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Greetings everyone,

without a big intro, here are the civ news of the week from the only
newletter on the net to cover the civ genre(a self-praising note doesn't
hurt once in a while, does it? :))

Dont miss our sedond "civers chat" this Saturday, 5pm EST
(irc.iol.ie, #apolyton)

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

RANDOM EVENTS?
(May 25, 1999) Sould Civ3 have random events? Vote! Other poll ideas are
welcome.

BRIAN ON BORDERS
(May 25, 1999) The topic of borders came up on the civ3 forum and Brian
Reynolds posted
"My guess is Civ3 will have borders, but their extent and effect will vary
with your government type and technological progress. Clearly a Bronze
Age city state would resolve borders in a different way from a modern
nation state, and you'll see an evolution from one to the other in the
game.

In SMAC we found that borders not only made the game more fun, they made
the AI smarter.

As with Alpha Centauri, you'll probably be able to reduce the effect of
borders by editing the rules file, if for some reason (?!?!) you don't
like them."


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

(ALMOST)NEW MGE PATCH
(May 25, 1999) Developing a strange habit, Microprose released an updated
version of the v1.3 mge patch. The 1.3 patch was first released on April
12, and re-released on April 22nd. The changes are unknown as the readme
has stayed the same. Anyway, get the patch for the MGE/UCC version(2.8MB)
or the one for non-english MP versions(1.9MB). Our thanks to Patrice
LaFlamme for the note.

NEW FILES
(May 25, 1999) Sven Muencheberg, our civ2 database manager for those who
dont know, added 35 more files in the database. Among them, after a bit
long time, there are 12 new files: Colonize, EnhancedMod, GSB, The Fall of
Rome, Surefire, WW2 in China, AGM 3, Oldworld, Omatic, Real Europe, Vikes
and World I. More new files are coming really soon.

*Site Updates
26.May 9 Existing files in DB. New Viking Scribes, new Strategy in
"Hints&Tips".
25.May 35 Existing and new files in DB.Updated MGE page.
22.May Column #42; By GP


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

CALLING MODS
(May 26) A special news item for two parts of our CTP section. First, the
"Callings" section waits for your CTP stories. Two stories were added
today, by Merlin and Atahualpa. If you had a... "calling" send it to
markg@apolyton.net or danq@apolyton.net. In the Modification section we
have two pages on modifing the "empty queue dialog box, and overriding
game files in scenario creating. We're also waiting for your
well-documented modification discoveries.

HOLDING ON
(May 25) CTP is holding onto a good showing on Top Ten Ranking in PC
Data's Hits Lists for the week of May 9-15. In the Games Category it is
sitting comfortably at #4, on the position as the week before. When taking
into account All Categories, CTP replaces a respectable 9th, just below
SC3000.

MAPS!
(May 25) One of the things CTP lacked when it came out was a world map.
Activision released one later but it didn't satisfy many people. Fans have
made some new ones though: a World Map for 24 civs and 8 or less civs by
Zaz, and a Europe one by Domk. By the way, two popular files were updated
today, the Civ2 Diplomatic Photo Modpack and the Real Leader Picture Mod

CIV IS GETING SMARTER...
(May 25) According to the results of our 8th poll, CTP's AI is an
improvement over the ones in previous civ games. The improvement isn't a
very big one though. The exact results(on a total of 809 votes) were:
"Perfect" 3%, "Very Good" 18%, "Not great, but better than Civ2" 34%,
"Same as Civ2" 14%, "Worse than Civ2" 23%, "The worst I've ever seen" 4%
and "I don't care, I play multiplayer only" 1%. We now have a new poll on
your opinion of the first patch...


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

Hall of Fame
--(25 May 1999) It is time to show to the world who's the best! We will be
soon opening our SMAC Hall of Fame. Send your best saved games to
Pythagoras at pythagoras@apolyton.net!

Despicable Believers/Will you buy SMACX?
--(25 May 1999) The 4th smac poll ended. The result was obvious from the
start, but we let it roll to make it sure. After 857 votes, the Believers
"won" the award for the most hated smac faction. The result was quit
impressing as the Believers got 54% of the votes! The second position went
to the Hive(18%) and the third to the Peacekeepers(9%)...
On our new poll, we ask for your intentions on buying SMACX with the
current (quite limited) information we have.

