OLD SITE NEWS

26.Dec Old news archived

19.Dec New animations

18.Dec Third poll about what people like most on CtP

12.Dec New screenshots

11.Dec New animations

10.Dec Second CtP Poll about the 32 civs possibility

6.Dec Designer's chat transcript

IT'S A BETA! (Dec. 30)
Lt. John spread some holiday cheer yesterday by announcing that they [Activision] will be holding an open beta test after all.
"We have coordinated an online signup with one of the major gaming sites to accept applications for one of a very limited number of beta test seats," Lt. John posted to our CTP General Forum. "Beta testers will initially be covered by a Non-Disclosure Agreement that will prohibit them from talking about the game. At the end of the testing period, the NDA may be lifted, like Firaxis did with their beta testers, or it may not be lifted until the game ships. More news will follow about where and when the signups occur..."

COW SLAUGHTERED (Dec. 30)
As promised, Lt. John delivered news this week regarding two very controversial units. Here is the description of the changes:
Park Ranger. "The name has been officially changed to Eco Ranger. We [Activision] wanted to call it the Genesis Device, but our legal guys thought that Viacom (and the Star Trek folks) might have a problem with that. Functionality and appearance hasn't changed, though, so it still operates like a clean nuke."
Combat Engineer. "This is old news, but is restated here [Our CTP General Forum] for those who may not have seen it, but land mines and the combat engineer (whose primary focus was to find land mines) were cut from the game because they were difficult to balance.

At the same time, he threw in a tidbit regarding the Cattle unit's fate -- it's been eliminated altogether.

MAC ATTACK! (Dec. 27)

Look out! Mac gamers are working together to be guaranteed a piece of the pie. The Games4Mac website started a public campaign this week to get C:CTP ported to their preferred platform. To learn more it, click the banner to the right.

Games4Mac has started to publish eye catching animated banners, such as the one you see above, to promote their campaign.

STEVE MARIOTTI INTERVIEW (Dec. 24)
The latest installment of our feature interviews with members of the CTP team is here. Steve Mariotti, Lead Programmer, took time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions. Click here to start.

GAMESPOT UK PREVIEWS! (Dec. 23)
GameSpot UK Editor Ian Bloke got in touch with us earlier this week to let us know of their War And Peace: Strategy Games Special feature. Included under the TBS titles is, naturally, CTP. But this is only the start of the coverage so take a look and enjoy!

WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST? (Dec. 18)
You response in our second poll was great. 551 Votes in 8 days(while the first had 305 votes in 13 days! :)). The results about a 32 civs possibility in C:CTP are: "Yes, no matter how long the delay is" 35%(!), "Yes, if the game isn't delayed much" 37%, "At least make it easy to change" 11%(this is what we have been promised by Activision), "No, I want C:CTP ASAP!" only 13% and 1% didn't know about it. Well, it seems like you want it bad! Activision has said in the past that the engine supports 32 civs but the game will ship with 8. The problems against it were the increase of the system requirements and the extra playbalancing and beta testing time that would be needed.
Anyway, check our new poll about what you like most on C:CTP from what you've read and heard about it.

A NICE SHORT POST (Dec. 15)
We found another informative post on comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic by Peter Karpas(Sr. Product Manager on the CTP team) about changing the unit graphics:
Players will be able to replace the graphics easily, especially if they don't care about having 8 facings per unit and so on.
There are actually 5 facings per unit, and they'll have to provide 5 facings (at least) for Idle animations for units. The 5 facings turn into 8 facings in the code (the last 3 are flipped versions of 3 of the 5). The most minimal unit is 5 images for each of the facings.
They could also just make all the facings the same frame. It wouldn't look as good, but it would work just fine.
Sounds good to us!

A NEW DILEMMA... (Dec. 10)
13 Days and 305 votes passed and the final results for the Park Ranger poll are: 11% love it, 17% just says "no problem", 36% also has no problem with it, but wants it renamed to Eco Ranger, 25% demands it's removal(!) and an 8% doesn't know about it. Well, I [Markos] would say that if it's name is changed, the Park Ranger will be acceptable by the majority of the players... But it's now time to face another dilemma, look at your right! :)

MISSED THE CHAT? (Dec. 6)
What? You missed the chat?? Bad boys(and girls!)! Although we had a pretty big audience yesterday here's the 7-pages transcript for the rest. Don't miss the next one! :)

DON'T FORGET SATURDAY(WAS SUNDAY)! (Dec. 1-2)
Don't forget that this SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6TH, we have the "CTP Designers Chat" with 5 members of the CTP team. The time is 12 noon PT, which is 2pm CT, 3pm EDT, 8pm GMT. See you on Saturday!
(Dec. 2) No, it's not an error, it's Saturday not Sunday. Due to a change of plans, the chat has been moved to Saturday. The time is unchanged.

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