Mmmm, MoM.
I'd probably still be playing but I never got it to play on XP without being extremely buggy. I can only handle crashing to desktop so many times for no discernable reason.

As for Civ 1... the first game I ever played that caused me to stay up all night and miss classes... I gave up on the franchise after civ 3 though. It was changing a bit more than I liked by then.

I dunno most people I've spoken to about that genre never mention Myst, it's all about the old school Lucas Arts games. Sam and Max, Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island.... so many memories...

I am a bit confused with the civilisation series? Right now i am playing civilisation 2 by microprose which seems to be the most fun of the lot. Then there is civilisation call to power which has two brilliant features - a space level and armies arranged by ranged and non ranged units. Then after civilisation call to power there is civilisation 3 rite? which got rid of the above mentioned features in call to power... probably because the AI did not form armies well or make good use of the space level!
Civ 3 introduced better public works features except for the nerfing of constructing roads in neutral/enemy territory which was a big negative.

Anyway, civilisation 2 seems to be a different game and civilisation call to power, 3 and 4 are clearly the same game with a few minor differences? I am wondering if there is another civilisation 2 which fits in with that line of games?

I have never played civilisation 1?

Doesn't everyone have a DOS box emulator for MoM, and MOO? I kind of like Cavewars as well (bit of an unknown, not that good of an AI, but just fun!). Thankfully, I have Colonization for windows and don't need the emulator for it (although I do have the DOS version of it as well around somewhere).

Mystikmind, Call to Power is by a different game company and isn't part of the microprose family. That's probably causing a bit of confusion. Civ 2 is my personal favorite, follow by Alpha Centari, Civ 3 then Civ 1. I don't really like Civ 4.

Seems like civ3 is an expansion of call to power? Call to power, civ3 and civ4 go together but civ2 by microprose looks like a completely different game?

Alpha Centauri has no equal in my opinion, that game is so full of great features and concepts that nothing else compares.

Civ4 is ok but not as good as its predicessors. The nerfing of unit bombard capability was a big kick in the guts. There i am foolishly building artillery to attack enemy ships off my coastline (as did any nation in WW2 for example) and then i try to shoot the ship with my artillery - wooops! huh?? what the fxxk???

Nope. Call to power is not part of the chain, but all the others are. My understanding is that Sid Meier had a hand in 1 and 2, but not 3 and 4. Still, the inheritance is just civ 1->2->3->4.

You could put Alpha Centauri between Civ 2 and 3, if you want. In order of release, I believe that is where it fits, if memory serves. I wouldn't quibble with calling it the peak

I'm still confused, Civ2 by Microprose looks like a totally different game to anything else i have ever seen? Call to power looks as close to civ3 as DL does to DA. I have a feeling i do have another civilisation 2 game which was the next in line from call to power and then went on to civ3 and civ4

So like are there two genres of civilisation games running side by side or am i just crazy?

just arrived home and noticed i have call to power and call to power 2!

It is confusing because civilisation 3 is leaning towards being more similar to call to power than civilisation 2. I was always thinking civilisation call to power was part of the series because of that.

Civ II was different to Civ I due to a few things:

1. Battle, technically slightly more different with hitpoints and firepower.

2. Isometric grid (ie: squares are essentially diamonds to give a pseudo 3D appearance to the units).

3. Rivers not considered a separate tile, but overlaid as a "bonus"

Civ III then changed a few things compared to Civ II, like armies, strategic resources.

Civ IV brought in unit promotions and a whole different world layout. In between Civ II and III however was not just Alpha Centauri, but also Civilization: Test of Time (also by Microprose). Civ ToT was basically the same game as Civ II, but had different worlds and units to play on.

And yeah, like what has been said, Call to Power series is by Activision?, not Microprose/Firaxis.


Now, how back to the topic at hand of Starcraft being overrated. I was going to say that no matter if a game is considered overrated, if it truly is good, or portrayed as good, then the whole genre benefits to some extent, other developers look at what made the game good, and work ways of developing those sorts of systems into their own games. Starcraft truly brought into play the unique races. Remember Warcraft II was where the Orcs and Humans were pretty much equal, except for spells and heroes, the units were on equal footing. Starcraft I believe showed the world that balance can be achieved if races are made unique.

Sorry, but chess is the best game ever made.

It depends on the point of view. But chess is popular some time.....

Starcraft is chess on the computer, in a non-turn-based fashion, where my knights look like tanks some of the time and stationary artillery other times, and your knights look like giant worms that shoot fists.

Starcraft is most definitely not over-rated. If I could find my disks I would be tempted to install it again and play it today just for thinking about it.

As I recall, Call to Power was done separately after Sid broke off and did SMAC. They wanted a sequel, but without Sid, that was the best they could do. Eventually they worked things out and he did 3 and 4.


And no, SC isn't overrated

Starcraft was barely fun for me, the storyline made out humans were just little puppy play things which bugged me allot since there i am eating the alien scum for breakfast with human technology! And then once i kicked ass in the first stage of the campaign, i basically loose and have to play an alien race?? Oh ok then what was i just doing a minute ago as human? oh thats rite, winning!!