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Seriously flawed-- If I could return this game, I would

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: December 30, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Personally, I feel ripped off for having wasted money on this product. Like Call to Power 1, the game has some interesting features, particularly the variety of stealth units. However, the game suffers from a number of MAJOR PROBLEMS. Not only does it appear that the designers never playtested this game, it's clear that they never went back and played the first Call to Power either; many glaring problems from the original are still here. The worst problems:

1. WAY TOO MANY BUGS: The game crashes often. Also, there's a problem with save game files being corrupted that gets progressively worse as the game progresses. -- I finally gave up after a game that I had spent 25 hours on would not reload, even though I had EIGHT seperate save game files from the last EIGHT turns. Every single one of them was corrupted.

There are also numerous less catastrophic, but more consistent flaws in the programming. For example, stealth units are supposed to be clandestined. When you are attacked by one, you don't know who sent it. The computer players, however, always do, and immediately declare war in response to any stealth attack by you.

2. BADLY WRITTEN DOCUMENTATION: Quite frankly, this is the worst rulebook I have ever seen. It's long winded and repetitive, yet still lacks many key pieces of information. As a result, you have to use trial and error to figure out how much of the game works. One example: the rules mention that you must have military units on hand to control your slaves, but never spells out how many. The right ratio turns out to be 1:3, but you wouldn't know that unless your read the rules to Call to Power #1.

3. WHOLE PARTS OF THE GAME DESIGN JUST DON'T WORK: While the stealth units are interesting, some of them are so badly designed that they just don't work. The Cleric, for example, is the chief weapon of the Theocracy, which uses it to go out and convert enemy cities to your faith. This is an expensive and risky operation. However, it is so ridiculously easy to undo this conversion (station a military unit in the city, endure one turn of mildly elevated unhapiness among the citizens) that no player (computer or human) ever allows a city to remain converted for more than one turn. So why bother having the cleric unit in the game in the first place? There are similar extreme problems with other parts of the game, many of them left over from Call to Power 1. Do these people ever playtest their own products?

4. CLUNKY INTERFACE: The interface is badly designed. Information that could easily be put on one screen gets spread out over two or three. For example, information on trade routes that you currently have and those that are still available are placed on different screens. So to compare them and figure out if you have the optimal set of routes requires endlessly flipping back and forth between two screens.

Overall, I just don't see how the designers could have played this game and still released it in the pathetic state that they did. This is the second game that I've bought from Activision which was released in an unplayable condition. Personally, I'm swearing off their products in the future.

Those interested in a good Civilization type game should probably try Civilization 2, or better still, Alpha Centauri.

Terrible, don't waste money wait for civ3

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 8
Date: May 31, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Activision can't make Civilization, only Sid Meirs can. don't waste money wait for Civilization 3

Dumb

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 0 / 8
Date: May 06, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I hated this game. it was hard to figure out how to play. I never liked it. it is an extremely stupid game. dont buy it. save yourselves.

I have to admit... I was dissapointed...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: January 19, 2001
Author: Amazon User

After hearing so much about CTP 2, about the "great" campaigns it would include, and everything, I have to tell you, I am dissapointed in it. I had read in some site that CTP 2 would in include a World War campaign (don't remember if it was WWI or WWII) but anyways this was what I had been looking forwards to the most... Sadly there was no such campaign.... It is also still TOO similar to CTP 1, i mean I expected new units, a whole new things... If it was going to be like this, they should have just made an expansion for the first game and sold it cheaper. If you've never played CTP, I highly recommend it, but if you already own CTP, either wait until the price goes down or dont get it because its current price is NOT worth it since it's almost like playing CTP with only SLIGHT changes

Not part of the Civ series

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 5 / 10
Date: September 04, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Contrary to popular belief, this title is not part of the Civilization series. This is Activision's attempt at a Civ clone. In some areas it succeeds, but in most it fails. This game had no affiliation with Sid Meier, creator of CivI and II (the latter arguably the best pc strategy game ever).

