Civilization: Call to Power (PC)

Call to Power II. The sequel to a Civilization game, created when the rights to the Civ license were in dispute. The two parties involved were Microprose (now owned by Infogrames) and Activision (who had claimed they had made a deal with the board game developers, Avalon Hill). Because this dispute could not be solved, both companies made Civ games that year. Activision releasing the Original (called "Civilization:Call to Power) and Microprose releasing Civilization II : Test of Time, a remake of their earlier Civ 2 game.

By the time Call to Power II was released, however, the dispute had been settled. Therefore it was released simply as Call to Power II. I bought it after hearing good things about the first game, and liking Civ games in general (and already owning Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, but that's for another op) I decided to purchase it.

When I opened the box to read the manual while I was on the train, I wasn't disappointed. The game had vast differences to any Civ game I had played at the time. Cities could be founded underwater during the later stages of the game, as the goal of the game stretched far further than going into space.

When it comes to victory conditions, Call to Power II (from now on referred to as CTP2) had the largest amount of game victory conditions that I have seen, and is only beaten by the sublime, but very recent Civilisation 3 in this aspect.

There are four victory conditions in all in CTP2. These are:

Conquest Victory - To quote a particular advert, this "does exactly what it says on the tin". Your main objective is to conquer the world, brushing other empires aside like gnats, while your glorious empire stands astride the world like a colossus.

High Score Victory - If you have not already completed your game by the time the game reaches 2300AD, then your score is calculated at this point. If you have the highest, you win!

Diplomatic Victory - World Peace : Again a rather self-explanatory victory. In order to win a Diplomatic Victory, you must forge a permanent alliance with all of the other civs. Of course...actually *doing* it is another matter.

Science Victory-Gaia Controller : When your technology is of a majorly advanced level, you get the chance to go for a scientific victory. This is the most complex of all the victories, because not only do you have to research the technology to GET the Solaris Project Wonder, but you also have to spread obelisks throughout the world map, and hold them for long enough to let the Controller do it's work, which is generally clean up all the pollution and also allow a limitless supply of energy to be tapped.

So now you've heard about the victories, what about the game itself?

Well, the choice of civs in this game is truly massive. This is the only game I have seen of this type where you can pick from virtually any civilization you might have heard of. Egyptians, Greeks, Americans...Canadians?! Yes, folks this game has Canadians AND Americans in it. As well as the Welsh, Scottish, Irish and English as separate nations, and it even has the Australians in it as well. The list is truly vast, so I won't go typing all of them out here, as it would most likely take up all the room in this op. But needless to say, most people will not be disappointed that they have a lack of choice of civs.

The formula of CTP2 is similar to that of other civ games, as you can imagine, but there are some subtle differences. For example, the amount of tile improvements have increased, but you no longer use settlers to place them. Instead each city has it's own area of influence, and you can place tiles provided you have the resources or technology to support them. These can start off as farms, trade outposts and roads and gradually get more advanced, turning to railroads and advanced farms, to maglevs and hydroponic farms.

Settlers and (later on) Engineers still build cities as in the other Civ games, but later in the game you can build sea engineers, which allow you to place deep sea improvements such as underwater mines and farms, as well as found sea cities. Even sea tunnels are used to connect your land based road network to the sea cities, but be warned...if an empire attacks your tunnels and destroys a section, all units in that tunnel stretch will be killed as if the water had swept in and drowned them all.

As for units, the selection is far more diverse, both due to the extra time the game covers, and in fact the other options they provide. As well as the units you'd expect in a Civ game, you get odd units such as the Corporate Branch or the Televangelist from certain technologies which allow you to make profits from another empire's cities, or affect morale. These in turn can be countered by units like the lawyer, who can sue corporate branches and cut the profits out.

Armies can be formed in this game, by taking several units and putting them into a group of up to 9. Different units are best used in different positions, and these formations can prove crucial to the successful conquering of a city. This was a unique feature in the game at the time, and only Civ 3 has attempted it since. However I feel CTP2 pulls it off far better than Civ 3 does.

Spies are upgraded too, changing to the Cyber Ninja once certain techs are researched, and even weapons of mass destruction are upgraded. In this game, unlike the Civ series, the nukes are actually phased out by bio-weapons and nano-technology. Nanites become the most destructive force in the late game, as they are capable of wiping all traces of life from a square...cities...improvements...units..​.all gone in one strike. But also they are a good thing, as they nullify pollution completely as well.

Goverment types are also more diverse in this game than they are in other Civ games, as well as governments like Democracy and Republic, you also get types like Technocracy, Ecotopia and Corporate Republic, that assist in other ways such as increasing Science output and funds, or decreasing pollution...all of which are handy in the times of advanced technologies.

Finally...the jewel in the crown of this game..the Diplomacy. They have truly outdone themselves with the diplomacy in this game, and it is much better than the diplomacy in Civ 3. In CTP2, there are hundreds of different options, and you can make complex treaties filled with proposals and counter proposals that even stretch as far as setting pollution level targets, decommissioning of weapons such as nukes or nanomissiles, imposing trade embargoes, making agreements and requests to stop research on a certain tech, the list goes on. And as large as this list is (and trust me there are many more I haven't listed), there are 5 different tones in which you can make the treaties. And it's not just restricted to treaties you write either. Counter proposals can be made in exactly the same manner. During diplomacy however, regard comes into the equation. If you go around polluting and pillaging all over the place, people won't like you and won't want to sign a treaty. Also, if you break treaties, it makes them wary of you in future.

There are some bad points to this game. One is the interface. I've played a lot of games like this and CTP2 has to have the most unwieldy interface I've ever seen in a game like this. It's easy enough once you know your way around, but it's incredibly hard to learn completely.

Another bad point is the graphics. Even when this game was released in 2000, the graphics looked old. They are very colourful, but look a little worse for wear when compared to the graphics in Civ 3 or indeed Alpha Centauri.

In short, I would recommend this game, but only after you've played other games such as the real Civ series, as they will give you the experience you need to succeed in these type of games.