GamePrix, What Say You?
--(24 May 1999) There are still some SMAC reviews out there that have
fallen through the cracks! Like many before them, GamePrix has given SMAC
two thumbs-up for its inherent qualities. Perfect scores, 10/10's, were
awarded in the Gameplay, Replay Value and AI categories. Their RPM
(Recommend Purchase Meter) averaged out to a decent (understatement?)
9.2/10. The review is predominately postive, and in the same areas as
we've heard before. So were do they feel SMAC is lacking?
"Though an exemplary product by all means, there's a few minor negative
points worth mentioning. One thing that disappointed us a bit is the unit
rendering within the game.

Though units are rendered n a faux 3-D style that works well, the
rendering fails to establish distinction between units within the same
class. Secondly, Civ II players may find a lack of flavor elsewhere in the
game due to the science fiction setting. Perhaps this isn't a con, but the
sci-fi setting just doesn't inspire players like the empire-building of
Civ and Civ II had. Perhaps it's because players can more easily identify
with real world history than with sci-fi conventions. Don't get us wrong,
this game is incredibly rich, but may lack that some of the inspiration
that Civ vets may miss".

Besides that, all is smooth sailing! "As always, a product from Sid Meier
one cut from the cloth of quality. In Alpha Centauri, you'll find an
enriching game built upon the foundations of Civilization and Civ II. A
game is magical when it compresses time; those hours feel like minutes,
and before you know it, the sun is rising. Alpha Centauri is imbued with
this quality, giving you a mighty bang for your gaming buck. Featuring an
unsurpassed diplomacy model, AC serves up the classic Civ gameplay we've
been in love with for years".

Son & Daughter Rankings
--(24 May 1999) The question: "Rank Alpha Centauri from 1 to 10: Graphics,
gameplay, sound, overall". The answer: "How can I not be biased? It's like
trying to rate your son or daughter... they would get a 10 in every
category"! That is from Tim Train, in his interview on the ADDICTED TO AC
website. Be sure to read up on how satisifed Train is with SMAC, what is
was like to develop and his thoughts on fan-sites devoted to the the game
-- and more!

*Site Updates

25 May 1999: Links updated, new poll
23 May 1999: Jedi Knights faction, the "Brave New World" faction

----------------------------
**Alternative Civilizations Section

AN OPEN SOURCE CIV!
(May. 25) We received a mail from Steffen Gerlach. He is working on open
source civ game. Read on his description for more details.

"I initiated an open source Civilization game project, called the "Civ II
Evolution".
In contrast to all the commercial Civ sequels I don't just want to blow
the game up with new stuff of all kind. My focus is to improve the
long-time playability of the game. Bad rules will be modified, good rules
remain, new rules are welcome. The current development version will always
be available from the project homepage, so every rules modification can be
tested by the Civ community BEFORE the final version is released.

To make the game independend from a built-in Artifical Intelligence, I
implemented the AI module to be exchangeable. So - for the first time in
game history, I think - different intelligence algorithms can compete
against each other, and the AI can still be improved long after the game
itself is complete. Maybe this will lead to a REALLY GOOD game AI (would
be the first in the field of complex strategy games).

The current version 0.0 is still very limited, e.g. there's no diplomacy.
I need some assistance and a lot of good ideas to complete this project in
the way it should be. Since it's very young, nobody knows about it until
now."

Well, it's time everyone learns about it! :) Check out the wonderfull
looking site for even more info...


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

--23.May.99 Dan/UCIVII History Page


----------------------------
**AlphaLeague(hosted site)

Report Win Up
--(May 26) I'm going on vacation to California today and I got online to
do some last minute AlphaLeague chores, when Blue Waldo asks me if I can
get Report Win finished before I leave. At that time I had about an hour
before I left, so we quickly started working. And after less than 30
minutes of debugging and testing, we are proud to present: Report Win!
Report Win let's you (as the name suggests) report wins. But first, you
need to find an opponent. The forums are just the place, or you can
privately send notes to fellow members via our Send Note system. To use
Report Win, login, and click Rankings. You'll find it there. Enjoy!