Pros:

Good government selection. Some new governments are included, like Fascism, Technocracy, Theocracy, Ecology, Corporate Republic, etc.

Armies and Fleets. In CivII a stack of units could be killed in what attack. This is not so.

Automated Improvements. The government automatically does terrain improvements.

Diplomacy and Trade: Both are well planned and fairly extensive.

Cons:

Diplomacy and Trade: Neither are used to their full extent, and if you try, other civilizations refuse. There's all types of stuff, like trade embargoes, etc, but the AI never does them.

Civilizations: Over 30 Civs to choose from, but there's really no difference in between them. Also, whenever I play, I'm always up against the same Civs: French, British, German, Irish, Scottish, American, and Native Americans. That gets boring very fast.

Slow: The interface is slow, even on a 128MB Ram P3 500mhz machine.

Scenarios: Only 4 of them, and none are any good.

NO CUSTOMIZATION OF UNITS OR CIVS: In Civ2 anyone could make their own units, terrains, technologies, scenarios, maps, etc. You can't do any of this in CTP2.

Conclusion: Civ3 should be out in the US within 2 months, it's coming to Mac, and to Europe. Civ3 has Sid Meier working on it. Civ3 has elaborate diplomacy and trade. Civ3 has culture points, great military leaders, many unit animations, civ specific units, new paths to victory, total customization of units, civs, techs, maps, etc, has better graphics, more realistic, more units, will ship with 12 scenarios, and so much more. The bottom line: save your cash for Civ3, it's just months away.

it's the AI

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 2 / 4
Date: January 03, 2001
Author: Amazon User

hi

i bought this game hoping for a really improved civ2 type of game.I have to be honest the AI of your passive computer opponents is absolutely horrible.Once you fortify your cites the computer opponents just lay back and wait for you to attack and that's it. The diplomacy in the game has many options but they usually have the same pat answers for everything. activision has promised some text to come out on how to tweak the ai but no mention of a patch for this.

can't recommend this game. try alpha centauri instead.

tom

Save your money for Civilization III

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 13 / 19
Date: January 23, 2001
Author: Amazon User

If you have not played Sid Meier's original Civilization or Civilization II (without the Call to Power in the title) then you do not know how good this game use to be.

Civilization III is probably a few months away. Sid Meier actually has input in Civilization III which means it will most likely be a decent game. Firaxis is producing CIV III and Hasbro is publishing it.

If you feel the need to play Civilization, go find an old copy of Civilization II before it became Call to Power. Activision took away too many cool features. I bought this game and the most upsetting part of the game is that you cannot go past a number of cities without changing a form of government that does not exist yet.

Sid Meier's last game was Alpha Centouri. I have not played the game yet, but from what I read, it is the game I should have bought. Again, put your $50 away in an envelope, wait for CIV III to come out or buy Alpha Centouri instead. The only reason gave this game 3 stars is because it is based on the original game.

OK game if you really can't wait for Civ 3

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game with high expectations. I had ignored some less favourable reviews, because there are always some purists who complain about things being different from previous Civilization games. However, I was disappointed with this release. I should warn you now that I haven't played any Civ game since Test of Time, so some things I call "new" may not be new to you. Also, this is an Activision job, which is not "officially" Civilization. Civ 3, which is being worked on by Sid Meier at Firaxis, looks very promising but won't be out for a while.

Aside from the gameplay, the user interface has been simplified. It is much easier to keep track of what you're building, how much pollution each city puts out, and how happy people are. There is also an optional function to automate the management of cities, although such a thing seems to take half the fun and challenge out of playing a Civ game.

There are some good things about this game. You have national borders, so you won't have other players dumping cities right in the middle of your empire. If you have multiple units on a tile, opposing armies have to fight ALL of them, and not just one. The combat capabilities of units are improved, with new concepts like ranged attack and flanking, (eg artillery can fire from behind the front lines with ranged attack, and flankers like tanks can "gang up" on opposing units). Air power is a big asset in this game, since bombers can "bombard" enemy armies without being fired upon themselves, and because you can use air units to support a ground assault.

