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Date: Apr 05 1999 19:15:53 EDT
From: Apolyton Announcements (Apolyton Civilization Site)
Subject: Apolyton News 10/Mar-4/Apr/99(Part 2)


Here's Part 2. We'll try to keep our weekly schedule from now on

----------------------------
**Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri Section

GameCenter's SMAC Guide
-(4 April) During my weekly visit to C|Net's GameCenter, I happened to
come across their gaming guide for SMAC, written by Tom Chick. Each
section, called an "act" in this feature, are: In The Beginning, Base
Sweet Base, The Wee Small Hours, and a supplementary chapter with Tips For
Gaia's Stepdaughters.

Official BR Chat Transcript
-(2 April) It took the better part of an hour, but the official Brian
Reynolds chat transcript is complete! Four pages in total, the first three
cover all that was discussed during the 1 1/2 hours of moderation. The
fourth (left in plain text format) is a recount of what was said during
the ensuing 1/2 hour of unmoderation. Enjoy!

UK Enhancement 3
-(1 April) It's out! Firaxis released it today. See our Files section for
downloading locations. If this is your version of SMAC (v3 of the
enhancement is presently supported only for the US and UK ones), be sure
to also look over the "Sign-Off" Notes, which is available for viewing as
a Microsoft Word document.

Success!
-(1 April) An understatement perhaps? The "official" (that is, moderated)
portion of our chat with Brian Reynolds lasted a little more than 2 hours
and, at its peak, we had 64 participants listening to what our guest of
honour had to say. Then, for an additional half-hour Brian fielded
numerous questions from our visitors directly. He did a great job
answering the multitude of questions put to him throughout the entire
event!
I would like to take this opportunity to thank, obviously, Brian for
taking the time out of his busy schedule to chat, on behalf of all of us
SMAC n' strategy fans out there, and to those who asked questions. Last
but not least, my additional personal graditude goes out to both Markos
and Derek (aka "Akula") Lande for moderating the chat with me. We're
working on the transcript, and it will be posted shortly. Future chats,
you ask?
We're working on it. =-)

T-Minus 3 Hrs
-(1 April) That's right, baby! It's 3 hours and counting down until our
chat with the Brian Reynolds of Firaxis at 7PM EST [at the time of this
article's posting]. Check our chat page for starting times elsewhere in
the world -- if you don't find yours listed, visit Xerox's TimeZone
Converter (hey, it's what I use). In addition, if you wish to submit a
question for Brian, the time stamp on it must be no later than 5:30PM EST
today. We need time to
gather the last submissions all ready for tonight. You will be able to
pass along questions for him during the chat, through the moderators
(myself and/or Markos), but by using the form we have provided and getting
it in before the time mentioned above, we can better guarantee that it
will be asked.

Top Of The World Charts
-(30 March) World Charts reports that SMAC has ousted Baldur's Gate to
capture #1 in the latest edition of their PC Games listing. On a similar
note, the SMAC Demo is also first on their Download Top 40 and has been
for quite some time! Our thanks to Erwin for letting us know.

Copy Protection Waived
-(29 March) Firaxis' Jeffrey Morris posted this on the official forums:
"I'll just post this one message instead of posting a million responses.
The UK patch has entered test and shall be released shortly. When exactly
that is, I have no idea. After OSI is done with it, EAHQ gets a stab, then
EAUK. Once all three outfits sign off, about a day later it goes up. The
French and German patches are currently being translated, so once that's
complete, it goes through the same process. No dates currently, but as
soon as we can. It should take a lot less time that v2.0, since we don't
need to copy protect the executable. Accordingly, the v3.0 executable will
do-away with the copy protection".
Looks as thought European's fears have been put to rest!

Da-Da-Duh?
-(29 March) How peculiar I find the following. See Strategy Gaming's SMAC
review. Eighty-two percent is nothing to scoff at. Now, take a look their
review of another recent TBS, namely Warlords 3: Darklords Rising. The
latter gets a 90% approval rating and an Editor's Choice Award. Why one
but not the other, you ask? Compare the two reviews for yourself.

Dude, You're Going The Wrong Way!
-(26 March) PCData has released their sales figures for mid-March. While
SimCity 3000 is once again the king of the castle, SMAC has fallen to #4!
It was bumped by Hasbro Interactive's remake of Frogger, now sitting
comfortably at #2 (one of three of its titles in the Top Ten), and Heroes
Of Might & Magic 3, by 3DO, at #3.