Tournament Ready
--(May 22) The tournament page has been updated to include the log in to
the chat which will be used for this one day tournament, the latest
version of the bracket, updated rules, and the report win system that will
be used for this tourney. We are hoping to see a lot of you Saturday, May
22 at 10:00a.m. CDT.


----------------------------
**Allard's&Andrew's Site(hosted site)

(5/24/99) Except for having added some civ3 suggestions, I posted some
words of Andrew "Hoek" Hoekzema who asked me to publicize these words on
the page, announcing his retirement from the civ2 community:

To all of those people who I have known in the civ 2 community, and to
those who I have not known but who have known the site or my scenarios-I
apologize that I have given myself too many responsibilities. I will no
longer be able to be part of the civ 2 community any longer due to my many
other time consuming responsibilities. You can still write to me at my e
mail address if you would just like to talk, but I must let my school work
and social obligations in my local community take priority in my life. I
would like to thank all of my friends who I have made through civilization
2 over the past year and a half-it was a very fun and good experience for
me. I hope everyone continues to enjoy this site for a long time to come
and I hope that civilization enjoys as much enthusiasm from everyone else
as it has from me. So long.
Andrew Hoekzema

(5/23/99) Two new monumental and longly-anticipated ww2 scenarios. "Der
Anstieg und der Fall des dritten Reich" by John Petroski, and "2194 days
of war" by Captain Nemo and Alex the Magnificent


----------------------------
**Scenario League(hosted site)

Where to send reviews?
--(May 24, 1999) For anything concerning the SLeague, including scenario
reviews and review requests, send them to sleague@apolyton.net. This is
because there are now 2 Web Editors.

New SLeague Reviewing Policy
--(May 24, 1999) In an attempt to reach higher level of fairness in our
scenario reviews, a new policy will be set into effect.

SLeague Web Editor Change
--(May 23, 1999) Unfortunately, Blackclove can no longer attend to the
updating of SLeague. Replacements have been found, Mark Laanen and Michael
Jeszenka. All submissions should be directed to either or both.


================================
Here are the updates of small Civ sites this week
(collected by Dustin Dunn)

A note to civ2 webmasters from Dustin:
As my main address has a bit of a problem with sometimes "losing"
mail(it's happened several times, maybe even more than I know- very
annoying), I recommend sending me the update information through my backup
address, dustin_dunn@hotmail.com. It should be more reliable, hopefully.
If you've sent me update info and haven't had it appear in the section,
odds are I didn't get your mail.

--------------------------
Dan 717's Civ2 Page

- Updated page format so it is more accessible.
- Rearranged the news to make it more readable and understandable.
- I put on some new links!


--------------------------
Mike's Civ2 Scenarios

5/24/99
- Darius the Great has been completed by Stefan Hartel and can now be
downloaded.

5/23/99
- Two great scenarios added, Ansteig by John Petroski, and 2194 Days of
War by Captain Nemo and Alex the Magnificent.


--------------------------
MJ's Civilization Empire

5/24/99
Alpha Centauri Section
- Jedi Knights Faction available in the Star Trek and Star Wars faction
section.
- Star Trek modpack available in Trek and Wars faction section.
- New Federation faction available in Trek and Wars section.

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

5/24/99
- Enemy of God beta test page has been removed because I had to make many
changes, if you have downloaded it you might as well scrap it until I
release the final version. A scenario that I think deserves recognition,
Absolute Space has been given shelter with the Homeless
scenarios. The next Call to Power map, Earth maps by Zaz, have been added
to the CTP Maps page. Survey updated.

5/23/99
- Three homeless scenarios are now being given shelter, Ansteig, by John
Petroski, Clouds by Giant Squid and Rise of a Goddess by Silverwind.
Soldier fighting animation removed by request.

5/20/99
- Added a link to the First Civilization III Homepage. There is a new
section for Homeless Scenarios, so if you have any please send them to
mrtemba@yahoo.com Also there is a new section for Civ Junk also a new CTP
Map section with Domks Europe map. Added Eastern European civs to the ctp
mods section.

================================

That was all for this week ladies and gentlemen,

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