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Date: Oct 22 1999 21:49:48 EDT
From: "Apolyton Announcements (Apolyton Civilization Site)"
Subject: Apolyton&Friends News 14-21/October/99


Greetings everyone,
these are the news of the week(14-21/October)

The big news of course is the release of Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire(or
smacx for short), and our chat on Sunday with Tim Train and Greg Foertsch.
Nothing else should be mentioned :)

In the "Friends" part of the newsletter, news from Dan 717's Civilization
II Page and Fantastic Worlds: Jorrit's Civilization II Page. If you have a
civ2, ctp or smac site and want your news included here, mail Dustin Dunn
at dustind@home.com


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

Alien Crossfire Chat!!
--October 20 1999-- We're glad to announce that we have arranged a public
chat with Tim Train and Greg Foertsch of the SMACX team(Producer and
Artist respectively). That chat will take place on out irc channel on
irc.dreamnet.org, which is also accessible via our Chat page. The date and
time is Sunday, October 24, 5pm EST. We expect every smacer to be there!
Until then, you can send us your questions from the same page.

SMAC-X In Stores Now
--October 20 1999-- Below is the official press release from Firaxis
regarding Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire, a.k.a. SMAC-X, now being
commercially available in North America -- the long, sleepless nights
begin anew.
The original inhabitants of Alpha Centauri have come back to reclaim
their world. Split in a brutal struggle, the aliens engage in battle over
Alpha Centauri's surface, nearly destroying each other. The survivors
jettison to Planet's surface where mankind has set up a new home. Now the
Earth humans are caught in the Alien Crossfire. Will mankind band together
to defeat the offworlders or will they form separate alien alliances to
ensure the survival of their faction? The future of mankind is once again
in your hands.
Seven new factions offer entirely new strategies for exploration,
discovery, empire-building and conquest. A new sea-faring Pirate faction
provides new naval advantages. The Probe Team faction specializes in
espionage and spying. A Cybernetic faction provides radical scientific
advantages and the working-class Drones have now formed their own powerful
faction as well. Native life-forms and the powers of nature form the
backbone of the extreme Ecological faction while the two Alien factions
add mystery, wonder and surprise to the human struggle.
With seven new factions, Alien Crossfire essentially doubles the scope
of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, providing an entirely new game experience
in the proven tradition of the best strategy game ever made. Sid Meier's
Alpha Centauri fans can chose to play classic Alpha Centauri (with the
original seven human factions), the new Alien Crossfire story (with seven
all-new factions), or customize the game by combining their favorite
factions from the entire suite of fourteen! A host of gameplay
enhancements and new features, along with the new factions and story line
makes Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire the most exciting expansion pack of the
year!
Seven new playable factions (5 human, 2 alien)
Expanded backstory: discover more about the world of Alpha
Centauri
New custom faction editor
Seven new technologies
Four new Secret Projects
Five new weapons
Four new armor types
Five new special abilities
Seven new base facilities
Four new landmarks
Two new native lifeforms
A new victory pathway (aliens must build an interstellar beacon to
call for
reinforcements)

GameCenter Interview
--October 20 1999-- Yesterday C|Net's GameCenter posted their interview
with Tim Train on Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire.
Questions range in topic from how the new factions come factor into
gameplay, the new technologies available, the AC graphic novel and -- of
course -- the possibility of an Alpha Centauri sequel. Check it out!

Availability and Price
--October 20 1999-- Randomturn had a great idea and started a thread on
the forums where everyone can post about the availability and price of
Alien Crossfire. So, if you found and bought SMAC-X, post about it and
help your fellow SMACers!