Interactive Interview
-(24 March) Speaking of Brian Reynolds :), PCGamer had the opportunity to
sit down with him for a chat. Of course, you just knew he was going to be
asked a question regarding a comparison between SMAC with Activision's
Civilization: Call To Power (C:CTP). It was the first one put to him, in
fact! Brian's response:
"It's really hard to compare Alpha Centauri with a game that hasn't been
released yet. Until you see both products, you can only make judgements
based on the reputations of the teams and companies involved and the hype
you see from the publishers. Since Alpha Centauri has been released,
everyone can easily judge its strengths and weaknesses; right now you
can't see what Call to Power's weaknesses might be, and you only have
vague ideas about the strengths. So I guess we'll just have to wait and
see".
That's only the beginning, folks... go have a look see!

Chat with BR on April 1st
-(23 March 1999) Oh yes, you understood correctly. We have arranged a
public chat with Brian Reynolds. Read on for more details, and don't dare
not to be there!!

Postive Reviews + 1
-(21 March) Grab a piece of paper, pencil, and consider this: take the
total number of favourable reviews for SMAC to date and add one --- what
do you get? A whole heck of a lot? It's a rhetorical question anyway, but
if you answered yes you're right! Singularity, self-proclaimed as the
"single source for everything gaming", has given SMAC a perfect five
spiral rating. Reviewer wolvie (yes, spelled all in lower-case) comments
that he is
"confident that this game will soon be a classic along with the rest of
Sid Meier's games and I would recommend it to everyone and anyone who
wants a change from the usual real-time game or 3D shooter". Yeah, who
ever said TBS [turn-based strategy] was dead?

Enhancement v3 -- US Version
-(19 March) SMAC enhancement version 3.0 (US version only) was released
today by GameSpot, and in the process wrapped up their week-long feature
of the product. This patch includes several additions and enhancements,
including the introduction of a new landmark feature, the borehole
cluster, which provide players with bonus minerals and energy. The
gameplay improvements and some small fixes were largely in response to
customer feedback. Most notably, players will find continuing AI
optimization that aims to improve overall gameplay and tweaks to the
interface to make it more convenient. The v3.0 patch includes all changes
made in the v2.0 patch; a complete documentation of v3.0 changes is
included with the download.

Cool Says Cool
-(19 March) Joe Cool over at Game Worlds Network has given a (da-dum!)
favourable review of SMAC, as many have before him. His bottom line? "If
you have ever liked a turn-based game, this is one to get. If you haven't
tried one, get the demo, then buy the game". Who could've put it more
simplistic?

First Poll Results/New Poll
-(18 March) I thin you will agree with me that it is time for a new poll!
The results of the first one, which was about your decision on buying SMAC
before and after the demo were the following: "I was planning to buy the
game and I still am" 63%(!), "I was planning to buy the game but now I'm
not" 7%, "I wasn't sure if I would buy it but now I will" 15%, "I wasn't
sure if I would buy it but now I wont" 2%, "I wasn't planning to buy the
game but now I am" 7%, and "I wasn't planning to buy the game and I still
am not" 2%. Overall, most people knew what they wanted, while some were
helped on their decision by playing the demo. The suprise for me comes
from that 9% that changed their mind totally, either in a positive or a
negative way.
Anyway, our thanks to all 1089 people who responded. Now, it's time for
our second poll. Give us your rating of SMAC!

SMAC in New York Times
-(18 March) Jeff Olson reports that SMAC is once more the subject of an
article on a non-computer related publication. This time, it's the New
York Times!

Nothing New: SMAC's Still #2
-(18 March) According to PCData, SMAC was the second best-selling computer
product for the month of February and the first week in March. What is
refusing to give up the covetted #1 spot? Maxis' SimCity 3000 which, too,
is nothing new.

Trick Or Cheat: Part Deux
-(16 March) As promised yesterday, here are the last of the tricks that we
conveyed to us by Eystein Hansen of Alphafan.com.
ARTILLERY BUG: Artillery can shoot any visible square on the map. This
means, it does not have a 2 distance attack. Artillery can attack any
square you have mapped. The exploit is caused by pressing the F to fire
and then clicking without moving your mouse. You must move your mouse to
the spot to fire at and have the artillery active to fire. If you move
your mouse between pressing F to fire and clicking, then the crosshairs
will
dissappear. It is tricky, but a player stripped all my boreholes and farms
from my cities in a few turns with hordes of artillery.
PROTOTYPE BUG: Say you have just discovered the Chaos Gun. Go to the
Design Workshop and design a 'simple' Chaos Rover; then, another one but
this time with some special features. Go back to the 'simple' version and
upgrade it to the Chaos Rover with all the add-ons. Now, Chaos Gun's
prototype is considered done and it does't cost you a dime.
ALIEN ARTIFACTS BUG (long): There is a set of uncommon but not unheard of
circumstances that can allow players to harvest alien artifacts, energy
bonuses, and other pod gifts in unlimited quantities. Here's how it works:
In Game Preferences, choose the option that displays the odds before each
attack and gives you the option to Confirm or Cancel the attack.
Find a location with two pods adjacent to one another (diagonally is
okay). This is not a common occurrence, but does often occur in one or two
places on each map you might play.
Bring two ground military units to a square that is only one move away
from either pod.
Save the game.
Reloading as necessary, investigate one of the pods until a mind worm
appears on the other one.
Save again.
Now the fun begins. Using the second ground unit, move to attack the mind
worm that appeared on the second pod. When the odds dialog appears, cancel
the attack. You will get the results of exploring the pod, but the pod
(and the mind worm on top of it) will still be there, and your unit will
still have its full movement!!!
Re-initiate and re-cancel the attack as many times as you like. Save the
game when you get results you like and reload when you get results you
don't like. The amount of energy, artifacts, improvements, project
completions, etc. is limited only by your patience.

