Hotseat?

I know MP won't ship with the game (which I find just odd) but will hotseat ship with the game? It is multiplayer in it's way, so I doubt it, but I thought I would ask.

If hotseat won't be shipping with CivIII then will it be in with the rest of the MP aspect, I wonder? Will TCP/IP be included? I tried to play MOO2 with a buddy over the weekend, but we couldn't get MP to work (no NETWORK?) so we resorted to Hotseat and it was a blast.

Anyway, if anyone has any info, then I would appreciate the heads up. Thanks!

I don't know one way or the other, but I hope that they at least put hotseat in the MP expansion. It was the most practical way to play the game multiplayer IMHO. My wife & I play civ2 hotseat all the time.

Very good question -- Hotseat was the "multi-player" that my friends and I played many a blearry eyed laty nite sessions.

The best part is being able to razz your opponents face to face

But it does make one think...:enlighten:

Hotseat is problematic, in that you often sit down for your next turn saying what the ___ happened to my ___? AIs and other players kill your units, sabotage your cities, or whatever, and you might never notice because it happens while you're "sleeping"! There needs to be some sort of "replay opponent's turn" feature to make it less frustrating.

The best bet for CIV II MP is a direct TCP/IP network card to network card link, via a multiport hub or a direct wire with a crossover. You can still sit in the same room and razz each other as needed, but there's no hopping up and down, you can watch your enemies move around, and you can even micromanage your cities, conduct diplomacy, and generally check things on the other guy's turn! Sweet streamlining...
Of course you need two PCs/laptops in the room to make that work.
You get all of the same advantages with a modem MP game (except the razzing - you have to use Chat With Kings for that!) There does tend to be some lag time though, for the non-hosting player.