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Date: Jun 24 1999 17:37:45 EDT
From: "Apolyton Announcements (Apolyton Civilization Site)"
Subject: Apolyton&Friends News 17-23/June/99


Greetings everyone,
these are the news of the week(17-23/June).

On Apolyton, the big news are the merger of Allard&Andrew's Page with the
Spanish Civilization II Site to create the Civilization Scenario
Collection(). The new site will be managed by
Allard Hofelt and Jesús Balsinde. The part of the Spanish which held the
personal creation of Jesús Balsinde will remain separate and be hosted by
Apolyton as well()

In the "Friends" part of the newsletter, news only from MJ's Civilization
Empire and Mr Temba's. If you have a civ2, ctp or smac site and want your
news included here, mail Dustin Dunn at dustind@concentric.net

=========The news from Apolyton=========
----------------------------
**Civilization II Section

A GAMING GRAMMY
(June 23, 1999) Some things seem to appreciate with value, and CivII seems
to be no exception. GameSpot has posted a new feature on their website
this week: a listing of the Ten Best Game Soundtracks ever. Guess what?
Civilization II made the list! In the introduction provided by GS'
writers, they make it clear that sometimes age comes before beauty. "All
the games that compose our TenSpot have excellent (some admittedly, more
dated than others) music, none are from well-known names in the music
industry".
For Sid Meier's follow-up classic of the Civilization original, when it
is first booted "you're treated to one of the best intro scores of any
game. The heavy drums, seemingly inspired by African beats, are exciting
and catchy, totally at odds with the general conception of strategy games
as boring and cerebral. This was music that could rope you into the game".
This was one of two sound files including in the profile, which we have
mirrored to make available for download here (1.5MB), which requires an
MP3 player such as WinAmp to listen to -- but boy is it worth it, even if
you have the game! The second clip is from Leonardo Da Vinci's Workshop
Wonder (500k).
"The music team for Civilization II, led by Jeff Briggs, who also did
the music for Civ I, did an excellent job in crafting music that stayed
with you. Even years later, for those of us who played Civilization II,
the music is still with us", concludes the write-up.
Our thanks to SidGames for the note.

BETTER AI IN ToT?
(June 21, 1999) In case you didn't notice, we have a new forum for Civ2:
Test of Time. And the best thing is members of the development team are
posting (you can tell from their status which is "Civilization II: Test Of
Time Team" not "Civer"). To the point of this new item, there was a good
question of whether this new add-on brings something more in the AI of
civ2, beyond the new graphics and the new features we've heard about so
far. John Possidente from MicroProse replied:
"Well, we certainly didn't rework the AI from the ground up, but in the
process of upgrading it to teach it how to deal with multiple maps, the
Midgard and Lalande games, and the other new bits, we couldn't resist the
urge to fix (and add) a few things. I'm sure we didn't catch everything
(no AI is perfect), but I hope you'll notice some change for the better."
ToT is coming in the first half of August...

6 NEW FILES
(June 21, 1999) Tired of seeing headlines like this? We're not! We think
that new civ2 files after three years of it's release deserve a new
item(do you know many games that have achieved this kind of thing? The new
files are Beer and Pretzels Civ II, Civ Space, Islands in the Sand, Desert
Storm, Modern Changes and The Pyramids Pack. Our thanks to Cam Hills who
did the file processing. Today we're also celebrating 20,000 downloads
from our database, which are actually many more as the count was lost for
some of the files some months ago. Anyway, more new files are coming this
week, perhaps even tomorrow.

Centaurian Tales, Soon
--(June 21) We will soon be opening a new part of our SMAC section called
"Centaurian Tales". The Tales will be the equivalent of our Civ2 "Scribes"
and the CTP "Callings": stories of a special game, but also in he case of
smac, SMAC fiction. If you have a story to tell, mail it to Jools
Weevil(jools_jr@hotmail.com), our Centaurian Tale Teller(sounds nice
doesn't it?).

Firaxis, What Is SMACX?/MFS Poll
--(June 20) Our SMACX poll ended after 688 votes. Apparently Firaxis'
choice not to announce much info on SMACX, smac's expansion disk, have
worked. 35% Of the people wondered "What is SMACX?", while 29% responded
"With closed eyes!"! Another 23% was sceptical("I'll wait to see what it
will contain"), and the rest had varying opinions: "I'll wait for players'
comments" 7%, "For $5 I might" 3% and "Not a chance" 0%, which was
actually 4 votes. On our 6th poll, we ask you what to you prefer to play.
I hope we have covered all posibilities. Oh, MFS stands for
Maps-Factions-Scenarios... :)


