Customer Reviews

Civilization: Call to Power

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

There's so much to love here, you almost fogive it. Almost.

This is the best-ever Civ game (assuming you prefer Earth history to space-future; if not, see Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri); it truly is. At least from the stand point of what it tries to do. If you have a G4 tower and abt 256MB of RAM, you'll just adore it. You won't be able to get enough.

Unfortunately, most of us don't. I tried to play this on a 233MHz iMac. Oh Gosh! 48MB of RAM "recommended"? Hello! It ran, all right -- with 150MB of virtual memory (and in case you've never tried it, the trade-off in processor speed for running all that VM just ain't worth it). You might as well try to run Windows 2000 on a 286, or Mac OS 9 on a Macintosh Plus (if that were possible).

Again, if you have the processor, go for it: this is truly wonderful. But if you don't, just forget about it. All you'll do is kick the box it came in.

As a HUGE fan of Civ II (I've spent more time with that game than I spent in High School), I was pretty excited when this came out. Sure, it looked different, but it had lots of really cool additions. Now, a week has passed, and I must say that this game kinda sucks. It lacks the primary component that Civ II has. PLAYABILITY. It's so freaking slow as far as game play goes, and the battle scences are simply horrid. Civ was like a nice little chess game on the nth scale. This is Might & Magic with four billion rules. There's a difference. Wait for Alpha Centauri. Sid Meyer actually had a part in that.

It's a great idea gone horribly wrong: up the complexity of Civilization and Civ II, put in more units, more types of government, and watch the Civ addicts go into paroxysms of ecstasy.

Hollow laugh. Instead, I got a game that took a full minute to one move just one piece, even with the 48M of RAM that the makers recommend. It would take me hours to finish one full turn in the later stages of the game, and I just don't have years to waste with this mess. With every agonizing minute, I was able to think about what I was missing away from the computer. Fresh air. Swimming. Human contact in coffee houses. Let's face it, when a computer game can't keep your interest sustained, when it actively drives you to shut the contraption off and get a life, it's just not a very good computer game. Stick with the livelier, faster Civ II.

I've read the customer reviews of this game, and maybe they have a point about needing a good processor, but with the computer we have, the game is absolutely awesome. It takes Civ games to a new level. This is an extremely time consuming game, so if you don't have a lot of extra time, don't play it. If you don't have a lot to do, though, the game is simply wonderful. It allows you to colonize space, create water cities, and create many new things previously unallowed by civ. games. Of the civ games I have so far, this is absolutely the best!!!!

Civilization Call to Power has some nice new features that add to the Civilization series. However the documentation is poor and it strays from the series typical pieces. Its interface is nice in regards to grouping but it is too easy to send pieces off in the wrong direction. It is also ackward to view the protecting pieces for a given city without activating them. Once activated it takes two turns to fortify them again. The civilization advances, playing pieces are completely different and do not seem to be well thought out for game play. I have not completely given up on this one, but I am close. One very frustrating thing is that you must have the CD mounted in the computer for play! Save your money and give this one a pass.

Sometimes a game is good and doesn't need major rehauls -- Civilization is one of these and its updates and upgrades play on the original strengths of the game. I find that Call to Power is unnecessarily complicated and I really dislike the graphics -- they seem slow and kind of weird. As much as I realize that lawyers can affect things I find have legal units silly. Just give me the upgraded original and I'll be thrilled.

This game on the scale of Civilization games is not a classic or a amazingly exciting plot, yet the ability to explore new realms of technology adds a lot to the game play. I levels out at about a 7.

This version of Civ is a poor attempt to update those great earlier games, Civ and Civ 2. While GT took a lot of thought about what might be neat to add to the game, they put little thought into how these additions would affect game play and balance. I found the game interface difficult, the new additions unbalancing, and the entire game to be a frustrating experience. I give them an extra star for creativity, but while some parts are nice, this game is a failure on the whole.

Civ: CtP is the latest iteration of the Civilization family -- in fact, it would be fair to refer to it as Civilization III.

Most people who have played Civ or Civ II will be able to quickly get up and running with Civ:CtP, as many of the concepts -- settlers, city and coutryside improvements, and so forth -- remain. But there are some changes in detail that make this game more than just a graphics upgrade.

One of the niftiest new features, in my opinion, is the ability (obtained via patch from the MacSoft web site) to play by email... allowing different players on different schedules to play together, without requiring them to arrange to be online at the same time.

One of many branches of Civilization, this series is made by the company that bought the board game rights to the original Civilization.

Some added/new features to Civilization are sea and space development, separation of infrastructure and unit builds, expanded trade and trade routes and a much greater variety of items to build.

The addition of sea and space environments are a great idea. The original Civilization series sufferd from a "Y2K" problem in that once you reached present-day technology the game play sputtered to a halt. New environments greatly extend gameplay.

The different trade rules are a nice addition. Showing trade routes (and allowing piracy) make ocean forces more necessary. In the original Civilization you could pretty much ignore naval unit development. Not so in Call to Power. Piracy can shut down an empire.

However, the game has a couple of fatal flaws. First and most damaging is a bad AI implementation. It is ridiculously easy to win this game, even at more difficult settings. Secondly, there is no provision for obsoleting military units. I've had enemy musketmen "shoot down" my stealth bombers. (!) These flaws make the game unplayable.

My advice: don't waste your time with this series unless/until they correct the AI and obsolete military unit problems.