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Date: Oct 01 1999 20:59:57 EDT
From: "Apolyton Announcements (Apolyton Civilization Site)"
Subject: Apolyton&Friends News 24-30/September/99


Greetings everyone,
these are the news of the week(24-30/September)

On Apolyton, the big news is that SMACX is going to be released on October
19th. Also, SMAC will be the first civ game to inspire a comic book
(). In the Civ2 section, we now have 300 files in
our database, which have a total of over 50,000 downloads
(). Finally, in the CTP section, the Italian patch
is here, as well as PowerSlics 2.00 ()
As for our hosted sites: CivLeague and AlphaLeague are now GameLeague
(), a complete interface and engine rework!
Scenario League is celebrating one year of existanse, reaching the nubmer
of 75 reviews and 25 design guides ().
Meanwhile HAC has a new POTW (), and CSC continues
to post civ2 scenarios like hell ()

In the "Friends" part of the newsletter, news only from Oliver The
Amazings Civilisation II Site and Fantastic Worlds: Jorrit's Civilization
II Page, despite the fact that it's the news of the last two weeks instead
of one


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

300 FILES, 50000 DOWNLOADS
(September 29, 1999) Today is a glorious day for our Civ2 file database.
Sven added the 300th file, and some unkwown civer did the 50,000th
download! Today's 12 new files are: Modpacks: AGM 3 Gold, Blob Wars,
Spanish Civil War, The Martian Scenario, Panzerblitz - White Russia, The
Second World War, Patches: TOT Extended-Game-Fine-Tune, Star Trek, TOT
Improved Backgrounds, Maps: Maztica, Lil Isles, and the West US War
scenario. As always, more files are coming. By the way, please use the
submition page to send us a file.

KICKING THE TIRES
(September 24, 1999) More gaming sites on the Web are starting to come out
of the woodwork with their official stances on Civilization II: Test of
Time, now nearing its two month birthday of being available within the
public domain.
Here is another review that has recently come to light (excerpts only):
From GamePlayer (Overall Score: 7.5/10): "Well, what's new?
Essentially, you have "microscoped time periods" for CivII. Everything
looks really frickin' weird. On the plus side, some of the new tech is
fairly cool...like Applied Hedonics. (Look up hedonism, and you figure out
why it leads to the Holographic Arcade.)
I had hoped that there would be a now city overview, like they had in
the original CivII, some sort of 3D rendering of what the city and all
it's advancements looked like. No dice. Maybe some new Wonder movies?
Wrong. Just new tiles, and new piece art. All in all I wasn't very
impressed with the new piece art either.
One of the biggest disappointments for me was the fact that I can't
tell what all the new Wonders do. You figure it'll pop up after the Wonder
movie begins, except for the fact that there aren't any. At the very least
there should be a pop up box that tells you what it does.
On the plus side, combat isn't weighed down by the clunky Acitivision
[the C:CTP] interface. It takes place swiftly, either in just "simplified'
combat, or with nifty dying animations with the health bar and firepower
statistics. The units are also bigger and easier to see in CivII: ToT.
You still get that invigorating feeeling that every Civ game prior
has given you, but yet, you don't really get anything more, and it's
missing a few things. If there was some more time
spent on the glitz and glamour parts of the game, then ToT might
actually be cooler than it's ancestor. But it isn't. You're constantly
reminded that it's sort of a knock off. It's like giving a Pepsi drinker
RC Cola...he's going to know the difference, but it'll get the job done".
--
Thanks to SidGames for the news.


THE COLUMN: TEST OF TIME: CAN IT STAND AGAINST CTP AND SMAC?
Dracon says yes without a doubt

THE COLUMN: I WANT IT ALL
"The better the games are, the more disappointed the gamers become" says
CyberShy


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

ITALIAN PATCH, DEMO, DVD
(September 29) All sorts of news today from Activision. The "circle of the
1.2 patches" :) is closing today with the Italian Patch v1.2(3.6MB). The
demo of CTP has appeared on some magazines(at least on Novemeber's issue
of PC Gaming World as JimMac has posted on the forums), and according to
John Heineicke it will be available online next week. Watch out though, as
it is 75MB!! Finally, the DVD version of CTP, about which we had talked a
couple of weeks ago, is out. It will be a bit difficult to find though, as
Activision hasn't distributed many copies.

POWERSLICS V2.00
(September 25) Another beautifull piece of CTP modification is complete.
PowerSLICs v2.00 is the final version(for the time being at least) of TP's
work with the SLIC language. Here is a short feature list:
1. Public Work reminder
2. Warning on bombarding
3. Ranking messages
4. A lot of Great Library buttons and Eyeicons added to various messages
5. Synchronising of important war messages work now
7. New messageicons for new messages
8. Disappearing Unit syndrome fixed
9. Attack Replay fixed
10. Activision's patch 1.2 building messages used in principal (however
updated)
11. Unit building inconsistency fixed
12. Menu when clicking on enemy units
13. Auto-close of specific messages on your decision
14. Implemented Civ2-Feature: Add Settler to City
15. PowerSLICs 2.00 is available in German, French and English language
And...... a much better installation procedure for this final version.

