CTP1 vs Civilization

[Maquiladora]

I dont know wheather youve ever played Civ 2

Yes for more than 5 years on and off, Freeciv also for the past year and a half.

and the city screen is nicer and easier to understand

Im sure thats familiarity, since most of the concepts in civ2 still exist in CtP2, coins, beakers, shields etc but this is not civ2 or civ3 you cant expect everything to be the same.

What you have to remember is that CtP2 is a different game in many ways to civ2, theres no need to see what units are supported by that city in CtP2, since units are supported by national production you have a unit manager detailing how many of each unit you have and how much one of those units takes to support in shields, included in this is the military advisor, but this one is actually useful. Trade in CtP2 you don't need to move a unit to create a trade route you just click 'create route' from a list of possible routes once you have enough caravans ready, theres no reason to clog these two areas alone into one screen, in fact if you did you would lose a lot of detail or make it very condensed and confusing.

In CtP2 you dont assign workers to individual tiles, so you dont need the overview to place workers, you can assign specialists via a seperate city manager, which includes currently garrisoned units in that city.

in it you can decide how many entertainers,scienticts and taxmen you have in your city,it gives you a micromap of your city,its easy to see how much food,unhappy citzens you have and it also gives you a nice picture of your city in the city screen as opposed to nasty looking and harder to understand list of cities you get in CTP.

Actually all of those things exist in CtP2, except civ2 doesnt have labourers (production specialists), CtP2 does.

It sounds like you havent played CtP2 at all, fair enough since this thread is about CtP1 and civ, but it doesnt sound like you gave CtP1 much of a chance either.

Personally I think making strategic decisions is more fun than wasting time moving 30 engineers or 100 artillery seperately (not stacked), but as you dont understand 'fun decisions' I can see why you like civ2 more.

 

[Martin Gühmann]

The thing with Civ2 is you dont need to have a degree in I.C.T to mod it and you will also be more inclined to mod Civ2 because its a better game.''Cough''5-1.

So it is a better game, and why do I need 200 settlers to improve my terrain, why I needed 1 hour just to move around all my settlers to the next quare and another half an our too wait until the calculations were done for all my 200++ cities and that without those annoying messages that told me that this and that is finished and that I have to give the city something else to build, why can't I fill all the build queues with a few clicks, why I do need to visit every single city to do that. And finally once I wanted to found another city I got this annoying message "Too many cities".

So a lot of stuff that is addressed in CTP1 and even if the modability of CTP1 is not as powerful as those of CTP2 that is more powerful. But for both games you just need a simple text editor to add new units, governments, goods, advances, civilisations and wonders. So for instance can you select in Civ2 between 45 civs at the same time? I can't remember you can. And for all that you don't even need a hex editor or a disassembler like for Diablo - Hellfire, by the way a very nice game even it is old and the graphics could be better. But also you don't need for that an I.C.T degree. Just interest, curiousity and risk willingness.

Well when the Civ 2 source code is released well be able to mod what we want anyway why would you want to play CTP2 in the first place its not anywhere near as good as Civ2 thats why hardly anyone posts in the CTP section.

The question is not when the Civ2 source code is released but if ever. As far as I know the source code doesn't exists anymore.

And the reason why hardly noone posts in this forum is that CivFanatics is just for the Sid fanatics, at least his name must be on the box here. However it is true that CivFanatics never supported the CTP series and therefore it is not a good place to talk about the CTP series.

Nice to hear you dont judge games by there graphics.In reply to your earlier comment,I dont know wheather youve ever played Civ 2 but in it you have more control over what happens in your city and the city screen is nicer and easier to understand (Or is that just me.) in it you can decide how many entertainers,scienticts and taxmen you have in your city,it gives you a micromap of your city,its easy to see how much food,unhappy citzens you have and it also gives you a nice picture of your city in the city screen as opposed to nasty looking and harder to understand list of cities you get in CTP.I accept your comment that the stacked combat is better in CTP but what exactly do you mean by fun decisions?

Well it is easy for one city but it is also easy for all cities and is it possible to modify it some aspect of a bunch of cities if needed?

