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Date: Dec 25 1999 15:23:39 EST
From: "Apolyton Announcements (Apolyton Civilization Site)"
Subject: Apolyton&Friends News 18-24/December/99


Merry Christmas to everyone,
this the last newsletter for this millenium :)

In the civ world, it was business as usual this week. News of all kinds
for all games, new files for CTP, a survey for our civ2 database(please
participate!), hopes for a smacx patch before Christmas which didnt come,
BeOS port of CTP is gold(but not in stores yet) and lot's of other stuff.
In Apolyton related news, we re-re-designed our front page :), created a
full news page with all the news of all sections and we applied the new
civ level based forum title system(long but accurate description :))

In the "Friends" part of the newsletter, news from Civ Master Deity League
and Fantastic Worlds: Mercator's Civilization 2 Site. If you have a civ2,
civ3, ctp or smac site and want your news included here, mail them to
Dustin Dunn at dustind@home.com


And now, in detail
=========The news from Apolyton=========
----------------------------
**Dinosaurs Section

REAL TIME OR TURN BASED?
[22 December 1999, 20:04 EST] One of the more popular topics of our Dino
forum, and the next topic to be covered in Sid's diaries on the official
site, is whether or not a strategy game based on dinosaurs should be real
time or turn based. Thus, we made our first poll for this new section.
Vote and give your comments on this thread

GAMER-X RANT
[21 December 1999, 19:24 EST] GameCenter's Gamer-X [his latest rant on
GameCenter's website. This edition is about --- you guessed it --- Sid
Meier's Dinosaurs. He states, quote:
"Turns out I was right: Firaxis on Friday announced that the next big Sid
Meier game is about dinosaurs. I guess Sid's been watching Jurassic Park a
lot. I'm intrigued by this dinosaur game, but we'll have to wait for
details. This is just great; now Firaxis has me waiting for both
Civilization III and dinosaurs".

ANALYSIS FROM GAMECENTER
[20 December 1999, 20:11 EST] Like many other PC gaming websites,
GameCenter has posted an article about Firaxis' latest game in the making,
Sid Meier's Dinosaurs, in recent days. But in addition, writer Andrew S.
Bub offers his take on the announcement. Here are some excerpts:
"A dinosaur strategy game? Were it any other developer, this news would be
met with mild curiosity and, likely, much derision. But Sid Meier has the
most impressive track record of any game designer in this business.
... the one thing that is guaranteed with a Meier release (aside from his
name being part of the title) is that it will mix hard science and realism
with addictive gameplay. The concept may seem like a long shot, but it is
very possible we have just seen a new classic in its infancy. That's not
hyperbole, just history repeating itself".
Sounds good!

EVOLUTION, THE GAME
[19 December 1999, 8:53 EST] Timothy Weij mentioned to us a game which
seems similar to what Sid&Co is up to. It's called Evolution, described on
it's official site as an "intense, challenging strategy game", where you
"begin as one of the earliest amphibians to crawl out onto land, competing
against up to five computer or human (networked) opponents to evolve the
first intelligent species (and that doesn't have to mean homo sapiens!)".
Published in early '98, it seems that it got some pretty good reviews. A
17mb demo is available, check it out!


----------------------------
**Civilization II Section

COLUMN #86; BY SKORPION59
[24 December 1999, 21:05 EST] Because tomorrow is Christmas Day, "The
Column" has been [a day earlier; in the latest installment of this series,
written by Skorpion59, the article is in response to last week's writeup
by Blackclove on C:CTP's shortcomings.
Once you have read it, click here to comment on it publicly.?column/86_bashing.shtml">

GAMESPOT UK'S TOP 100 GAMES
[22 December 1999, 15:49 EST] Gamespot UK has started a count down for
their massive holiday feature on the Top 100 Games of the Millennium. For
the scepticals(like me), it is a very good thing that Gamespot UK clears
out that this their own opinion(and proudly Brit-centric as they mention).
Scepticism which I think is right when you see Lemmings in the 94th
position :) Anyway, the people are going to have their say in the
"Readers' Top 100" which Gamespot will start soon. In the meantime,
positions 100 to 91 have been revealed, the rest will folow in the coming
days. Share your comments on this thread

CIV2 DATABASE SURVEY
[21 December 1999, 11:31 EST] Sven, our civ2 db manager, is doing a survey
about our file database. Please answer on this thread.

GERMAN TOT PATCH v1.1
[19 December 1999, 14:28 EST] MicroProse's German outfit released patch
v1.1 for Civilization II: Test of Time on November 11th. The patch is not
widely known as being available because it is as of yet not listed on the
official CivII website. We thank Reto Spöhl for bringing it to our
attention.
To download the file from Apolyton (2.9MB), click here.

COLUMN #85; BY BLACKCLOVE
[18 December 1999, 23:15 EST] Today's column comes from Blackclove,
entitled "Scenario Making: While CivII Succeeded While More Modern Games
May Fail".
Enjoy! If you have any comments to make on the piece, feel free to discuss
them here.

THE COLUMN: SUBMIT AN ARTICLE


----------------------------
**Civilization III Section

GAMESPY TALKS CIVIII
[21 December 1999, 20:52 EST] From the staff at GameSpy comes the two
Strategy titles that they believe gamers should watch for in 2000. One of
the games is none other than Civilization III.
No new information was given about the game, but the writeup did make one
profound statement:
"Suffice it to say that anything with Sid Meier's name on it bears
watching in the new year".
Indeed!