Demo Rating: 3,824468085
--October 20 1999-- Yeap, exactly that's the rating you gave to the Alien
Crosffire demo: 3,824468085(5 was best). Hmmm... could it better.
Now, we ask you to rate Alien Crossfire itself. Vote, but of course olny
if you have got it, ok? :)

Episode 7
--October 20 1999-- EA finally posted Episode 7 of the SMACX story: Reanna
remembered. A bit late, but worth it. Also, More info on the Cult of
Planet faction was revealed. With SMACX reaching the hands of those who
pre-ordered, but also arriving on some stores, we shouldn't wait a lot to
see the rest of the episodes, as well as the flash profiles for the two
remaining factions(Caretakers and Drones)

I have SMAX!
--October 19 1999-- " I have SMAX!", Imran shouted on ICQ :) He was one of
the wise to pre-order it, and recieved it today. Just before actually
playing it, he posted some info for the factions on the forums, as well as
the Read Me, and even better, he wrote a column for us, titled First Day
Pre-Playing Report. A definite read!

Info for all Factions
--October 19 1999-- We now have info pages for all seven factions, the
Cult of Planet(we called them Enviromentalists cause they were mentioned
that way in the final screen of the demo), the Manifold Usurpers, and the
Drones. Our thanks to Imran Siddiqui for the info.

SMACX Backgrounds
--October 19 1999-- You saw the base art we posted yesterday, didn't you?
Well, Firaxis has come up with backgrounds for all seven SMACX factions,
just like with the original seven ones. Some really cool art for your
background(and in all sizes) :)

Tons of SMACX Info!
--October 18 1999-- Thanks to the great guys at Firaxis, we are able to
present lots of exclusive information and art from Alien Crossfire. More
specifically, faction logos and leader pictures for the Cyborgs, the Data
Angels, the Manifold Caretakers and the Environmentalists. Also, artist's
renditions of the bases of these four factions. Finally, descriptions and
logo's for 5 of the new technologies in SMACX. Our SMACX coverage doesn't
end here, it will be enhanced as days go by...

IDG's Strategy Guide
--October 18 1999-- Can't get enough SMAC? But then again, who can? If you
fit this profile, you'll want to look into IDG's impressive 14-page
Srategy Guide on the subject.
When taking into account the scope of material it already covers,
hopefully it will be expanded in the weeks ahead to include tips and hints
for Alien Crossfire.
Happy SMACking!

Zero Facilities Challenge
--October 17 1999-- A new challenge was added in our Hall of Fame today,
along with 6 other saved games in the others HoF's. The Zero Facility
Challenge is basically a challenge to build no facilities in our cities.
Korn proved that it's possible, how about you? More saved games are on our
list to add, one more update is coming next week.

Six Ain't Bad
--October 17 1999-- You wouldn't know by looking at the continued
popularity of SMAC that is has aged almost an entire year. A testament to
its prolonged youthfulness, PCGamer placed SMAC sixth in their "50 Best
Games Ever" feature. Here's an excerpt on what the PCG staff had to say
about it:
"... The result is a space-age continuation of the Civilization legacy but
without the name. The depth of strategy so beloved by Civ fans is
recaptured here and given some exciting sci-fi wrinkles... If ever there
was a convincing example of the intelligence and maturity possible in the
art form that is computer game design, Alpha Centauri is it".
At the end of the feature, PCG attempted to answer the inevitable question
"so what does it all mean?" Colourfully illustrated pie charts indicate
that 90% of the best games come from the US, Electronic Arts publishes 14%
of the best games -- Firaxis Games is one of their many labels -- and
Strategy is the best genre of computer gaming, beating out second-place
Action by an impressive 10%!
For the entire writeup on CivII, the rest of the charts and the other 49
placeholders, buy a copy of
PCGamer from your local newsstand today.

Cool Under Fire
--October 15 1999-- It started a week ago, shortly following the release
of Alien Crossfire. Sharp criticism over the SMAC-X demo from some irate
fans caused Firaxis Games to go on the defensive. "That's the WORST add-on
I've ever seen", a thread in the official Alien Crossfire forums, started
by a user known only as "Caesar", brought some harsh accusations to light.
For example, one of the most scathing from him was "my first thought was
actually damn, these people are greedy!". And that generally reflects how
I feel about Firaxis; they couldn't care less about their customers!".
Dan Magaha, Webmaster for Firaxis, was quick to respond to the negative
tone set by the post. "Anyway, I think it's an unwritten rule of
nettiquette that the more superlatives ("the best...", "the worst...") you
use in a post, the less likely anyone is to take you seriously.."
Click on the thread title above to read up on all that's being said.

