What really was Call to Power?

The lawyers had to be the most annoying thing from that game. Seeing the papers swirling around my city and the little unit voice saying "see you in court" was enough to drive me nearly insane at some points

Civ III is extremely better than CTP could ever hope to be, end of story.

Those stealth units were extremely annoying. AI knew where all your cities were, which ones did and did not have walls. You could count on a slaver or cleric showing up wherever you were weakest guaranteed, if not that, a mass attack on your most weakly garrisoned city.

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Yes, this is what I meant by annoying. You had to put each of those invisible units in EVERY city so that you could spot the AI's invisible unit of that type. I had to keep a list on paper and check off as each city got a spy, a cleric, a slaver, etc., otherwise the AI WOULD attack that city with one of those units.

The lawyers had to be the most annoying thing from that game. Seeing the papers swirling around my city and the little unit voice saying "see you in court" was enough to drive me nearly insane at some points

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Agreed. They over-did the notifications of little events that happened to you. I don't know if the lawyers or the stupid trumpet playing (when a trade route was pillaged/pirated) was more annoying.

but i thought they were ok, u could just abuse them a bit was the only problem.

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I never found them to be worthwile. They were more trouble than they were worth. When I would get attacked by lawyers they didn't seem to cause me much of a problem (didn't hurt me economically too bad), that is another reason why I think the notifications of it was so annoying. What did a lawyer 'sue' from you? That city's income for only 1 turn?

If anyone ever complains about 'realism' in Civ3, then they would have had a bonanza on CTP stuff. The whole 'futuristic' stuff and then of course, you can't forget the eco-rangers!!!!! I mean, c'mon, totally wiping out a city and all terrain improvements (all forms of civilization) and immediately the area is a 'nature preserve'? It worked similar to nukes, but instead of pollution and terrain turning to worthless desert, the tiles would be restored to their original condition at the start of the game.

About the only thing I did like about CTP (that was actually implemented correctly-because they had several things that are good in theory, but was poorly implemented like others have said) was the wonder movies. I liked the movies.
Yes, after you see the movie a few times it can get boring and you just hurry up and end the movie, but it was nice to watch the movies if you wanted to.

CTP2 brought me into the TBS genre, and into the Civ world.

I loved the game, played the heck out of it before getting Civ3.

What I loved about CTP2 was the way you could lock up to 12 units into a stack. Similar to the Army in Civ3, but you could do it anytime, with any units. Really helped keep track of things by forming fleets and such. And you could name the stack, ie 7th fleet, 3rd Armored, whatever.

I really feel this angst against Call to Power is stemmed from some warped nationalistic sense of loyalty to Sid Meier and the Civilization series.

Call to Power offered so much more in every aspect compared to Civilization I or II and inadvertantly advanced and revolutionized the turn-based strategy games we play today, (Civilization III).

What Activision did basically was looked at Civilization II and it's multiplayer feature and built upon what existed to bring us a game with unparallel playability and options for it's time. Advanced diplomacy, wonders, units, ages, space, under-water cities, espionage options, graphics, and trade were all improved upon.

Civilization III in my opinion was molded after the success of Activisions Call To Power however unfortunately didn't include all of CTPs ideas. Civilization II and then Alpha Centurai are my all favourite strategy games, by the way.

In closing, Civ 3 owes it's success partially to Activision who took a great idea and higly advanced it. And in much of a sense, Sid's still playing catch-up with Activison.

If Sid Meier made Call to Power and Call to Power 2, they would still be bad games.

Agree w/ Riesstiu IV.

by Alpine Trooper:
What Activision did basically was looked at Civilization II and it's multiplayer feature and built upon what existed to bring us a game with unparallel playability and options for it's time. Advanced diplomacy, wonders, units, ages, space, under-water cities, espionage options, graphics, and trade were all improved upon.

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But Activision basically just messed up that advanced diplo etc etc. The game was only overcrowded with that new stuff. Not that it was somehow too complex, but not balanced and some feature/concept/unit/option was completely useless or just buggy.
You could not really negotiate with other civs. I mean you could sign some of those newly implemented treaties if you just wanted to get annoyed by constant treaty breaking...
What was the point of that "pollution reduction" sort of treaty?
Have you ever used the "bureaucrat" unit and got a shield benefit?
Have you ever tracked down the public works shield distribution?
Also, I can't remember a game where a sea or space colonies helped me to win the game, what were they good for? The required techs came just too late. Either your land-based empire had developed well enough to win the game or not. Space (sea) colonies were just eye-candy.
Some units had a 'half-life' next to nothing because of that small gap inbetween enabling and disabling tech.
That "pay improvement upkeep" wonder was way too strong; if you could build that, the game was nearly done. And then the total ai stupidity: Ai could have a large fleet, but their filled transports preferred to go unescorted and finally anchored w/o unloading next to your fatal land-based artillery.
Granted, I did play a lot of CTP1/2 SP/MP games at some point, but that was after heavily modding the game (which was easy).
I'm pretty much happy that Civ3 did not include all those dispensible CTP features.

