16-12-2000 05:18									#1
	A word with you John... Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Hey John,

It was recently discovered that ToT contains an undocumented simultaneous human movement setting. Any other undocumented 'features' you've been holding out on us?

Come on, time to come clean, confession is good for the soul...


for details check:
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum2/HTML/001945.html?2#2

	18-12-2000 19:25									#2
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

How did you guys find that? No, wait--I don't want to know.

There were a few things that got left in--or left out, depending on how you look at it. What happened was that as we went along, merrily working on the game, Spectrum and then Hasbro management (remember, development of this game spanned the Hasbro buy-out) fiddled with the schedule many, many times. One result of this was that features we once planned to finish had to be cut. Some were close to done, but not quite (and they hadn't been tested), while some were just started. Rather than go through and remove all the code, the programmers (on the off chance that maybe we could reanimate a feature or two) just deactivated it. (Don't ask me for details; I'm not a programmer.)

The simultaneous human movement thing was actually a leftover from the Multiplayer Gold Edition. The team put it in and it seemed to work, but in testing we found that it caused major game play problems, including opportunities for blatant cheating. So, we nixed it in the shipping version, but the code, like a trick knee, remained in place waiting to cause trouble. We developed ToT based on a version of the MGE code-base--thus the legacy simultaneous human turns code.

	19-12-2000 00:42									#3
	Increase the size of your Attachments

That would also explain the extra map windows you could open with the right mousebutton, it seemed kind of a trivial feature at the time. But this would be quite useful during simultaneous movement.

quote: One result of this was that features we once planned to finish had to be cut. Some were close to done, but not quite (and they hadn't been tested), while some were just started. Rather than go through and remove all the code, the programmers (on the off chance that maybe we could reanimate a feature or two) just deactivated it. (Don't ask me for details; I'm not a programmer.)

So there's more? Any chance you could ask one of the programmers to drop by in the forums for some insight?

quote: The simultaneous human movement thing was actually a leftover from the Multiplayer Gold Edition.

Yup, we already found out that it works in MGE too.

[This message has been edited by CapTVK (edited December 18, 2000).]

	19-12-2000 19:38									#4
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Actually, the right-click extra windows feature was introduced in CivNet. Nobody used it--well, almost nobody.

	20-12-2000 01:45									#6
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Would it be possible for you to tell us what other modes where left out of the final version?

	20-12-2000 19:20									#7
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

I honestly don't remember what features were left out, disabled, and stubbed off. The development process got pretty confusing at times, and it was over a year ago. Sorry.

I also don't remember the specifics of how folks cheated using the simultaneous movement. What I remember is the testers throwing things across the room at each other when somebody got caught. :-) It had something to do with changing the doubling parameters during the game or attacking or editing other players' cities after they'd finished their turn, or something like that--things only a determined cheater (or a skillful tester) would even try, I suppose.

	20-12-2000 23:01									#9
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

I have a clue on what else had been left over. The 'MaxPlayers=' option. You guys planned to give us more than 7 players. What a pity it did not get accomplished!

	21-12-2000 04:40									#10
	Increase Your PM Length

Xin! So we can have more then 7 civs? The SLeaguers will go crazy over this......

	21-12-2000 06:16									#11
	Support Apolyton

John, would you happen to be acquainted with any of the Mac programmers from MacSoft that worked on MPG (or ANY Mac programmers for that matter)? The Mac-Civ ACS Community would LOVE to give "simultaneous" moves a try, but, alas no one (well, me at least) seems to know how to hack the Mac app. Do you think that you could help us out?

------------------
Be what you is and not what you is not. Folks who do that are the happiest lot!
- Mr. Wizard the Lizard,

	21-12-2000 19:22									#12
	Get a bigger avatar today!

Hate to burst bubbles of optimism, but it seems that's my job today. Sigh.

The MaxUsers feature was designed to allow you to limit the number of human player civs in a multiplayer game, not to allow more than 7 civs. At least, if I remember correctly, that's what it was.

Wish I could help with the Mac issues, but I had nothing to do with the development of the Mac version of MPG. That was done entirely out-of-house.

On a positive note, I heard yesterday from a very reliable inside source that Hasbro has every intention of seeing Civ 3 through to release. (Don't know if it was ever in doubt, but if it was, there you go.)

OT: The person also mentioned a future Master of Orion title...

	21-12-2000 20:48									#13
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

Yeah, uh, Master of Orion III has been in development for sometime now by QuickSilver. It's due out in a year.
http://www.moo3.com

	22-12-2000 19:02									#14
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

Yeah, it's just nice to hear verification from inside that it's still on the schedule and actual work is being done. We've all seen how much company announcements are worth. (Agents of Justice, anyone?)

	27-12-2000 19:48									#16
	Tired of ads?

Well, the main programmer in MGE is no longer in the game business, so I guess he's out of reach (for now).

Are you sure that those "limits" aren't left over from the original Civ2? Those numbers sound suspiciously like the generic upper limit on certain types of (programming) variables.

	02-01-2001 19:32									#18
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Ahh. Neat. I wonder why he did that? Could be that at one point, he thought multi-human games would need bigger maps. Then again, it might have had something to do with converting the Civ2 code from C into C++, which I believe he did for MGE. Oh, well. In any case, it's jut another example of Apolyton folks knowing more about Civ than me. I'm getting used to it... ;-)

	03-01-2001 14:54									#19
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

On side note but still on topic, in SMAC, map sizes are only limited by how big your cpu is and how much RAM the game has to play in. A standard huge map had 16384 squares and I've heard stories of people playing on maps with 262144 squares.

	05-01-2001 01:49									#20
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

ever play on a 1000000 map? Didn't think so. You'll never discover the ends of the world before the game runs out.