-Martin

 

[Joeb WK]

Sorry I took so long to reply. However I still dont agree with you about how easy units are to mod ive heard quite a few people say how hard it is to mod units for CTP and it all seems rather fidely.I also dont like the way you cant use the keyboard as much in CTP.Also i still find the city screen on Civ2 easier i know its not perfect and you sometimes have to go through 200 cities but the fact that so easy to manage and to see what your doing it more than make for having too go through 200 screens or though sometimes it can be very annoying.Do you know what happened to the Civ2 source code in the end?

 

[Martin Gühmann]

Sorry I took so long to reply. However I still dont agree with you about how easy units are to mod ive heard quite a few people say how hard it is to mod units for CTP and it all seems rather fidely.

Of course it is always easier to draw one single frame then a sequence of frames, and the sprite maker isn't very userfriendly either. Apart from the graphics you might think the text files are more complicated then those of Civ2, well that's right bur you have much more possibilties than just the twelfe tags and the flag that contains 15 properties in one number. Of course more possibilities doesn't make live easier.

I also dont like the way you cant use the keyboard as much in CTP.

I don't think you need it like in Civ2 either, you have a working path finding algorithm, one that knows that the world is a cylinder or a ring. That was really annoying, to see your units moving into the wrong direction. In CTP1 and CTP2 the selected path is visualized and you don't have to search for the goto command in one of the menus. The tile improvements are placed by mouse clicks so no need to move the settlers and click then the right button. Just select the tile improvement and place as many you want or can place.

Also i still find the city screen on Civ2 easier i know its not perfect and you sometimes have to go through 200 cities but the fact that so easy to manage and to see what your doing it more than make for having too go through 200 screens or though sometimes it can be very annoying.

I didn't bother either, before I got that "Too Many Cities" message that was definatly the game killer for me, the game doesn't allow me to play as I want although noone mentioned this before.

Do you know what happened to the Civ2 source code in the end?

Well I have this only from second or third hand as well. I found a thread about it in the Apolyton Civ2 forum and one problem you find in the last post is the question is to talk to whom. I don't know it either, but Firaxis/Atari doesn't seem to be the owner of Civ2. And I don't believe that there is any line of Civ2 code in Civ3. Civ2 is too old it is a Windows 3.1 game, so you should better rewrite the game then fixing and expanding the existing source code. The big problem is to find someone who knows really whether the source code still exists, and has the ability to contact the one in charge you could release it. For CTP2 this was rather easy, as we know the programmers from the forum and Activision is not a game developer anymore. So their commercial interests in the code were very low, probably this would also be the case for Civ2. Maybe they burned it on some forgoten CD. But to find the right person who know about it is the problem.

Well for Civ3 I doubt that they would release it, they still have commercial interest in it and the last expansion pack isn't so old either even if the game is also 3 years old. But as far as I know they are already working on Civ4, and a fan base Civ4 project based on Civ3 is only concurrence.

-Martin

 

[Joeb WK]

I think the best way to get the Civ 2 source code would be too write to all the people who help made Civ 2 and ask themif they no what happened to the source code .I still dont get why they have that weird battle screen in CTP it dosnt seem to achieve any tactical puprpose and it just slows the game down I was wondering if you knew why they put it in the first place.I can understand what you mean by hte keyboard isnt needed as much but I think it would be good to have it as an optional choice because there are periods in the game where its handy.

 

[Maquiladora]

What do you mean you can't use the keyboard as much in CtP1/2? You can use the F keys to get to vital screens, the numpad to move units, various keys for switching on and off things like city names to see under them.... it is an optional choice, I use the numpad myself.

As for the battle screen, the CtP1/2 combat system is more complicated (and more logical) so you need more than units just dying as an indication of whats going on in a battle.

 

[Joeb WK]

Oh right so there is a way to use the keyboard thanks ive never worked that out thanks. If the battle screen is so important how come you can turn it off?

 

[Maquiladora]

I didn't say the battle screen was so important, but if you're new to the game these things are necessary, besides I still play with the battle screen on, if its on full speed it's no bother and it's more interesting to see what combinations of units work best.

 

[Martin Gühmann]

I still dont get why they have that weird battle screen in CTP it dosnt seem to achieve any tactical puprpose and it just slows the game down I was wondering if you knew why they put it in the first place.