The Week Of The Centaurian
-(16 March) GameSpot is celebrating "a week of Alpha Centauri". The
coverage is so comprehensive in this feature that we cannot begin to
scratch the surface of it in a news bulletin such as this. However, we
feel it worth mentioning what has promised to be posted this Friday: an
enhancement download. Quote from the site: "Want to take Alpha Centauri to
the next level? Be sure to join us for the release of this exclusive
download. We can't say exactly what it is, but we can say it's going to be
good"!

Faction Calculator
-(16 March) Eystein Hansen, webmaster of Alphafan.com, submitted to us a
modified version of the Faction Calculator, originally found on the
official SMAC forum. See it for yourself!

Trick Or Cheat
-(15 March) Our good friend Eystein Hansen of Alphafan.com has kindly
shared some candy in the flavours of sweet tricks and cheats, SMAC style,
the likes of which we have not seen before. Some are so extensive, in
fact, that to to consume them all in a day would damage our proverbial
teeth! :) So, over the next couple of days, we will indulge ourselves in
what has been gathered.
TRICK: Try trading ANY city to any faction (i.e. give away a 1 city
currently beeing attacked by enemies) and gain a 15 city (!)
SEA FORMER CHEAT: When seaformers are on automatic, they do not have to
pay to raise the seafloor while on manual they do. We do not know if this
also applies to land formers and/or lower terrain as well but if you do,
please let us know.
SUPPORT BUG: If you go into a Pact Brother's city and support a unit from
there, you will control it while no one must support it.
WORKSHOP BUG: Ever notice that when you're designing air units, sometimes
when you give them a better armor the cost actually goes down? What if
someone says that aircrafts don't need armor? "That's simply not true",
Hansen says. "There are a couple of situations where air units defend with
their armor, despite what the rules say".
CITY TRADE BUG: Let's say the Gaians have this one base (not the HQ) with
3 secret projects. Just make a new base, and trade the size 1 base for her
size 14 base with those secret projects! Sound too good to be true? Hansen
has some reassurance for the critics.
"Everytime I have offered to trade base for base, the leader agrees
without getting mad. Not only have I used this to get all the secret
projects I've missed ([all the while] hoping they don't build them in HQ),
I've used this method to completely bring down empires in peacetime. Just
build a random colony in the middle of nowhere, and trade it for an ally's
size 15 base. It has worked every time [for me]!"
Tomorrow, we will unwrap the 3 final cheats in our bag. Until then!...

French, German, UK Patches
-(13 March) The wait is over! Firaxis yesterday released Version 2.0
patches for the French (2.1MB), German (2MB) and UK (1.9MB) versions of
SMAC. As we mentioned at the time of the U.S. patch (699k) release, be
most certain to install only the patch that fits your version; failing to
do so can cause fatal errors and would require you to reinstall the game
from the CD. If you DO have to do this, for whatever reason, you are
obviously concerned about keeping your saved games. To accomplish this,
copy the dir "/saves" from where you installed SMAC (default is "/Program
Files/Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri") and paste it into a safe location
elsewhere on your HD. Once you have SMAC reinstalled, just overwrite the
'new' /saves dir with the one you kept from the previous installation.
Then, when you are certain that your saved games are safe, you can delete
the 'old' /saves dir.

Up To The Neck In Reviews
-(11 March) Oy! Just when you think you've read all anyone can say about
SMAC, more come charging your way! Can anyone honestly keep up? There's
one over at Gamewire now (thanks kryp) and another from FiringSquad.com,
dated about a week ago which, I have to admit, is one of the more detailed
I've seen (thanks for the note Tonyte). The latter kept to the
not-so-surprising "A+ streak of approval" for SMAC, while the former was
little more critical and gave it a still respectable 75% rating.
Apparently, they weren't so forgiving with what they considered to be
substandard graphics for this day and age in gaming. Nonetheless, there's
no doubt that SMAC's smokin' & the sky's the limit!

