Christopher Williams May 18, 1999 CIS490 Project 1 - Formal Game Review The game being reviewed in this document is Civilization: Call to Power (C:CTP). C:CTP is the third Civilization game, and is written and owned by Activision, a departure from past Civilization games, which were written by Sid Meier, and owned by Microprose. Like its predecessors, C:CTP is a turn-based strategic simulation game, and like most current games, sells for between $40 and $50, depending on where you buy it. The minimum hardware required to play is listed as being: - US version of Windows95/98/NT - Pentium 133 - 32MB RAM - 320MB Hard drive space for install, plus 80MB of hard drive space for virtual memory - 16-bit high color card with 1M of RAM - 4X CD-ROM (600K/sec sustained transfer rate) - 100% Windows 95/98/NT compatible sound card and drivers - 100% Windows 95/98/NT compatible mouse and drivers (for Win NT you need a P166 and 64M of RAM). My own system is slightly more powerful than that with the minimum listed requirements, with 128M of RAM, a Pentium2-233 processor, and a 32-bit true color video card. The game did not seem to make use of my Voodoo2 3D accelerator card. Despite my "advanced" system, the game hesitated in places and ran slowly most of the time, however, I did have the option of turning some animations off to speed gameplay. It should also be noted that slow performance is far more acceptible in a turn-based strategy game than it is in a real-time game of any sort. In C:CTP, as in past Civilization games, the objective is to take a civilization from a band of hunter-gatherers in 4000 BC to become the dominant, technologically advanced world power of the modern age. C:CTP goes beyond the scope of its predecessors however, extending to the year 3000 (instead of stopping at the year 2000 as in previous Civilization games), and allowing the players to develop futuristic sciences. Undersea colonies, orbital arcologies, mind control devices, forcefields, and even starcruisers are all within the player's reach. As in previous Civ games, empires are defined and measured as collections of cities that the player controls. The player can try to found new cities and develop them, or can try to take them from his opponents by force, but every city must be protected, and the citizens there kept fed, productive, and content- difficult to do if you've just converted them by the sword. Game installation is easy enough - follow the instructions, then watch the game developers' concept sketches roll by and listen to the game music as it installs. Players are given the option of regular (320MB) install, custom install, or full (540MB) install. The user interface is a radical departure from that of earlier Civ games, and it will probably take time for most Civ players to acclimate themselves with it. Messages now appear as buttons on the screen to be activated and viewed, or just deleted, rather than as pop-up windows full of text. Also, the city information screen is gone, and will be missed. Instead a sort of information screen with data from all cities is available, but the information listed is in a dry numeric format, rather than displayed graphically. Movement in C:CTP is point-and-click, with units intelligently taking the quickest possible paths to their destination, making use of terrain, roads, railroads, and (later) maglev bullet-train tunnels, as appropriate. Game play consists of choosing scientific advances to develop, and deciding what to have each city produce, whether military units, city improvements (such as libraries to speed research, granaries to keep the people fed, factories to increase their productivity, or cathedrals to keep them happy), and wonders (like the seven wonders of the world, but including modern wonders such as the Internet, and futuristic wonders, such as the Star Ladder). During play, new units, improvements, and wonders will become available as your technology advances, as will new types of government, which you can switch to after a revolution (though, mysteriously, you remain in charge). Governments range from the barbaric Tyranny in which everyone starts, simply because nobody knew a better one at 4000 BC, to the more enlightened Monarchy, Theocracy, and Republic. As technology advances, newer governments such as Democracy, Fascism, Corporate Republic, Technocracy, Ecotopia, and Virtual Democracy become available for the empire-builder to choose from, each offering advantages and disadvantages to suit most emergencies and play styles. Scoring is based on your population and level of technolog- ical advancement, though considerable bonuses are given for any wonders that you've built, and penalties are levied for pollution and war casualties that you've sustained, and for any turns in which your populace has rioted against you. Presumably, at the end it will evaluate your performance, though I haven't yet reached the game's end to see. Graphics and Artwork are simple but adequate. Unit movement and combat is animated (unless you turn that option off), and different units and terrain types are easily distinguish- able. As you move into different ages (Ancient, Renaissance, Modern, Genetic, and Diamond) your cities change in appearance, from mud huts to castles to skyscrapers. Sound is fairly good, with about a dozen different musical selections, and each has a different sort of technological level behind it, from tribal music, through classical and Gregorian chanting, to techno and synth for more advanced periods. The overall quality of the musical selections was mediocre however. Also, each unit has several different vocal expressions with which to respond to your commands. A user manual is included, but it doesn't even begin to cover the complexity and scope of the game. Fortunately the online help is excellent, and covers every game concept both in game terms, and historically (though it can be amusing to read their `historic' account of advances that haven't been discovered yet). Multiplayer play is supported, and the game is better-suited in its current form for multiplayer than it was in past incarnations, and I have found no bugs in the game to date. C:CTP is a superb game overall, with a depth unequalled in any other game that I've played- decisions that you make early into it can aid or haunt you later in the game. The combat system now allows groups of units (or stacks) to complement each other so that marines will take the front line and protect your artillery so that it can smash the enemy line from afar. Also, enemy spies can no longer just `buy' your cities, but can still wreak havoc through sabotage and terrorism. Those who dislike it most however will probably not be bored action game fans, but Civilization players who believe that too much was changed. In support of this argument, I think it can be said that not every change was a good one. For example, managing a large city is almost too easy now; in earlier games, the biggest city I had ever seen was a size 25 (about 10 million people). Now, cities can and do reach sizes of over 100 (!) The only changes I would want to make are to bring back the graphical city view, and for the futuristic advances, instead of concocting sci-fi `history' behind them, talk more about concepts leading up to them, or the science be- hind them. Also I would have some of the wonders last longer (before later technological advances obsolete them), and make city maintenance more involved. Still, these are minor quibbles indeed. C:CTP is an excellent game in its own right, but does it live up to the Civilization legacy, or did Activision mis- handle the license? In my opinion, C:CTP does live up to the Civilization legacy not only as a member of the series, but as the successor to Civilization II. There are indeed numerous changes in the game, but most of them are improve- ments and upgrades, and add depth and balance, rather than taking them away. I recommend this game to any fan of strat- egy games, particularly those who appreciate history and human achievement. Action gamers with short attention spans should look elsewhere.