Units can no longer travel unlimited distances over a rail link. They can go much further, but not all the way across a map.

Trade is better, you don't have to push caravans around. You just build them and then use the trade manager to establish trade routes...each route you build commits a certain number of caravans. Beware that the trade advisor can't count and will not advise the best deals.

Tile improvements are done differently, you don't need settlers to build roads and such. Instead, you put a percentage of your production into a "public works" fund, which can be used to buy farms, roads, rail, and the rest (including some neat things like sonar buoys and radar stations). Oddly, you can save up the labour of your people over time, and spend it whenever you like.

Diplomacy is improved, you can make deals and offer trades. You can no longer trade units but you can offer such things as nuke reduction and pollution reduction. You can also have trade embargos. Beware that opponents will agree to proposals and then ignore them (especially pollution agreements).

Governments are good...each has a "max city" level so if you try to have a giant empire with a monarchy, citizens get unhappy and it falls apart. No government in the game allows more than 60 cities without unhappiness, so global domination is a tricky business.

OK, now for the downsides. The AI opponents are stupid. The computer players seem to constantly fight each other, and they do dumb things like building transport helicopters instead of fighters. Once I've come across an opponent who put battleships to sea, but usually the AI players sail only empty troopships and empty aircraft carriers. The AI also tends to build huge armies, but they rarely attack, even when they have an advantage. Instead they sit next to cities for my air forces to tear to shreds.

Pollution is another negative point for the game. The way pollution is modelled is better, polluted tiles no longer cause global warming by themselves, they just don't provide any food or production. When global pollution gets above a certain level (regardless of the number of dead tiles, it's the output of pollution that matters), both warming and ozone depletion can occur. You can enter into agreements with other nations, eg, they agree to keep pollution below 3000 units and you agree to keep yours below 4000 units. But, infuriatingly, the three page section on pollution in the manual doesn't tell you how to find your empire's pollution levels! In fact, the text doesn't mention it anywhere, so if you use the online manual you are stuck. The only clue is an illustration on page 14 of the original manual (you get it from the Empire tab on the Control Panel).

There are other annoying bugs, too, for example surface ships can travel along undersea tunnels as if they were roads for boats. And the music gets stuck on the same track (the CD is required to play, so my advice is to rip the tracks, compress them to MP3 and play them through another application).

Overall, I think the main drawback is the stupidity of the AI. Even on hard they are stupid (though you might try very hard and impossible difficulty...but this will make everything harder and not just the enemies), and it's not much of a challenge to defeat them in combat. They make pitiful enemies and useless allies. Not much of an improvement over the older games. But this version has full multiplayer support, if you'd care to test your wits against human opponents.

Good enough - but not as fun as Civilization II

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: December 21, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I have a real problem with this game. In all honesty, it's the game Activision should have released a year and a half ago, in version 1. Nothing has changed all that much, other than fixing the much maligned bugs and quirks of version 1. The interface is essentially the same, as is the feel of the game, which is less than enjoyable. I'm a big Civ fan, but I must admit a certain disappointment that the Civ II engine seems to be more fun and interesting than any of the new Civ releases like Call to Power, or Alpha Centauri, even though it was developed over five years ago. If your a Civ fan and want to have fun, pick up a copy of Civ II: Test of Time. The engine is the same as Civ II, but you can automate settlers, autobuild cities, and have a choice between classic, extended, science fiction and fantasy variants of the game. Sadly, I'm sure you'll be much happier with Test of Time than you would be with Call to Power II.

nice...but a little buggy

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: December 23, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I am a fan of the civilization sieries and eagerly awaited the release of Call to Power 2. Although quite similar to Call to Power I, there were several changes that improved gameplay. However, the software is quite buggy and ruined the experience. Several times the game wwould just quit because it had perfomed "an illegal opperation" when i tried to load a game. And several times messeges would come up that made no sense as if the game didnt know what was happing. Im not going to play anymore until Activision releases a patch because the bugs ruin the game.

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