As Maq already mentioned, the battle concept is more complicated, it is not single unit battle but army battle, so battles are more complicated, it is a difference whether you either attack with warrior or an archer, or use them to form a single army and use this for the attack.

I can understand what you mean by hte keyboard isnt needed as much but I think it would be good to have it as an optional choice because there are periods in the game where its handy.

Indeed you can use the keyboard largely, the only problem is that the table of hot keys is missing in the CTP1 manual, in the CTP2 manual you find it twice once nearly at the end before the index and once more on the back page. Here is a list you can find in userkeymap.txt. The hot keys can also be found within the game and can be edited. It is available somewhere in the options menu.

-Martin

8 MOVE_NORTH
7 MOVE_NORTHWEST
9 MOVE_NORTHEAST
4 MOVE_WEST
6 MOVE_EAST
1 MOVE_SOUTHWEST
2 MOVE_SOUTH
3 MOVE_SOUTHEAST
U UNIT_CITY_TOGGLE
n NEXT_ITEM
o KEYBOARD_SELECT_UNIT
ENTER NEXTROUND
A ENDTURN
. OPEN_ARMY_MGR
s SLEEP
f ENTRENCH
b SETTLE
P PILLAGE
B BOMBARD
^r REFORM
E EXPEL
u UNLOAD_TRANS
I INVESTIGATE_CITY
M PLANT_NUKE
V BIOINFECT
N NANOTERROR
x CREATE_PARK
l SPACE_LAUNCH
D PARADROP
^1 OPEN_CIV_STATUS
^2 OPEN_CITY_STATUS
^3 CITY_MANAGEMENT
^b BUILD_QUEUE
^j CLEAR_QUEUE
^6 OPEN_SCIENCE_STATUS
^8 OPEN_UNIT_STATUS
^4 OPEN_TRADE_STATUS
^t TRADE_SUMMARY
^7 OPEN_DIPLOMACY
^d NEW_PROPOSAL
^g GAIA
^5 OPEN_GREAT_LIBRARY
^9 OPEN_INFO_SCREEN
W TIMELINE
^k RANK
q CIVTAB
w CITYTAB
e UNITTAB
r MSGTAB
t TILETAB
' CHAT_KEY
^n NETWORK_PLAYERS_SCREEN
! OPEN_SCENARIO_EDITOR
K REMAP_KEYBOARD
^0 OPEN_OPTIONS_SCREEN
^v SOUND_OPTIONS
^f GRAPHICS_OPTIONS
F GAMEPLAY_OPTIONS
^p ADVANCED_OPTIONS
^z RESTART
^x NEW_GAME
S SAVE_GAME
L LOAD_GAME
^s SAVE_WORLD
^l LOAD_WORLD
Q QUIT
c CITY_NAMES
" TRADE_ROUTES
a CENTER_MAP
TAB CLOSE
R TOGGLE_RADAR
^u TOGGLE_CONTROL_PANEL
/ TOGGLE_ALL
+ ZOOM_IN1
- ZOOM_OUT1
^y EXECUTE_EYEPOINT
z YES
h HELP_MODE_TOGGLE
m MOVE_ORDER
X EXECUTE_ORDERS
SPACE END_UNIT_TURN
G GROUP_ARMY
g UNGROUP_ARMY
^! OPEN_CITY_VIEW
d DESCEND

 

[Joeb WK]

Thanks for the keyboard codes they should come in handy.Do you know if its in any way possible to make the units move quicker as well in CTP?

 

[Martin Gühmann]

Thanks for the keyboard codes they should come in handy.Do you know if its in any way possible to make the units move quicker as well in CTP?

It must be in the options menu. The options gameplay and grafics are of interests. There you should be able to adjust the animation speed or deactivate the animations alltogether.

-Martin

 

[Joeb WK]

Oh good this will improve the game alot for me I found it a real pain how slow the units moved.

 

[Davidizer13]

The only things I really like about CTP is the Public Works and the future troops. There's something about watching fusion tanks beat up on marines... It's too easy. In 2200, I had almost all techs, but the others still had conventional tanks.

 

[Joeb WK]

Yer the Public Works were good but you can get space units in Civ2 if you mod it.

 

[Maquiladora]

You can mod the future out of CtP1/2... and still have public works.