There are a lot of questions and speculation on the Apolyton message boards about Call to Power II, so we have decided to issue the following statement to clear some of them up.
When we began the design process on Call to Power II, we spent a good deal of time querying our Call to Power owners about what changes or additions they wanted to see in a sequel. Of course, there were thousands of suggestions from formal research surveys, informal message board posts, and one-on-one chats with gamers. But the majority of the requests centered around the following areas: diplomacy, combat, interface, customizability, and empire management. Our team set out to make a sequel that would address all of these features, yet would still remain true to the gameplay from the first game. We intentionally kept the graphics engine mostly the same because we felt that our graphics were, and still are, the best offered in a turn-based empire building game. We kept the setting the same because we felt that an actual historical basis would have more appeal than a fantastic or science-fiction setting. Many of the programming changes to Call to Power II may not be readily visible to the user, but in reality, most of the major engines were rewritten to accept the changes to the diplomatic, combat and empire management systems. Opening up the extensive customizability options required a level of complex code changes as well. As in all software development projects, some features from Call to Power were dropped or cut as the project unfolded, including PBEM and Hot Seat.
We have been reviewing the posts by various forum members calling for additional patches to make the AI more challenging for them, to add PBEM and Hotseat back in, and various other requests. These requests, which sound simple, are actually long, complex feature additions that would require up to 3-4 months of programming and testing time. This is not feasible, as the Call to Power II team is moving on to other projects. So there will be no additional patches, enhancements or scenarios coming from Activision. Additionally, there are no immediate plans to make an expansion or sequel.
None of these decisions were taken lightly, however, we feel that in the end, we have delivered a game that met the design goals of the project: an empire-building game that delivers new diplomatic features, more realistic combat, better empire management options, a new interface, and a customizable gaming engine to extend the life of the game. We thank all of you for your dedicated support and enthusiasm over the last four years. We look forward to seeing the results of the various mods and scenarios that the community is working on.
Activision
