of roughly .12c. It is heavily damaged, barely survives, badly built. IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO SURVIVE! Have you read the story, and yet you want factories on it. This is much more realistic, bare minimum I mean.
Of course they have to rediscover everything, because they are in a foreign enviroment. Something that might have flown on Earth, would crash horribly on Planet due to higher gravity. Go to your CTP! You don't understand this game. SMAC is a state of mind. You are probably some filthy Activision infiltrator.
"Not Earth" that's the stupidest complaint I've heard yet. Where's your creativity, honestly people...
yin26 posted 03-23-99 09:00 PM ET
Victor,
Please come to payroll. Your paycheck is ready. Thank you.
The Management
Firaxis
Rong posted 03-23-99 09:11 PM ET
Yin, congratulations! Here is your big fat bonus check. Job well done.
The Management
Activision
yin26 posted 03-23-99 09:13 PM ET
Actually, all they gave me was a CTP poster and some stale candy.
But it was worth it!
Shining1 posted 03-23-99 09:31 PM ET
I just wanna know when Firaxis is going to hit back with their own Giant Robot game. Seems like the only thing Activision has done well recently...
Maybe SMAC III
NuWav posted 03-24-99 02:22 AM ET
To clarify, one of the key objections of SMAC was to make it NOT seem like earth. It is not supposed to have that "at home" but rather emphasize being in an alien environment.
And yes, of course, they would have to rediscover many techs. But also, look at it from the other side. In civ2 you don't start out with a scout patrol carrying a gun or a speeder. Some techs you don't have to rediscover, some you do. And like victor said, the ones that you do need to - c'mon it's NOT earth. These people have to start from scratch practically and start a new civilization.
pg_liden posted 03-24-99 04:00 AM ET
I can't see why anybody would be looking forward to Civ: Call To Power? So they've added loads of extra units, question is if that's good or bad? CTP hasn't got SMAC's 3D-terrain either. From CTP screenshots I must say the look (colours etc.) of it seems a lot worse than that of Civ 2. SMAC on the other hand has an incredible look and feel. The transformation from earth to alien planet is truly amazing. And above all the AI of SMAC is the best I've ever seen, you can coordinate your attacks with other factions for god's sake! Also, the supreme customization possibilities in both units and factions results in infinite replayability. Come on; SMAC with a whole new atmosphere (and a bloody good one too) or CTP which is ultimately just a Civ 2 extension?
MarkG posted 03-24-99 06:58 AM ET
Not meaning to start another "CTP vs SMAC" war, and I will not say that CTP is better from SMAC, but here goes...
"CTP hasn't got SMAC's 3D-terrain either."
And SMAC doesn't have CTP's advanced stack combat or trade systems,or the ability to have up to 32 players(if your system can handle them that is)
"From CTP screenshots I must say the look (colours etc.) of it seems a lot worse than that of Civ 2."
Are you sure they were CTP screenshots?
"SMAC on the other hand has an incredible look and feel."
Feel yes, but look? Even the most fanatic smacers admit that smac's graphics is not the best thing in the world...
"And above all the AI of SMAC is the best I've ever seen, you can coordinate your attacks with other factions for god's sake!"
The depth of CTP's AI remain to be seen, and there is also the ability to modify the AI behaviour...
"Also, the supreme customization possibilities in both units and factions results in infinite replayability."
CTP is also very customisable...
see http://civilization.gamestats.com/ctp/features and http://civilization.gamestats.com/ctp/previewindex.shtml for more ctp info.
Markos, Apolyton CS
NuWav posted 03-24-99 04:47 PM ET
corrections:
- I mean "objectives" not objections" in my last post.
- and "at home feel"
I should proof read..
Question to MarkG:
You have a copy of CTP, how much resources does it use? SMAC uses 30-40% on my machine, and my machine is fragile enough as it is, I suspect some serious software conflicts are present. One of the things I liked about civ2 was that it didnt take over half your system to play it.
I am not sure yet whether I like the atmosphere of civ2 or SMAC better. I'll wait awhile longer b4 deciding. Perhaps I hesitate b/c I am simply so used to playing civ2 for so long.
I actually despised the barbarians in civ2, but I seem to accept the mindworms more, they seem to be more realistic (maybe that's not the word I'm looking for). But the end game "growth dream" chaos in SMAC just makes me want to build the last project and get it over with.
Freddz posted 03-24-99 05:09 PM ET
One thing's for sure: it will be fun comparing the two games on this forum when CTP comes out. Um, I'm already smiling (and praying CTP will be better)
Trombone1 posted 03-24-99 05:10 PM ET
Well its me again the one who started
this so called, topic. I've noticed some of you are very into SMAC, a matter a fact so am
i. I never said that it was a bad game.
btw- I LOVE IT!