What's Not To Like?
-(10 March) "Lots of depth and replayability. One giant leap for
gamingkind for Civilization fans", reads the 'Review Timecapsule' from
GamePen's 3-page SMAC review. They do believe, however, that it is just "a
short hop for non-Civ fans" and is "initially hard to grasp many of the
concepts", they gave it an excellent 4.5/5 star rating. "So many little
touches that really make Alpha Centauri shine"... we couldn't agree more
Eric! Oh, if
you have problems going from Page 2 to 3 in the review, change, in the
last portion of the URL, the "/alphacentauri2.asp" to
"/alphacentauri3.asp" (GP's webmaster missed that).
The next item to report is a mail we got today from David Israel of
Plaything:
"... the computer game E-zine that doesn't like anything, loves SMAC. In
our review, we call SMAC 'an obsessive's delight: detailed, deep, and
utterly configurable.'". We can sum up their bottom line in two words:
"Buy It"! You can read the full review here.
Thirdly, we have a slew of links to additional reviews to pass along --
some newer, others older -- of SMAC. They are on (in no particular order:
IGN PC; Games.Net (9.0 overall rating); AGN3D.com (9/10); Next Generation,
and last but certainly not least Rainbow PCM. All of this is accompanied
by a positive reference to Firaxis' "Civ in space" found recently in the
Philadelphia Inquirer and Baltimore Sun.
In closing, I'll give GamePen the final word: "If you love strategy games,
buy Alpha Centauri". Agreed! :)

Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie
-(10 March) It's an ol' fashioned giveaway cyber-style! Adrenaline Vault
is giving away seven Second Place prizes, a copy of Alpha Centauri plus an
Electronic Arts T-Shirt, and three grand prizes to the tune of a Sid Meier
and Brian Reynolds autographed copy of Alpha Centauri plus an Electronic
Arts T-shirt! You will be asked to provide your first and last name,
address, daytime telephone number and e-mail address. You must then
complete all data requested on the entry form in order for your Giveaway
entry to be valid. Enter before MARCH 15th for a chance to win (it is open
to U.S.
residents only).

*Site Updates
4 April 1999: Two new factions.
1 April 1999: UK enhancement 3.
29 March 1999: Same as yesterday. :)
28 March 1999: A new faction!
25 March 1999: New scenario.
22 March 1999: Newly submitted map and faction posted.
19 March 1999:Enhancement v3 for US version released!
18 March 1999: Old news archived. First poll ended, second one started.
17 March 1999: Two new files: a faction and a map.
16 March 1999: New scenario in Files section.
15 March 1999: AC Edit utility updated!
13 March 1999: French, German, UK patches are up!
12 March 1999: Research assistant is now available.

----------------------------
**CivLeague (hosted site)

Tribe play begins
-(April 04) Tribe play officaly opened today with the first 6 tribes. You
can still get in on the action by forming your own tribe or joining one.

Tribes rules finalized
-(March 28) After numerous hours of careful deliberation, Frank has
finalized the rules for the tribes system. You may read about it in the
handbook. The tribes link under rankings can also be accessed now. We
envision tribes will bring a whole new aspect of gaming and community into
CivLeague and will fit very well into our goal of providing a competitive,
yet friendly environment for Civ players.

Tribe Leaders Wanted!
-(March 23) We are now accepting applications for new tribes in our new
tribes system. If you are interested in being a team captain read the
requirements below.
To start a tribe you need:
* E-mail address for captain's duties (yours)
* At least 3 members (no more than 10) and their CivLeague ID #s.
* A name for your tribe.
Optional:
* A banner for your tribe (.GIF 64 X 48 or less)
If you have all of this e-mail them to me at frankj@flash.net to become a
tribe leader.

AlphaLeague logo contest
-(March 19) We are currently working on a version of CivLeague for Alpha
Centauri, called AlphaLeague, and we need your help! We need a 400 × 100
logo on a black background. GIF or JPEG required. Send it to
kentwang@mailcity.com. Be sure to include your name and a name for your
entry. The deadline will be March 31.

Reused IDs
-(March 18) New members who join will now begin to use the IDs of expired
members. So we won't be going into four digit IDs for a while.

Poll results; New poll
-(March 18) By popular request (50%, 55 votes), we will keep expire times
for members at 60 days. You can view the results of that survey or vote on
the new topic by logging in.

Tribes. Preview and Discussion.
-(March 16) You can now view a preview of the tribes system. After you're
through digesting that, you can discuss it in our forums with other
members.

Championship
-(March 10) The championship match for the WWII tourney has been posted.


That was all, ladies and gentlemen
Until next time...
Markos, Apolyton CS