IN-HOUSE REVIEW
(September 24) You can add one more review of CTP to your list, and a
comprehensive one at that! GameStats' very own Hemlock has completed his
review of the game, and has given it a positive spin on Activision's
addition to the long-running Civilization series. Hemlock gave the game a
8/10 overall rating
which, given some of the bad press CTP has received by some sectors of the
gaming community, is a welcome change. It is one of the more well-rounded
reviews that has surfaced in that in making any kind of statement, good or
bad, Hemlock provides and details facts and/or examples to back it up.
Here are just a few excerpts from the 8-page(!) review:
"... most of the advancements in CTP over previous Civilization games is a
quantity issue. There are more unit types. There are more buildings and
city improvements. There are more technologies to discover... And there
are more problems and bugs. One improvement that has worked well, and been
well-received by the gaming community, is the visual and aural arena of
CTP. Graphics are now fully animated, 16-bit, high-resolution images,
including the units, terrain, interface screens, wonders and just about
anything else you get to see.
CTP takes modularity to new heights, with virtually all factors of the
game easily controlled through simple text files, allowing for complete
customization and making the CTP game engine a tinkerer's dream. It can
also be a nightmare. Largely undocumented, the text files and several
add-on utilities can be confusing until you've worked with them a while.
Except for a few bugs, some still evident after the patch, all of the
units in the game can be useful, which is saying a lot when there are 65
different units with vastly different characteristics... Many of the
special units fall into categories that are similarly poorly implemented
by the AI. At higher levels these drawbacks were less of a problem since
the AI coordinates its attacks and defends itself far better than at the
easy levels.
CTP has one of the most extensible AI systems in use in any computer game.
Through simple text files, players can modify the strategic decisions of
the various civilizations, making a particular race pacifistic for
example, or xenophobic.
A more abstract system, CTP's trade is accomplished through simple dialog
boxes and can be altered at any time throughout the game. The interface in
CTP on the other hand fails miserably. While it's obvious that
considerable time and effort on the part of the designers went into the
interface, and while it is very pretty to look at, it simply takes too
many mouse clicks to do anything.
In spite of [all the problems] with CTP, it's still a fun and addicting
game. [It] probably won't make it to that superstar status, but I'll be
playing it for some time and I won't be removing it until I at least run
out of hard drive space. And I seem to keep adding hard drive space these
days.".
To read all of it, and to browse through some nifty screenshots, follow
this link.


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

SMAC On Comic!!!
--(September 30 1999) A big surprise was waiting in my mailbox today.
"Graphic novel publisher NBM has announced the release in November of the
first of a series of adaptations to comics of the highly acclaimed newest
best selling game designed by Sid Meier's studio, 'Sid Meier's Alpha
Centauri'."
as the press release was saying. More info from it
"The first book, entitled Power of the Mindworms, is developed on a an
outline written by Michael Ely, the Firaxis staff writer responsible for
all the different chapters of fiction seen on the game's site. It spins
its story around two rival factions. The Gaian faction, headed by the
dreamily beautiful Deirdre Skye, takes an ecological point of view that
embraces closeness and respect for the new planet. In this they are at
odds with the Morgans who aggressively seek enrichment at any cost.
Outgunned by the technologically superior Morgans, Skye is desperate for a
solution that won't have 'Planet' end up like Earth. Lindley, a beautiful
young Gaian, discovers she has an innate power to control the planet's
mindworms which have been attacking the colonists, paralyzing their minds.
Skye is triumphant. Here is a way to overcome provided by Planet itself!
But is this not using Planet just like the Morgans? And as Lindley gets in
deeper with them, she feels her own grip on her world slip away... A
preview of the first few pages are presently available on NBM's site and
will be on the Alpha Centauri site as well very soon with some Flash
animation and sound added.
I dont know about you, but I'm excited :)

SMACX: Episode 6, Data Angels Faction
--(September 29 1999) Update day for the official smac site. Episode 6 of
the SMACX story is posted: "Prokhor Zakharov felt the blood leave his
face". I didn't catch any familiar names(of a smacer) this time... Also, a
new faction is revealed(the fourth one, three more to go), the "Data
Angels". The Data Angels(or "Probe Faction") are a "splinter group of the
Morgan faction" and have a +2 Probe rating, as well as a +2 Morale rating.

SMACX Goes Gold, Coming On October 19th!
--(September 28 1999) Well, I basically said everything with the title.
Firaxis announced today that Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire(or SMACX for
short) has gone gold and will be shipped on October 19th. Firaxis also
announced that they will release a demo of SMACX before the shipping date.
Three weeks to go then! Thanks to Simon de Vet for sending us the news.