----------------------------
**Civilization: Call to Power Section

BeOS PORT TO COME
(June 23) Wildcard Design and Activision Inc. have made it official: the
Be operating system (BeOS) is to become the latest in a string of ports of
platforms to support C:CTP in their gaming lineup. In the official press
release, the background information on the deal is discussed at length.
Here are some select excerpts from it:
"... Wildcard Design will be porting the game from the original source
code so that the graphics, action, and user interface are identical to the
PC version. All of the new tools, options, combat, and graphics featured
in the PC game will also be included in the BeOS version. It will [also]
be based on the identical story line and characters..."
"With the incredible amount of audio and video media in the game, it's
no surprise that Civilization: Call To Power is being brought to BeOS",
said Philippe Erwin, Director of Licensing and Business Development at
Activision. "BeOS is designed to work well with all forms of media, and we
are sure this will be no exception. Having creative, strategic games
available on their platform of choice will enhance the experience for BeOS
users".
Wildcard Design's Chief Executive Officer John Fehr echoed similiar
sentiments. "We are pleased to show our increased support for BeOS as a
gaming platform. We've been with BeOS through its formative years, and we
believe it has become a superior gaming platform as a result of Be's push
towards a media-rich operating system. We are pleased to offer the BeOS
community a superior strategy game".
When can BeOS users expect to see this title on suppliers' shelves and
listed on the Net? Sometime this summer!

FOR THE ADVANCED PLAYER II
(June 22) It is a bit late but it was worth it! Brad Santos writes again
for the "Developer's Corner" and gives out the secret of the unconvetional
units
"For many first time players of Civilization: Call to Power, the sound of
sinister cackling as an unseen Slaver kidnaps another citizen from an
unsuspecting city is enough to cause an anxiety attack. The reason for
this strong emotional reaction is simple..."
Read on...

TO MOD OR NOT TO MOD?
(June 22) Our tenth poll asks if you play with a mod or not. We've picked
the most wanted mods, and especially the three that change the game a lot.
Note: in all answers add "I play with" before of them... :)

GREAT, GIVE ME A SECOND ONE
(June 22) With almost 1000 votes(962 to be exact), we have a view of your
opinions on the first patch. The results of the "Impressions from the
first patch?" poll are "Awesome - The game is perfect now" 3%, "Great -
But there is still room for improvement" 39%, "Good - But they didn't fix
what I wanted fixed" 30%, "Ok - But I could live without it" 6%,
"Disappointed - It is worse now than before" 10% and "None - I have a
localized/linux version" 8%.

SAY WHAT?
(June 21) It's been a while since the report of the last one, but for your
viewing pleasure is another CTP review. Some bits and pieces we were able
to translate from German and French, by using Altavista's Translation
Services which rendered some familar words; however, it's not enough to
form a representative piece of the review itself to make comment on here.
However, we've been able to ascertain that the reviewer, Martin van den
Bosch of GamerMagainze, gave it a 83% rating overall. Thanks to SidGames
for 'finding' it.

WINNERS ANNOUNCED
(June 20) All the winners of the "Power Up!" Contest responded, so if you
didnt get a mail from us already it means that you didn't win.
Congratulations to all 10 winners! The prizes will be sent out sometime in
the next week or so. We hope we can have similar contests in the future.
For those who wondered, we also posted the answers too...

9 WEEKS, NO MORE?
(June 19) For the week of May 30-Jun 5, CTP was NOT in the top 10 selling
games listing, always according to PC Data. A reason(beyond the usual one:
time) might be the release of Mechwarrior III(#2) and offers of
Monopoly(#6), Wargasm(#8) and Mastercraft Extreme Watersports(#10) at low
prices. The SW games continue to hold high places(#1 and #3) and SC 3000
dropped dangerously at #9. If CTP doesn't come back next week it will mean
that it was on the top 10 for 9 weeks. It's interesting that that's
exactly how many weeks smac was on the top 10... ;) More of this
comparison can be found on a thread by MarkG
(Note: In the list for the week after that, CTP was again not in the top
10. We're not waiting to see how it will go in the monthly list for
June...)


----------------------------
**Civilization Scenario Collection(hosted site)

(Jun 21) The Civilization Scenario Collection opens shop!!!
As of today, there are 80 scenarios on this site, plus one of the biggest
libraries of Civ2-related icons on the net.

----------------------------
**Hodadian Award Central(hosted site)

PRIDE OF THE WORLD RETURNS JUN.21
We here at H.A.C. are proud to announce the winner of the revived Pride of
the World award for June. It is the Tour Eiffel CivII Site. If you're
interested in getting your CivII site considered for a POTW award, or if
you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, visit the POTW
homepage now!

----------------------------
**Spanish Civilization II Site(hosted site)

Jun 23 '99
We are hosted by Apolyton!!!
(Bestonet section moved to the new C.S.C.)


=========Apolyton's Friends News=========
--------------------------
MJ's Civilization Empire

6/22/99
- Post Suggestions for the SMAC2 mod at the discussion forum.


--------------------------
Mr Temba's

6/22/99
- Sounds for Prince of Darkness have (finally) been uploaded, get them in
the Best on Net. Surveys updated.

6/21/99
Prince of Darkness has been released! Find it in the Best on Net, and the
preview page. Sounds coming later.

6/20/99
Screenshots have been added to Prince of Darkness preview, some more
information about Sands of Time has been added

6/17/99
Survey Update, Prince of Darkness preview updated.
--------------------------

That was all for this week ladies and gentlemen,

Until next time
Markos Giannopoulos - markg@apolyton.net
Apolyton Civilization Site - apolyton.net