Q3 2000...?
[20 December 1999, 20:17 EST] In its listing updated at the end of
November, Strategy Gaming Online has Civilization III slated for a Q3 2000
release.
Will this come to pass? It's still up in the air, but based on earlier
indications from both Firaxis and Hasbro Interactive, the latter of which
has been confirmed as the outfit who will develop it, it appears to be a
definite possibility.
Stay tuned for more updates as they become available.


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

ANCIENT NOBLE UNIT
[23 December 1999, 20:10 EST] An extra christmas gif :) another unit
graphic from Tom Davies. The Ancient Noble is meant as an alternative to
the Noble supplied in the Apolyton pack and WesW's Medieval Pack. It is
fully animated with shadows and has movement, attack and death scenes.
Check it out!

FILES FOR THE CHRISTMAS
[22 December 1999, 18:40 EST] Our christmas "gift" for you is 8 new ctp
files. Our apologies to those of the creators who waited for some time.
The new files are History of Iceland(historical scenario pack),
Alternative Targeting Cursor(by Atahualpa), Leaders Randomizer(program
that randomizes the leaders' personalities), Lucky's Presidential Mod(38
diplomatic pictures of US presidents!), Nostradamus(put Nostradamus as
your leader), Early Spy Unit(new unit from Tom Davies) and CTPBase
1.0(Access database for almost all CTP customizable files). Merry
Christmas everybody! :)

CTP PORT FOR "BEOS": GOLD!
[18 December 1999, 23:23 EST] According to WildCard Designs, their BeOS
port of Civilization: Call To Power has gone gold (dated December 3rd).
"Gold" is a term which publishers use to state that the game is being sent
to manufacturers for production, and shortly thereafter shipping! At
present we do not have any more precise information on when BeOSer's can
expect to see the game in stores, but keep us bookmarked for updates.
Our thanks to Kevin Ar18 of our forums for the note.


----------------------------
**Alpha Centauri Section

SMAC: ONE OF C|NET'S TOP FIVE
[24 December 1999, 20:22 EST] Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri has been named by
C|Net as one of the five best games of 1999, as first reported by
SidGames, in an article [on C|Net's website on Wednesday.
The other winners are Unreal Tournament, Soul Calibur, Madden NFL 2000,
and World Driver Championship.

PATCH BEFORE CHRISTMAS?
[20 December 1999, 19:44 EST] Jeff Morris says "Chances are, yes". He
added that "The patch contains all the fixes listed in Tim's thread".
Sometimes, you only need to ask, and Lee Johnson did :)


----------------------------
**About Apolyton Section

MERRY CHRISTMAS
[24 December 1999, 21:11 EST] On behalf of Markos, myself, and the rest of
the Apolyton CS staff, we extend Christmas greetings to you and your
family from ours. We too will be spending tomorrow with loved ones, and
are officially taking the day off from work around the site.
But don't worry, it's only temporary!
We will be "back in the swing of things" on Sunday (26th).
Merry Christmas!

THE APOLYTON CLOCK
[24 December 1999, 20:08 EST] Perhaps a minor thing, but from now on
almost everywhere in our forums(forum summary, thread summaries and
threads) you can see the current "Apolyton Time"(EST actually). Just
reload to see that it is indeed the actual time. Now we can all together
celebrate the coming of the millenium, watching the Apolyton Clock showing
"January 1, 2000 00:00:00" :)

FRONT PAGE REDESIGN, FULL NEWS PAGE
[22 December 1999, 21:25 EST] After visitor feedback about our new look of
the front page, we redesigned it again to look better on 800x600
resolutions. Specifically, we wanted to give those visitors as many
headlines as possible with one look. Beyond that, we have a created a Full
News page with all the news of all sections and hosted sites(those that
use the news script). Hope you like it.

FORUM "RANKS" APPLIED
[21 December 1999, 18:07 EST] The new set of forum titles was applied
today. The system is based on post count and goes like this
Settler 1-30
Chieftain 31-100
Warlord 101-300
Prince 301-1000
King 1001-3000
Emperor 3001-10000
Deity 10001+
We hope it's not abused :)

MING'S NEW ROLES
[18 December 1999, 15:43 EST] Effectively immediately Ming, who has been
moderator of Apolyton's Off-Topic forum since late October, will expand
his role in Apolyton's forums by replacing DanQ and MarkG as sole
moderator on all of the site's CivII forums, save CivII-Mac, which will
continue to be served by MacUser.
Ming's new forum title has also been modified accordingly --- he is now
"CivII & Off-Topic Moderator".


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

[Dec.25] Silver Fleece Medal for December announced

[Dec 21] Three new scenarios in Bestonet


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

Iran by Stefan Härtel
[21 December 1999, 11:39 EST] New scenario in Ancient: Iran by Stefan
Härtel.
(Scenario #16 in this section, #119 in the site)


=========Apolyton's Friends News=========
--------------------------
Civ Master Deity League

- The Civ 2 Master Deity League is now the Civ Master Deity League and it
is at a new site:

- We have a new points system which rewards players who play late into the
game, whether they are winning or not. I hope every serious deity player
in the world gives us a shot. In November 2000 we will crown the Master
Deity Champion as the best deity player in the world.


--------------------------
Fantastic Worlds: Mercator's Civilization 2 Site

12/19/99
- Finally!
After a couple of months, Jorrit's CivilizationII Page is finally reborn.
Now called Mercator's Civilization2 Site, it has a completely modified
look. The map database now holds 264 real-world maps! Except for this, I'm
eagerly waiting
for Kunal Shah to add a database search program. When that is ready, the
amount of files will drastically increase. For now you can enjoy the new
layout, several new downloads and especially the new map database.



That was all for this week ladies and gentlemen,

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