I played some CTP I internet games and found them very exciting, at 4 players, 1 1/2 min./turn, you will never have to wait more then 4 minutes between turns and some of that time is needed to manage you're cities and empire.

On the other hand I can't see myself playing an e-mail game over 3 or 4 years and not loosing interest. I don't want to put e-mail down and there is lots of interests in e-mail games, I just don't understand why.

Personally, my mind can't work that fast. If a time limit of 2 minutes per turn is set and you have 10 cities and 30 units, I think you are missing a lot. In chess, you have 90 minutes to make 45 moves. That's 2 minutes per turn to move just ONE piece. Some chess players see even this as too fast. Civilization Call to Power is infinitely more complicated than Chess.

To Mark:

Great...Just what I always wanted to do. But 2-6 more computers and set up a LAN to play some stupid game against other human players. Get off you high stool with Activision and the good folkd that 'apparrently' gave you a copy of CTP II (note the word apparrently) to play and review. You've had your longest forums on the HotSeat and PBEM options not being included. Use you 'push' to get Activision to make a commitment in these areas instead of giving us a bunch of 'so called reviews by people who have a habit of over rating "ne toys".

I never played PBEM, so I don't understand how peole can stay focussed on the game when it 'apparrently' tales months to play, but they must enjoy it. It may be the only way they can play, especially if people they want to paly against live on the other side of the planet. HotSeat would not be an option for them and internet play has too many restriction and quickly dies-off as the game ages (ie their are many 'good' games out ther with internet play available, but no sites to play on any more).

quote: Originally posted by Solver on 11-20-2000 08:58 AM Well, Internet multiplayer isn't that way exciting. It's long and even quite boring - if even each of your enemies makes a turn in 3 minutes, with 5 enemies, ir's 15 minutes of waiting.

Ha ha ha I play civ 2 and turns can easily run to half an hour or more for each player!

SMAC has simultaneous moves for IP - doesn't CtP? In a three hour evening you can comfortably get 50 - 75 turns completed - games are over in a weekend or at most a week.

(But of course, PBEMs can take well over a year)

Just bought CtPII (having given up on the original very early in the process) but haven't given it a decent test run yet. So haven't ventured into multiplay with it yet.

If the problem is the Diplomacy system, then this seems rather obvious to fix. Go play SMAC and see how they did it. When a PBEM turn is opened, the Diplomacy screens pop up the messages/offers sent in the last turn.

The interactive Diplomacy is not needed in a PBEM/Hotseat game. Humans can figure out how to talk to each other and work out a deal without a Screen Wizard to walk them through it. What's needed is a flexible system that allows players to IMPLEMENT the deal they've already worked out. By Flexible I mean able to handle any sort of "I'll give you this, this and this, if you give me that and that" combination.

Actually, the Diplomacy was the BEST part of a PBEM game. In an Internet game, eveyone seems too pressed for time to really talk much. In the games I've been in, if two players stop to work out a deal, the other players all start whining about the delay.

In the PBEM games I've been in, once the game reaches the point where the Empires are all in contact with each other, the game becomes more of a Diplomatic contest than anything else.

I've had games where I get a turn to play every few days. But in between the turns I'm constantly getting and responding to emails from other players about the game. To me this is much more interesting than any direct Multiplayer game I've been involved in.

If there is anyone out there who wants to play an Internet game with a) no time limits, and b) whining about slow play is completely forbidden, then I'd be interested. But otherwise I find PBEM much more enjoyable

But too many of the Internet games I've seen are with people who want a game to be finished quickly and largely decided by who can click their mouse the fastest. Strategy and Diplomacy seem to take a back seat.

My Dad is a Civ II junkie and I would like to get him into the pbem thing. With a two player pbem, you can get several turns in a day. I also like to play team games where the diplomacy is not really a factor but the team strategy is.