How's the micromanagement level in CtP?

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Author Topic:   How's the micromanagement level in CtP?

Joe Average posted 04-03-99 12:52 AM ET
This might be the wrong place to ask it....then again it might not, if someone here has played both, can you tell me if there is significantly less micromanagement in CtP? Mabye the governors actually work? (as in, not build units unless you tell them to, not vice-versa).
I hope they managed to do this better than firaxis....when I overclocked my celeron and SMAC ceased to work, I didn't care much, it's permanent shelf-ware now....
cousLee posted 04-03-99 01:44 PM ET
well "Joe", would not the better place for this question be the CTP forums wherever they may be?????
BTW I bought CTP but have not stopped laughing at the 2 sided poster long enough to install it yet.
I do hope CTP is a fun game, but whoever designed the poster was a bafoon.
Aga1 posted 04-03-99 03:36 PM ET
alt.games.civ-call-to-power
zaz posted 04-03-99 06:03 PM ET
cousLee: Must be the same bafoons who designed the two sided poster for CIV2. At least the CTP poster is more complete than the one we got for SMAC.
JaimeWolf posted 04-06-99 01:55 AM ET
Errr ... back to the topic ... micromanagement is worse in CTP ... at least I haven't found any automation at all. Arrrggghhhh!!!!
It is prettier, but I can't see that on my PC without a big performance hit.
James
HGB posted 04-06-99 02:54 AM ET
I don't see any problem in discussion of CTP here; fans of Civ have a natural interest in both games. To answer your question, there is considerably more micromanagement in CTP (and I never use the governor or any automation option in SMAC). First, the elimination of the settlers/formers as improvement builders requires you to make an allocation of production to PW to construct improvements (an additional balancing decision) and then requires you to remember to examine each city radius for improvement locations (when you have sufficient resources, that is). I think its easier to build a former or two per city; when they're done, they remind you to look for another task. Second, managing your cities is harder since CTP requires you to access multiple screens to glean the information that is available at a glance on the city screen in SMAC (and the library help feature is much less user friendly than Datalinks).
googlie posted 04-06-99 03:42 AM ET
City build queues in CtP have a good feature in that you can create up to 4 templates of queuing so that you can designate new cities as producting gold, science, military or whatever, and can interrupt/edit the templates as new units/improvements are discovered or to insert Wonders.
It would be nice to get a prompt when a city had expanded its pop (to add a new PW farm or mine or fishing production improvement) or to signal a cash attainment level (e.g. 5,000 reached in kitty, or whatever).
The City Max button (all science, all gold, all production) was a boon in the late game - rush to Alien Creation - but the all-or-nothing feature meant some population loss when a city reached starvation and it took two or three turns to get the PW farm improvement producing. I did a lot of tinkering notwithstanding the build templates.
One negative (at least I never found out how to) was that disbanding a unit due to obselescence was again an all or nothing. Say you've discovered gunpowder, and created your first musketeer in a city. You can't disband that phalanx in that city without disbanding all phalanxes, so you have to wait until all cities have musketeers. Bummer.
Great game though - different from SMAC as all action takes place on old Earth (and its space), recreating a lot of the CivII history (can't wait for Firaxis History of the Human Race).
Certhas posted 04-06-99 04:48 AM ET
Excuse me, but in SMAC you have 8 templates. Just rightclick on the queue.
Or are you talking about something different?
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Author	Topic: How's the micromanagement level in CtP?
Joe Average	posted 04-03-99 12:52 AM ET This might be the wrong place to ask it....then again it might not, if someone here has played both, can you tell me if there is significantly less micromanagement in CtP? Mabye the governors actually work? (as in, not build units unless you tell them to, not vice-versa). I hope they managed to do this better than firaxis....when I overclocked my celeron and SMAC ceased to work, I didn't care much, it's permanent shelf-ware now....
cousLee	posted 04-03-99 01:44 PM ET well "Joe", would not the better place for this question be the CTP forums wherever they may be????? BTW I bought CTP but have not stopped laughing at the 2 sided poster long enough to install it yet. I do hope CTP is a fun game, but whoever designed the poster was a bafoon.
Aga1	posted 04-03-99 03:36 PM ET alt.games.civ-call-to-power
zaz	posted 04-03-99 06:03 PM ET cousLee: Must be the same bafoons who designed the two sided poster for CIV2. At least the CTP poster is more complete than the one we got for SMAC.
JaimeWolf	posted 04-06-99 01:55 AM ET Errr ... back to the topic ... micromanagement is worse in CTP ... at least I haven't found any automation at all. Arrrggghhhh!!!! It is prettier, but I can't see that on my PC without a big performance hit. James
HGB	posted 04-06-99 02:54 AM ET I don't see any problem in discussion of CTP here; fans of Civ have a natural interest in both games. To answer your question, there is considerably more micromanagement in CTP (and I never use the governor or any automation option in SMAC). First, the elimination of the settlers/formers as improvement builders requires you to make an allocation of production to PW to construct improvements (an additional balancing decision) and then requires you to remember to examine each city radius for improvement locations (when you have sufficient resources, that is). I think its easier to build a former or two per city; when they're done, they remind you to look for another task. Second, managing your cities is harder since CTP requires you to access multiple screens to glean the information that is available at a glance on the city screen in SMAC (and the library help feature is much less user friendly than Datalinks).
googlie	posted 04-06-99 03:42 AM ET City build queues in CtP have a good feature in that you can create up to 4 templates of queuing so that you can designate new cities as producting gold, science, military or whatever, and can interrupt/edit the templates as new units/improvements are discovered or to insert Wonders. It would be nice to get a prompt when a city had expanded its pop (to add a new PW farm or mine or fishing production improvement) or to signal a cash attainment level (e.g. 5,000 reached in kitty, or whatever). The City Max button (all science, all gold, all production) was a boon in the late game - rush to Alien Creation - but the all-or-nothing feature meant some population loss when a city reached starvation and it took two or three turns to get the PW farm improvement producing. I did a lot of tinkering notwithstanding the build templates. One negative (at least I never found out how to) was that disbanding a unit due to obselescence was again an all or nothing. Say you've discovered gunpowder, and created your first musketeer in a city. You can't disband that phalanx in that city without disbanding all phalanxes, so you have to wait until all cities have musketeers. Bummer. Great game though - different from SMAC as all action takes place on old Earth (and its space), recreating a lot of the CivII history (can't wait for Firaxis History of the Human Race).
Certhas	posted 04-06-99 04:48 AM ET Excuse me, but in SMAC you have 8 templates. Just rightclick on the queue. Or are you talking about something different?