I agree with the criticisms of CTP but then, every game has weaknesses! I really enjoyed the game when it first came out and it kept me going until Civ reappeared. Strangely, I played CTP a few weeks ago but, like many computer games after two or three years, it seemed antiquated. Even the map looked old and tired. Suffice it to say that yesterday, I uninstalled it. Civ III is a very definate improvement in so many ways but then it would be strange if it were not!

Expansion packs are great and extend the life of a game in terms of content but they also serve the purpose of tweaking the game graphics so that it keeps looking fresh. Hurry up the next expansion (after Conquests!) or even better - CIV IV!

Thanks for the info guys. I looked at some reviews, I found it funny that in some sites that people didn't make reader reviews. I guess some people didn't really like that game.

im slightly intrigued by all these crazy things i hear about like lawyers and future tech n stuff.
i played ctp2 a few years ago but i was very confused by it and i didnt get too far before i gave up on it.
i kinda wanna try it out again, though, after reading all this

CTP (the first one) was a great game. Yeah, it had it's weaknesses but it kicked Civ3's rear in many ways. The main thing it has going over C3 is the whole combat system. For those who never played it, all units in a stack attacked together. A combat screen would pop up showing both sides in battle. Units would form up based on unit type. Defense and offense units would make up the front row (and also flankers in CTP2), ranged units would be in the second row (firing on the front row of the enemy without the chance of being hit in return) and bombard units were in the third row (like ranged units they would fire on the first row of the enemy). Units would attack the enemy unit in directly in front of them (when flankers were introduced they would attack an adjacent unit if there was not one in front of them or if they defeated the one in front) until someone killed the other and then move to center if one of their brother units got killed off. Hard to explain without droning on and on. The system really made the different types of units (O, D, ranged, bombard and flanker) have real strategic importance. Air and naval units worked better also. The AI really could not see your subs unless they had a destroyer or sub in the vicinity. Plus you had space units as well. You could drop units from space capsules! 16 levels of invisibility (which was great for modding) where you really have none in C3 since the AI can see your invisible units.

I have a tough time understanding why people didn't like invisible units. It was like espionage. Yes, you had to build special units to "see" enemy stealth units. Just another level of strategy.

CTP2 had a horrible AI but I think that the first CTP had the best AI in any civ type game (I've never played SMAC tho). C3 AI might be more competitive but that's because IMO it relies on cheats. If you modded a new unit into CTP the AI would use it correctly. The AI would actually conduct sieges with stacks of catapults guarded by knights just pounding and pounding enemy cities. You never see that in C3.

CTP also had event scripting which I never really got a handle on (if event one occurs then event two follows). Great for modding but hard to learn.

Where does Civ3 kick rear over CTP?? Civ specific units is the biggest for me. I hated seeing Egyptian samurais and Iroquois Hoplites in CTP. Hated it. Hidden Nationality units in Civ3 are awesome. I use 'em by the tons to represent the grayer side of international conflicts. Modding is also far far easier with Civ3. Modding can be more flexible with CTP (you can specify what kinds of terrain a unit can travel - not just "wheeled" or "not wheeled" and even what types of terrain a unit can attack or bombard (including air, sea, underwater and space), I even made a SEAL unit that could travel all ground terrain types plus coastal water squares!), but modding is WAAAAYYYY easier with Civ3 and making new unit graphics is much much easier with Civ3 as well.

Both games have strengths and weaknesses. I hate hearing people slag CTP tho because that game had some elements that would've make Civ3 10 times better if they would've incorporated them. If Civ3 had the CTP combat system...wow....

The system really made the different types of units (O, D, ranged, bombard and flanker) have real strategic importance.

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Which made an army of tanks indestructible. Get a stack of tanks and the game IS over.

The combat system in CTP was good, but complex, I think alot of people couldn't really grasp it, and so hated it. The big problem with it was you could not click on an enemy stack and see what units you were facing and determine what you would need to counter it.

If the AI had been programmed to use the Mobile Defense concept and aggressively reinforce its cities the tank stack approach would have been considerably less effective. Here again we have some great concepts and inadequate implementation. Maybe now the the source code for CTP2 has been released we will eventually see a rebuilt game that can compete with civ3.

I wouldn't mind some kind of stack system for civ3, rather than the pathetic, overpriced Army that is available now. By discovering various military advances and building various small wonders your units could gradually develop the means to fight as a team and you could add more units to a stack as advances progress, along with different types of units for combined arms attack.

Originally posted by Alpine Trooper
I really feel this angst against Call to Power is stemmed from some warped nationalistic sense of loyalty to Sid Meier and the Civilization series.

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Funny you should mention it. I once wrote a review of CTP on Mobygames.com, expressing something like that.

And I still stand by it. On the grand scale of all games released, CTP and CTP II are far above the average.