BR On Alien Crossfire
--October 14 1999-- SMAC fans from across the globe are holding their
breath, anxiously awaiting the release of SMAC-X. GameSpot recently had
the pleasure of talking to one of the men in the forefront of its
development: Mr. Brian Reynolds.
In the interview, GameSpot asks and gets the answers to some of the most
pressing questions that have been on fan and critics' minds alike in
recent weeks, including:
GameSpot News: "What kind of challenge was it to come up with seven new
factions? Any hints on the other factions you haven't talked about yet? We
already know a little about the first four but are dying to hear about the
others".
Brian Reynolds: "It wasn't too hard to come up with seven new ones, as
so many just made perfect sense in the world of the game..."
GSN: "Now that Alien Crossfire comes with a faction editor, what kind
of factions do you think gamers will come up with? Will your team evaluate
and rate the new custom factions for your online audience, or will you let
gamers do this?"
BR: "I'm always pretty impressed with the creativity of our fans, and I
think they'll come up with some great stuff. I know that Tim pokes around
in the fan archives on Apolyton" [] "and Sidgames from time to time, just
to see what kinds of stuff people are coming up with..."
And...
GSN: "What do you think is the biggest enticement in Alien Crossfire
for Alpha Centauri fans?"
BR: "There's so much in there that it's hard to pick one thing, but one
of the most exciting parts of the game is battle between the two alien
factions. The aliens are slightly more powerful than the human factions
but are balanced by the fact that all the other factions tend to gang up
on them..."
It's interesting reading folks, so if you can't read it all at once, be
sure to bookmark it!

Droves For The Demo
--October 14 1999-- Can you believe it's been a week since the Alien
Crossfire demo "hit the Net"? There have been some very busy servers
during this time, and no doubt that those still looking to grab a copy
will experiencing slow transfer rates, timeouts and busy signals in trying
to download it. Again, we recommend first getting ahold of either Go!Zilla
or GetRight first to save the anxiety of having have to start the 23MB
download again after having the previous one broken. GameCenter is keeping
a 'live' tally of requests for SMAC-X on their website, and already it is
quite impressive -- 5,200+ of them! That averages out to about 743 a day.
Speaking of which, we at Apolyton were only able to offer the download for
roughly 36hrs. until we were forced to remove it after the stress on the
server to accomodate the traffic volume it generated became too great. ?st.gc.fd.t5.td

Cream Of The Crop
--October 14 1999-- In their "Fall Harvest '99" feature, GameCenter named
Alien Crossfire's one of the most anticipated games of this year's fourth
quarter; however, they did not go as far as naming it a "Hot One" -- this
exclusive listing included the likes of Quake III: Arena and Age of
Empires II: The Age of Kings.
To end on a more positive note, the original SMAC is on a similar list for
the Mac gamer. Its anticipated release date is Winter 1999/2000.

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

ABOUT.COM REVIEW
(October 18, 1999) About.COM, formerly The Mining Co., a little over a
week ago published their review of Civilization II: Test of Time. Reviewer
Ned Jordan, About.COM's Computer Strategy Gaming Guide, touched on the
following topics and more:
Gameplay: "While combat often plays a large role in the game, sound city
and technology management will most often win the day"...
Graphics: "...the graphics do show their age and are several years behind
the cutting edge".
So what's his bottom line? "This game scores: 8 out of 10, if you don't
own Civilization II, 6 out of 10 if you do... give it a look when it
reaches the discount bin".

