Civ:CTP Preview

palpatine writes "At 32 Bits Online Magazine, we have been testing a beta of Civilization: Call to Power for Linux for some time now. Our staff has been tirelessly working to test the new features of this exciting game, and we like it. In this preview, we take a closer look at Call to Power for Linux, including its features, the beta version, and the actual progress of a CTP game. " I played the preview release a bit. Had a few bugs that I'm sure are fixed by now. My 2 second summary is that its definitely the largest professional game of its type for Linux... but I think I really want Alpha Centauri. Of course, once I get my hands on the final CTP release, and get the LAN up at the new house, I fully intend to lose many late night hours to CTP.

Comments

...not really

[palpatine]

The swap requirement for Civilization: CTP is for people who have the minimum RAM requirement (32 MB). That's assuming you're running X and no other apps (about 16-20 MB used). If you have 64 MB of physical RAM, then you will only need about 58 MB of swap. If you have 128 MB of physical memory, you probably won't be swapping at all.

The requirements could say "x" MB of memory (physical or virtual), but that would confuse some people.

Re:Loki's next Game

[Fizgig]

I REALLY wish they would port Homeworld, but I doubt it. They said they wanted to work simultaneously, and that'll be out in about a month. I really doubt Loki is anywhere close to finishing their next game. On a positive note, I read yesterday in an interview with the producer of Homeworld that he would like to release the source code to the game in a few years. Can't wait!

On another note, you are never to refer to Tradewars 2000 and a game I want to play in the same sentence ever.

Alpha Centauri.

[Fizgig]

I plan on buying CTP. Loki deserves that from me, and it should be a great game. But I, too, have played Sid Meir's Alpha Centauri (SMAC) on Windows and loved it. I have it on Windows, but I can't bear the hypocrisy of booting into it anymore. I've tried running SMAC on Wine and failed, but they have mentioned the possibility of a Linux port before, so it's not out of the question. So, if you care, go over to http://alpha.owo.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi? action=topics&forum=The+Game&number=2&Da ysPrune= and register your support. (slashdot's going to insert a space somewhere in that. Make sure you remove it before you try it)

Who cares?

[mplex]

They can't do it for free, you may as well not go to any site that has advertisments. That was a pretty harsh comment about never reading anything there again. There's an ad on every slashdot page you read, every comment, every post. Maybe you shouldnt read slashdot again since they just are trying to make money here.

Re:Who cares?

[Rombuu]

I have no problem with banner adds. I don't disable cookies, don't run junkbuster or any of those things. Hell, I even click on the damn things every once in a while. I just think it is silly to only put 284 words (well, that's just page 1) on a web page of actual content. That's a block of text that fills about 1/4 of my computer screen. They obviously do this just to inflate their hit counts. Think of all the bandwidth they are wasting by having to serve 5 connections to read the article rather than one.

You know what's annoying?

[Rombuu]

Sites that print 3 paragraphs a page to stretch an article out to 5 pages so they get extra hits on their banner adds. Shame on you 32bitsonline. That's the first and last time I ever read anything on your site.

yep -- glibc2.1 does work!

[schmack]

glibc2.1 seems to work fine for me! to back that up here's a post at 32bitsonline from one of the developers:

• "CivCTP does run on glibc-2.1 systems out of the box. The only problem arises when trying to start a network game - the new glibc 2.1 dynamic loader doesn't properly load the network libraries, and you are not able to get to the network screen.

• We will release a fix on our web site at http://www.lokigames.com/, along with the 1.1 patch, when it's ready.

  For the record, glibc-2.1 was still in beta while we were developing the game. - Linux still lives on the edge of technology. :-)"

what's next?

[Replicant 37]

I emailed Loki to congradulate them for making such a great game available for linux and asked what their next project will be. Here's what I got:

"Hi Mike,

>Hot damn! CTP is gonna rock!!!!!!!
>I can't wait to snag my copy off the shelf in an actual computer store!!

Great!

>Have you guys decided what your next project will be?
>If so, DO TELL!!!

We've already signed on the dotted line,
but can't announce our next titles until later this month.
Hope you'll be impressed.
:-)

Thank you for your support,

Kathryn Sorhaindo
Loki Entertainment Software"


I wonder what it will be...

Looks like it's going to rock!

[Greyfox]

I called the local CompUSA about it yesterday and they said they don't have it yet and that they've already had a couple of calls on it. Interesting.

For those of you who don't have a distributor who's carrying it near you, you may consider trying to special order it through the local software store. It might cost a bit more, but it will show the local stores that there is a demand for Linux games.