But what i'm saying is that its not the greatest game ever devised. PCGamer seems to
have had correct logic by saying since it is better than civ 2 it deserves a grade thats higher. In actuallity i felt that they missed a little on the originality issue. CivII is in reality CIv with fixed bugs galore, and slightly altered.
Alpha centauri is a new game but its not all that different, and orginality is very important, some of this tech tree stuff would have made me like it more if it was more futuristic.
Like i was saying prior, the premise of the game is very important, and because of that i am looking forward to CTP. Because its Earth!!!! which makes alot of differencem, remmeber how kewl Battlezone was??? samw feeling. Talking about dropping troops into europe, and running down all the chinese borders is kewl.
Taking the <insert SMAC land> just isn't the same.
As stated prior the tech couldhave been better. Compact factories is pushing it, but then again how the hell did they live for so many years on unity with no manufacturing cabilities?!?!?!? i dunno . . keep the thread alive boys
Victor Galis posted 03-24-99 05:15 PM ET
I don't know about CTP. I saw a demo for the game in September and wanted it. Now I have SMAC, and I don't want CTP. CTP's graphics are not that good, the whole graphics debate either should go to SMAC or become irrlevant.
32 people: Why would you wnat to? I have enough trouble getting 7 to agree on a single date and time. Do you know how long your turns would take? You emphasize irrelevant plusses over SMAC's concrete advantages. Plus, if I wanted to play on Earth, I would go back to Civ2.
MarkG posted 03-24-99 05:48 PM ET
NuWav, I hope I'm answering the question by saying that I played it with no problems on a p-166 with 32 mb ram. However, it does want at least 300mb for the installation(with the videos remaining on the cd) and 80mb of virtual memory.
Victor Galis, I'm talking about single player. 32 civilizations in one game means a human player, barbarians and 30 AI's. It's pretyy demanding though, you'll need at least a PII with lots of ram in order to have decent turn times. Of course you dont have to go to 32 civs, you can have 12 or 16 or whatever your system and your patience takes... Btw, the game "officially" gives you up to 8 civs, but you can change it through a text file...
Markos, Apolyton CS
NuWav posted 03-24-99 10:42 PM ET
Well, I meant system resources. i.e. If I ran my tv tuner, smac and and went on the internet at the same time with my machine, it would crash or slow down to a crawl b/c those three things eat up that much resources, at least on my machine (I remember my older P100 could handle alot more with out running out so soon tho it didnt have a tv tuner). I not worried about anything else. My current machine is brand new, so I have plenty of mhz power, ram and HD space. My point is just that SMAC hogs resources, and i could play civ2 without even slowing the system down at all, it is lighter on the programming demands.
Trombone:
Sorry, didnt mean to sound so harsh. If you like the earth feel better, then you may like ctp better in the long run.
In regards to your last post, they didnt really need manufacturing capabilities, all they needed was machines that could make liquid food or whatever was needed to keep cryofrozen people alive. And there wouldnt be enough room to fit much else on the ship when there was tens of 1,000s of cryotubes jammed everywhere.
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Author	Topic: Reasons why i'm looking forward to Call to Power
Trombone1	posted 03-23-99 08:22 PM ET To say the least i was extremely surprised when my friend informed me that the game had recieved a 98%. I thought it was very good, but not quite thAT good. I'd probably give it a 93-95% Many things contribute to me saying that it is not quite as good as civ 2. but a few things stand out. ITs simply not earth. One of the major merits of civ was that you felt at home. You were on earth, playing the russians, or romans, not the morganites, or the hive?? It feels more like home, it feels kewl beating down those affiliated with the UN. SMAC just isn't the same feeling. it feel far flung, but not quite as kewl as civ. The home feeling is very important remember how good x-com was? One of the big things was because it was that home feeling of protecting Earth. Civ II attracted not only strat gamers, but also history buffs, and the like. Much stronger relation to the game with civ II than SMac and the other major concern would be the fact that i have to rediscover everything. I fail to understand why i must rediscover flight, the internet, and lasers. for gawds sake you landed on the planet in a bloody space ship near the year 2500, darn it. I played the game expecteing to be researching teleportation devices, building killer satilites, and defending with mechnized infantry at least in the first turn. Why is it you start so low? its too much like civ, it needed to be more radical. The gamereally just isn't different enough. I mean . . really . . .i thought we were in the future now?? The game feels low tech . . . anyways thats enough for now, i hope i'm not the only one who thinks this. i expected some more though. Perhaps some more sophisticated things would make it much more believable, remember good old earth 2? but the difference is this is like the year 3000, right now we have the ability and the knowledge to store on a singe harddrive the siZe of a check book box. Apporximately 20.0giga bytes of information. This is hundred of thousands of books, each pictures, skematics, and the like. With that kinda knowledge and 500-10,000 people you'd expect a little more. Don�t forget that everyday we get more and more info into that little hardrive, and lets not forget CDs and DVDs and whatever comes next. Also what kind of colonist are these? as i recall they should have a very large supply of technology from unity, i'd expect a necessary supply of materials, computers, and manufacring materials to start up the hi tech quite fast. Hmmm som how i don't believe they'd be that badly off, and if tyhey were they could at least change the story line to represent it . . What would you do if you were sending umm . . lets say 3000 colonist into space?!??!?! Even though unity was destroyed in the crash lets not forget what would most likely be included in each colony pod!!! I myself would fill it with good stuff, collapasable air power, machines for facorties, plenty of spare parts, and the bare minimum reasources.