SIMPLY "BRILLIANT"
(October 17, 1999) In their November 1999 issue, PCGamer released their
picks for "The 50 Best Games Ever".
Civilization II not surprisingly graced itself near the top of the list --
#2 to be exact. So who beat it out for #1? A certain title called Half
Life. Here's an excerpt of what PCG had to say about CivII:
"It's difficult to overstate the impact of Civilization, as its brilliant
sequel -- both set standards for grand-scale turn-based strategy gaming
that no other game has ever come close to matching...
Civilization II remains simultaneously entertaining, education, and --
dare we say it -- profound, and is certain to be recorded as one of the
most important computer games of all time".
At the end of the feature, PCG attempted to answer the inevitable question
"so what does it all mean?" Colourfully illustrated pie charts indicate
that 90% of the best games come from the US, MicroProse publishes 10% of
the best games and Strategy is the best genre of computer gaming, beating
out second-place Action by an impressive 10%!
For the entire writeup on CivII, the rest of the charts and the other 49
placeholders, buy a copy of PCGamer from your local newsstand today.

THE COLUMN: FIRST DAY PRE-PLAYING REPORT
Imran reports his first impressions before playing SMACX

THE COLUMN: THE CIV3 DEMO: LOOKING AHEAD
Here's a certain someone who is unquestionably anti-demo.

SUBMIT AN ARTICLE


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

V2 DEADLINE: NEXT WEEK
(October 21th, 1999) A hopefully final deadline for version 2 of "The
List", has been set and it's next week. Yin reports that it's probably
going to be over 200 pages! Until then, read the summaries for Radical
Ideas, Cheats and Miscellaneous.

INTERFACE IDEAS NEEDED!
(October 17th, 1999) Yin smiled as he realized that it he had just got a
mail from a member of the civ3 development team... No it's not fiction,
it's reality. Blair Wolf, the Firaxian responsible for the interface
design of Civ3 is asking for civers ideas! What are you waiting for?

MORE THAN 32 CIVS!
(October 16th, 1999) Wow, you people are hungry for AI opponents! :) In
our Number of Civs in a game? poll the results were
More than 32 -- 385 / 43%
Up to 32 -- 237 / 26%
Up to 16 -- 183 / 20%
8 is enough... -- 70 / 7%
No opinion -- 12 / 1%
32 Civs in one game is something we see more propable for Civ3.... In our
new poll, we ask about religion in Civ3. Should each civ have a religion,
and how should it affect it SE(Social Engineering) attributes? Vote and
give your comments on the forum. Our thank to Theben for the idea


----------------------------
**Alternative Civilizations Section
CLASH OF CIVS DEMO!
(Oct. 16) It is an early demo of Some of our Game Concepts, Not the final
game..." says Mark Everson about the Demo v2 of Clash of Civilizations.
More precisely, "It has something like 5% of the required functionality in
it". So, if you want to take an early look and give your feedback(which
you can be quite sure that it will be appreciated by the development
team), check the related thread on the Clash of Civs forum.


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

LOKI HACK WINNERS ANNOUNCED
(October 15) Remember this? LokiSoft Entertainment, the company who ported
C:CTP to the Linux OS, in cooperation with Activision, Inc., the Atlanta
Linux Enthusiasts and VA LiNUX Systems, held Loki Hack 1999 this week. And
what a success it was.
Quoting from the press release made today:
"During the Hack, enthusiastic and talented hackers from across the
country and around the world had 48 hours in a secure setting to make
alterations to the Linux source code for Activision's popular strategy
game Civilization: Call to Power. The hackers had full rein to add
features, alter logic, and implement additional library support. Upon
conclusion of the contest on Wednesday, October 13, a panel of judges,
including Sam Lantinga of Loki Entertainment Software, Greg Hankins of the
Atlanta Linux Showcase, and Jeff "Hemos" Bates of Slashdot evaluated the
hacks.
"This is the closest we could get to Open Source with our commercial
products," said Scott Draeker, Loki president and founder. "The world
can't see the source, but the contestants did. And all the hacks, mods,
and changes will be posted in binary form for free download from our
website next week. This was our chance to show the gaming world what the
Open Source community can accomplish, and the results have been
incredible.""