AlterWars: Buccaneers!
--(September 25 1999) New and... "fast" scenario from Tres, called
"AlterWars: Buccaneers!". As Tres describes:
"This scenario is designed for a fast wargame while lunch-hour ;-) ,
multiplayer option supported" Hmmm... and what about the story? In the
year 2098 Morgan Industries established a mining colony on the second
moon, third planet, planetary system 23. Nwabudike Morgan, the youngest
son of general director Massabe Morgan, leads this colony to learn the
rules of business from scratch. Due to the barren lands of Ore Well food
is very rare. But Nwabudike managed it to make a contract with Zion
Hydroponics Inc. The ZH Agrar Conglomerates are specialized in Low Gravity
Farming in hostile areas. Agricultural Specialist Miriam Godwinson
provides the mining facilities with fresh nutrients from her hothouses.
Meanwhile the two are running a profitable business.
But profit attracts others also.
The Spartan Liberation Army, as always low on resources and money, spotted
this valuable target. Short time after, they land a small pirate vessel
somewhere in the wastelands of the Ore Well moon. Needless to say what
their greedy hands want to grab...
Check it out!


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

Grand Opening
--(09.26 23:33) I'm sure all of you are a little bit peeved about the
neglect CivLeague and AlphaLeague has suffered for the past month or more.
There was a good reason for that. We weren't exactly taking vacations in
the Bahamas (though I wish we were :).
No, we spent the entire time working on this site. Some of you might have
heard rumors about "The Project". Well, this is it!
We felt that both leagues suffered from many shortcomings. Many of the
problems weren't apparent to the user, but we felt that the problems would
begin to manifest themselves and mushroom as we expanded and created more
leagues for more games. So we decided to solve those issues by merging
both leagues (and any future leagues) into one big umbrella site that
would encompass all the games.
That way, if you wished to participate in both the Civ2 and SMAC leagues,
you would not have to check two accounts at two websites.
If I may quote James Hetfield of Metallica: "What we've done is took all
of our favorite parts, put it into one big pile of **** here. You guys
know this ****. Show us one way or another; dancing along, singing along
... Here we go!"
Yes, GameLeague will be a vast improvement over CivLeague/AlphaLeague. We
will have regular tournaments and we pledge to play a greater part in the
community than ever before.
We've also reworked all of the programming to use the more flexible and
faster PHP3/MySQL system. A big thanks goes out to Ryan of the Close
Combat 3 Center for introducing me to it.
But for those of you that appreciate the more tangible things in life,
let's skip over the changes real quick.
* no more IDs or aliases. All users are identified solely by their
usernames
* you're always logged in! No more logging in just to check your inbox. If
you ever do need to log out you can do so from the main page(right-hand
side)
* IRC channel. We have our very first IRC channel. Check the chat page for
more info
As always, we're open for suggestions and comments. Just send us a note
through our GameLeague messaging system.

It'll be a blast. Have fun!


----------------------------
**Hodadian Award Central(hosted site)
FANTASTIC PRIDE SEP.27
We are pleased to announce that Fantastic Worlds, Jorrit Vermeiren's site,
has been named the winner of the Pride of the World award for September.
If you would like to see Jorrit's site and the sites of other past
winners, or want more info on how to make your site the POTW, visit the
POTW section on our site.


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

--(Oct 1) New scenario in Fictional: Enemy of God, by Mr. Temba (Scenario
#11 in this section, #103 in the site)

--(Sep 30) New scenario in Fantasy: Battletech, by Dirk Zelwis (Scenario
#10 in this section, #102 in the site)

--(Sep 28) New scenario in Fictional: The High King of Britain, by Brian
Gottesman (Scenario #10 in this section, #101 in the site)

--(Sep 25) Scenario Update: The Great Game, by Michael Daumen (version 2.0)


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

Happy Birthday SLeague!
[September 30, 1999] The Scenario League now has about 75 reviews
available, and over 25 design tips, in addition to two completed scenario
design competitions. Who would have thought that a simple discussion on
the Apolyton forums would have led to such a massive collection of work?

New reviews:
Russian Revolution [Historical, 24/30]
SDC Entry: Moore [Sci-Fi, ??/30]

New design tip:
Using Improvements


=========Apolyton's Friends News=========
--------------------------
Oliver The Amazings Civilisation II Site

- Now you can get FREE! email accounts on our site, go to

- A new scenario (starwars) is now on the site @

- Our new webring (the most amazing civilisation webring) is now open to
anyone with a civilisation site (civilisation, civilisation II, alpha
centuri, civilisation a call to power, civilisation 2 TOT, civilisation
II MGE, ETC) Find it @

- Questions or comments email me @ mailto:oliver.allen@breathemail.net
- Please report all broken links to me aswell.


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

09/29/99
- I added three more Microprose updates.
- One more thing: you can vote here for (or against) a different layout of
this page. I only have 2 votes in, so I can use some more. I also
received this months Pride of the World award from the Hodadian Awards
Central!

09/28/99
- I added a new map of Egypt, three new links and another modpack. Apart
from those I also uploaded one more official (multiplayer) update.

09/21/99
- I posted a new map of Russia in my favourite maps list.

09/19/99
- More new downloads... There are 7 new modpacks (unit collections), 7
real-world maps in the map database, 1 new scenario and a new link.



That was all for this week ladies and gentlemen,

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