Jasper McChesney	posted 03-23-99 08:32 PM ET Earth 2, there's an idea: perhaps a mod for it? Or at least the sort of tech you want. I'd love doing som crazy future tech and more radical societal changes.
MarkG	posted 03-23-99 08:47 PM ET "ITs simply not earth" Yeah, I know what you mean, but there is the earth map(you'll find in our Files page) Markos, Apolyton Civilizatin Site http://civilization.gamestats.com/smac
Victor Galis	posted 03-23-99 08:54 PM ET How are you going to fit collapsible factories into the Unity. Are you out of your mind!?! The ship was finished and launched in 2060, not 3000. It was WAY over budget, and now you want them to have collapsible factories? This is teh FIRST ship humanity sends out, at a whopping speed of roughly .12c. It is heavily damaged, barely survives, badly built. IT WAS NEVER MEANT TO SURVIVE! Have you read the story, and yet you want factories on it. This is much more realistic, bare minimum I mean. Of course they have to rediscover everything, because they are in a foreign enviroment. Something that might have flown on Earth, would crash horribly on Planet due to higher gravity. Go to your CTP! You don't understand this game. SMAC is a state of mind. You are probably some filthy Activision infiltrator. "Not Earth" that's the stupidest complaint I've heard yet. Where's your creativity, honestly people...
yin26	posted 03-23-99 09:00 PM ET Victor, Please come to payroll. Your paycheck is ready. Thank you. The Management Firaxis
Rong	posted 03-23-99 09:11 PM ET Yin, congratulations! Here is your big fat bonus check. Job well done. The Management Activision
yin26	posted 03-23-99 09:13 PM ET Actually, all they gave me was a CTP poster and some stale candy. But it was worth it!
Shining1	posted 03-23-99 09:31 PM ET I just wanna know when Firaxis is going to hit back with their own Giant Robot game. Seems like the only thing Activision has done well recently... Maybe SMAC III
NuWav	posted 03-24-99 02:22 AM ET To clarify, one of the key objections of SMAC was to make it NOT seem like earth. It is not supposed to have that "at home" but rather emphasize being in an alien environment. And yes, of course, they would have to rediscover many techs. But also, look at it from the other side. In civ2 you don't start out with a scout patrol carrying a gun or a speeder. Some techs you don't have to rediscover, some you do. And like victor said, the ones that you do need to - c'mon it's NOT earth. These people have to start from scratch practically and start a new civilization.
pg_liden	posted 03-24-99 04:00 AM ET I can't see why anybody would be looking forward to Civ: Call To Power? So they've added loads of extra units, question is if that's good or bad? CTP hasn't got SMAC's 3D-terrain either. From CTP screenshots I must say the look (colours etc.) of it seems a lot worse than that of Civ 2. SMAC on the other hand has an incredible look and feel. The transformation from earth to alien planet is truly amazing. And above all the AI of SMAC is the best I've ever seen, you can coordinate your attacks with other factions for god's sake! Also, the supreme customization possibilities in both units and factions results in infinite replayability. Come on; SMAC with a whole new atmosphere (and a bloody good one too) or CTP which is ultimately just a Civ 2 extension?