LINUX DEMO FOR THE TAKING
(October 14) Are you a skeptical Linux gamer anxious to get your first
taste of CTP without having to first buy the product?
Well, set the table and pop the champagne.
LokiSoft has released the long-anticipated demo of their port of
Activision's CTP, the first commercial game to make the historic entrance
that opened Linux's gaming lineup potential.
Weighing in at almost 57MB, and not to mention the demand and the limited
availability of this item -- currently only four mirrors (3 FTP, 1 HTTP)
are in operation -- users will have to be patient in getting a hold of
their copy. Busy signals, time-outs and slow transfer rates are to be
expected until a combination of additional mirrors and reduced demand come
into play.
Before beginning your download, make sure you have the time and the
resources to warrant it. In consulting the documentation, you will note
that at least 32MB RAM and 400MB hard disk space is required to install
and run it.
CTP for Linux is anticipated to hit the shelves at participating retailers
sometime this month. And speaking of demos, the hefty 75MB CTP one for the
PC is currently only available on selected PC magazine CD's. No definite
word on if a timeline for the demo to be "online available" is in the
works.


----------------------------
**GameLeague(hosted site)

Newsletter 10.20 18:50 edt
GameLeague now has a newsletter. To subscribe to the email newsletter go
to edit account and subscribe to it today. You can unsubscribe any time
you want. The newsletter will keep you informed on the latest happenings
at GameLeague. Subscribe today!

Congrats to Keyrok 10.17 21:29 edt
Keyrok won our first Civ2 Tourney. To see the whole bracket visit the
tourneys page.

Kwang Returns 10.16 21:13 edt
The Prodigal Son returns after plunking down a cool $110 for a new
motherboard. He is now hell-bent on a crusade to cleanse GameLeague of all
bugs.

Thou Shalt Not Forget 10.14 19:59 edt
Don't forget loyal civ2 fans. GameLeague's first civ2 tourney will be this
Saturday at 10:00 GameLeague Time.


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

--Oct 20-- Sounds added for Underdark in Fantasy: Furthermore all files
over 1MB are now linked outside the CSC. If you have linked your downloads
to CSC (with permission) you should recheck the links to some scenarios.

--Oct 17-- New scenario in Ancient: Spartacus, by Alex "the Magnificent"
Mor (Scenario #14 in this section, #104 in the site)


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

Mark Laanen Departing
[October 20, 1999] For personal reasons, Mark Laanen will no longer be
serving as an associate editor here atSLeague. Mark served the site well
in his term as editor, supervising as new reviews were added. Lately he
has served as the editor for the downloads page, receiving scenarios and
selecting which will be reviewed. We're sorry to see Mark go. Wish him
well. Hate mail can be sent to /dev/null. (Nasty notes on the message
boards will be deleted - please be nice.)
The best tribute to Mark, of course, would be to review one of the
scenarios we added to our Downloads page today!

Reviews Editor Sought
[October 20, 1999] We are currently seeking a responsible, HTML saavy
individual for the position of reviews editor. You would be expected to
format incoming reviews in HTML format in a timely fashion (generally,
ASAP). Apply at sleague@apolyton.net.


=========Apolyton's Friends News=========
--------------------------
Dan 717's Civilization II Page

10/18/99
- Added new links, go check the sites out, they are nice pages.

--------------------------
Fantastic Worlds: Jorrit's Civilization II Page

10/20/99
- 6 new exceptional unit collections by Erwan were added. You might also
want to check out his website: Atlantide.
- Apart from this I added 1 new link, and I have 1 new 'city
style'-modpack, 1 new utility and 8 new scenarios (6 historical, 2
fictional)!
- Hurray! I am chosen as a 'cool site' at the Open Directory Listing
- I am currently working on the new design (similar to the one you could
vote for, only not brown but blue). This is going to be more than just a
new design. It will be a major update to this site, adding features such
as a files database and an upload area. It will take some time before
that's done, though. So I probably won't do any small updates until the
big one.



That was all for this week ladies and gentlemen,

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