I pretty much agree with what dog had said earlier. I find that I can come up with several reasons why CTP was a better game, the combat system being the biggest. However, since Civ 3 came out, I have no desire to play CTP. I cannot articulate why that is. I have no idea. I wish I did know why I keep playing Civ 3.

I started playing with CTP, then went to CTP2, SMAC, Civ2 gold and finally Civ3. Until C3C I rated SMAC best, if only because you could customize EVERYTHING. But Civ3 has grown up a lot and I think it is now the best of the lot.

Some of the things I liked best about the CTP games:

- upgradable tile improvements - mines and fisheries had 3 levels - each more productive than its predecessor that would become available with new technologies. This is historically accurate and would be an excellent addition to Civ3. Fisheries (or perhaps even fishing boats!) alone would be great.

- larger terrain variety

- Future techs. I know many people hate that aspect of this game, but if Civ3 just added a fifth futuristic era - keeping most of the game focused on history - it would add greatly to the game IMO. The fifth era could even be an option so the 'purists' wouldn't have to use it if they did not want too. I agree CTP went a little crazy with the futuristic stuff, but if this fifth era only went into technologies that we could reasonably expect to see in the next 100 years it would be much more believable.

- Trade Routes. CTPs trade system is like a great idea that was poorly executed. Having piratable, visible trade routes alone adds a whole new element to Civ3.

- Cities Revolting. If you treat your citizens poorly enough, they revolt and form their own civs (UK -> USA). This concept should be in Civ3 instead of mere rioting (although rioting could be the forewarning of a revolt).

All that having been said, Civ3 is still the better choice. If they were to incorporate these ideas into Civ3, this game would be damn near perfect.

Just to let you guys know. We (at Apolyton) convinced Activision to release the (C++) source code to CtP2. We have a limited license to basically do whatever we ultimately wish with it.

We have really just gotten started, but its a golden opportunity to fix all those annoying things. And add pretty much any feature we all agree it should have.

It really is about the coolest thing. Like having Firaxis really listen to users about what should be in Civ.

The more I thought about it, they weren't that bad. But the games didn't appeal to me for some reason, I can't explain. Anyways both CTPs are better than any games that I have created.

Originally posted by Pirate
After getting hooked on Civ1 and CivII, I thought CTP was refreshing but not perfect.

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Exactly... there was a huge gap between CIV2 and CIV3, and that gap was nicely filled with the CTP series...
I really enjoyed them. True, they were quite easy to master, but a lot of good ideas. My favorite was the way combats were implemented... You could build groups of up to 12 units, and you HAD TO put some hand-tohand units, some long distance, some flanking units... A bowman would get his butt kicked big time in a one to one against any simple warrior, BUT if you put the said bowamn behind a warrior... Then you could easily defeat 2-3 warriors. That was really cool. And you had NO CHANCE of taking a city without artillery, great !
Oh yes, flanking was a capacity that allowed some units (knights, tanks) to attack 3 at once, one in the middle and two in the aisles. Devastating.
I thought trade routes was great, too. The way it was designad was you sent ressources you found on the map to a given city, and the more ressources of that type were found and sent to that city, the more gold it would generate... however the trade route of the ressource to the city was visible, so other civs could plunder it. Real fun.

The wonders were cool, a bit overpowered but different.

Geez I get nostalgic. They were great games, a lot better than CIV2 IMHO. But as soon as CIV3 went out, I never touched CTP again...

Originally posted by Amesjustin
Some of the things I liked best about the CTP games:

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Oh I almost forgot the really great way workers worked in CTP : actually you had no workers, you just decided to allow a certain amount each turn to public works. When you had enough, you could build roads, mines, railroad, and so on, without having to worry about a worker being at the right place. You could save points until you had enough and build an entire road system in one turn.
That was a GREAT system. Much more better than the fastidious worker.

The problem with trade in CTP was it didnt mean enough.

Contrast civ3 luxurys with CTP luxurys. Sure it was easy to break trade routs in ctp but really it was only a minor annoyance. Nobody was going to crumble over a lost trade route.

In Civ3 they are much bigger things and Civ really need much bigger focal points. Resources and Luxurys are brilliant in civ3. What i mean by that is if there were no resources or luxurys in civ3 I wouldnt play it. Its the huge overriding importance of certain cities that gives the game strategic character.

I seen an attempt to make all the units in civ3 perfectly balanced. The first thing I thought was:
If they make all the units perfectly balanced then whats the reward for intelligence and insight?

I mean if A and B are balanced to exact equality then the thinking about which is better for my empire is fake and intelligence can just be replaced by a flip of the coin.

Sounds like a digression but my point is this:
In CTP they made almost every spot you could set your city (for example) a great choice. If it had all sea squares that worked great. All plains np. No resources not a big deal. Luxurys? nice but who needs em.

If theres no potential to make a bad decision then theres no ability to make a great play. Games should have cliffs for you to fall off of. You should be able to misinvest and misplace and in general you should be able to make bad decisions.

CTP made everything so darn equally important there wasnt a huge landscape for strategic tradeoffs.