MarkG	posted 03-24-99 06:58 AM ET Not meaning to start another "CTP vs SMAC" war, and I will not say that CTP is better from SMAC, but here goes... "CTP hasn't got SMAC's 3D-terrain either." And SMAC doesn't have CTP's advanced stack combat or trade systems,or the ability to have up to 32 players(if your system can handle them that is) "From CTP screenshots I must say the look (colours etc.) of it seems a lot worse than that of Civ 2." Are you sure they were CTP screenshots? "SMAC on the other hand has an incredible look and feel." Feel yes, but look? Even the most fanatic smacers admit that smac's graphics is not the best thing in the world... "And above all the AI of SMAC is the best I've ever seen, you can coordinate your attacks with other factions for god's sake!" The depth of CTP's AI remain to be seen, and there is also the ability to modify the AI behaviour... "Also, the supreme customization possibilities in both units and factions results in infinite replayability." CTP is also very customisable... see http://civilization.gamestats.com/ctp/features and http://civilization.gamestats.com/ctp/previewindex.shtml for more ctp info. Markos, Apolyton CS
NuWav	posted 03-24-99 04:47 PM ET corrections: - I mean "objectives" not objections" in my last post. - and "at home feel" I should proof read.. Question to MarkG: You have a copy of CTP, how much resources does it use? SMAC uses 30-40% on my machine, and my machine is fragile enough as it is, I suspect some serious software conflicts are present. One of the things I liked about civ2 was that it didnt take over half your system to play it. I am not sure yet whether I like the atmosphere of civ2 or SMAC better. I'll wait awhile longer b4 deciding. Perhaps I hesitate b/c I am simply so used to playing civ2 for so long. I actually despised the barbarians in civ2, but I seem to accept the mindworms more, they seem to be more realistic (maybe that's not the word I'm looking for). But the end game "growth dream" chaos in SMAC just makes me want to build the last project and get it over with.
Freddz	posted 03-24-99 05:09 PM ET One thing's for sure: it will be fun comparing the two games on this forum when CTP comes out. Um, I'm already smiling (and praying CTP will be better)
Trombone1	posted 03-24-99 05:10 PM ET Well its me again the one who started this so called, topic. I've noticed some of you are very into SMAC, a matter a fact so am i. I never said that it was a bad game. btw- I LOVE IT! But what i'm saying is that its not the greatest game ever devised. PCGamer seems to have had correct logic by saying since it is better than civ 2 it deserves a grade thats higher. In actuallity i felt that they missed a little on the originality issue. CivII is in reality CIv with fixed bugs galore, and slightly altered. Alpha centauri is a new game but its not all that different, and orginality is very important, some of this tech tree stuff would have made me like it more if it was more futuristic. Like i was saying prior, the premise of the game is very important, and because of that i am looking forward to CTP. Because its Earth!!!! which makes alot of differencem, remmeber how kewl Battlezone was??? samw feeling. Talking about dropping troops into europe, and running down all the chinese borders is kewl. Taking the <insert SMAC land> just isn't the same. As stated prior the tech couldhave been better. Compact factories is pushing it, but then again how the hell did they live for so many years on unity with no manufacturing cabilities?!?!?!? i dunno . . keep the thread alive boys
Victor Galis	posted 03-24-99 05:15 PM ET I don't know about CTP. I saw a demo for the game in September and wanted it. Now I have SMAC, and I don't want CTP. CTP's graphics are not that good, the whole graphics debate either should go to SMAC or become irrlevant. 32 people: Why would you wnat to? I have enough trouble getting 7 to agree on a single date and time. Do you know how long your turns would take? You emphasize irrelevant plusses over SMAC's concrete advantages. Plus, if I wanted to play on Earth, I would go back to Civ2.
MarkG	posted 03-24-99 05:48 PM ET NuWav, I hope I'm answering the question by saying that I played it with no problems on a p-166 with 32 mb ram. However, it does want at least 300mb for the installation(with the videos remaining on the cd) and 80mb of virtual memory. Victor Galis, I'm talking about single player. 32 civilizations in one game means a human player, barbarians and 30 AI's. It's pretyy demanding though, you'll need at least a PII with lots of ram in order to have decent turn times. Of course you dont have to go to 32 civs, you can have 12 or 16 or whatever your system and your patience takes... Btw, the game "officially" gives you up to 8 civs, but you can change it through a text file... Markos, Apolyton CS
NuWav	posted 03-24-99 10:42 PM ET Well, I meant system resources. i.e. If I ran my tv tuner, smac and and went on the internet at the same time with my machine, it would crash or slow down to a crawl b/c those three things eat up that much resources, at least on my machine (I remember my older P100 could handle alot more with out running out so soon tho it didnt have a tv tuner). I not worried about anything else. My current machine is brand new, so I have plenty of mhz power, ram and HD space. My point is just that SMAC hogs resources, and i could play civ2 without even slowing the system down at all, it is lighter on the programming demands. Trombone: Sorry, didnt mean to sound so harsh. If you like the earth feel better, then you may like ctp better in the long run. In regards to your last post, they didnt really need manufacturing capabilities, all they needed was machines that could make liquid food or whatever was needed to keep cryofrozen people alive. And there wouldnt be enough room to fit much else on the ship when there was tens of 1,000s of cryotubes jammed everywhere.