This godly classic is the kind of stuff all TBS games should be made of.
+ Addictive, low maitenence gameplay with brillant mechanics.
+ Micromanagment merging with automation makes things both easy and hard.
+ A fantastic graphics engine that is better than most of today's TBS games.
+ The best musical soundtrack ever implented in a game. EVER.
+ Tosses out an ultra-cool glimpse of our possible future culture climate.
- Sloppy combat.
- Drab Multiplayer doesn't do any favors.
- Unstable difficulty.
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The last Civilization game I played, a huge disapointment, marked the death of a great series. They have eliminated all that was fun and have replaced the theme of the game with a childish, cartoony trading-card game in Civilization 3. Disapointed by such an actrocity, I could've help but to reveal a truely classic game under the year-old dust, Civilization: Call to Power, the kind of stuff all TBS games should be made of. As everything else went wrong with the series, Call to Power is such an overrall accomplishment that it sqeezes almost 20 years of abysmally-original computer gaming into a catagorey of minorities whilst exluding the best of the best gaming into an endless loop of horrible inferity by topping itself with the title of the best TBS game to date.
Civilization plays alot like your typical chess game. You must take turns with the computer, first making your move and helplessly wait for the others to do the same (its no defer; its usually instantly). For instance, in one turn, you may build a city, start constructing a structure, readjust a government issue, or attack a foolish tresspasser. After that, you must click the cute little "END' turn button at the bottom to let a few game years pass, thus letting any others in the game take their turn until its yours again. This semi-addictive, seat-warming gameplay continues and it may not sound like a mill-killer, but its as any TBS and Civilization glorifies the genre with surprisingly well-played gameplay mechanics that bend your logic in some pretty contentional manners.
Through stragegy and turns, you must build an empire to stand the test of time. The majority of your empire is the cities that you build on your land, and eventually, even in space. The goal of the game is prolonging your exsisting cities to expand your empire as well as making more to continue expanding. That means you must maintain a balance between building structures in your city to help them grow (granaries, markets, temples, etc.), constructing wonders to boost your fame and power, and/or recruiting units (soliders to protect your empire or settlers to expand your land with new cities). Furthermore, you will have to set the work day, wages, and rational intake of your civilation without defering the consequences. Foolish managment of your empire will result in revolts, riots, and uprises. However, spoiling your people will result in pollution, crime, and sometimes you might run out of your resources, which makes your people as happy as a 16 hour workday. On top of that, you'll also need to manage you're entertainment, tax collection, and scientific services. With that, and in the passing ages, you'll need to decide what you're scientists will be studying. Perhaps researching Gunpowder is better for the secrets of fasicim governments? Maybe you will consider putting your effort into virtual democracy instead of researching the internet, because of the possibilites of a democracy government is better for your growth rather than your military. Or try to master the esoteric depths of communisim if you just want to torture your people! It is your civilization after all.
Though combat is by no means the essance of the game's structure, it is highly encouraged in the game. You can share a diplomacy with other civilizations, though at the ending of the game, some other idiots on the other side of the world are almost gaureenteed to get on your bad side. Embassies, peace treaties, alliances can be forged (and broken), and units of the opposing Civilization can be crushed with a helpfully useless battle screen. You really have no control over battles in the game, which is a disapointment, but if the CPU calculates you as the winner, you'll be happy.
Unlike any of other abysmal CIVIL games, Call to Power will keep going on and on for almost forever: 4000 B.C., 1500 A.D., 2000 A.D., 2555 A.D., and even up to 3000 A.D. in game years. As the eras pass, you can see your civilization becoming more inquesitive in the ways of the future with permenant space cities, robotic wonders, and some pretty bizzare diamond-age cybernetics that really nudge on the thought if this is actually what our culture in the future will be like. Robots are cool.
The game only ends if your Civilization is completly collapsed or you've focused on the victory settings you've set at the start of the game. A playthrough can be won through the conditions of crushing everybody else in the world, either through peace, technolegy, or violence. You can also customize your gameplay from the difficultly right down to the detail of the world's overrall climate (unlike CIVL III, which only lets you pick pre-set climates).
In the package also comes a simple editor that lets you make your own senario for future uses, although its much more fun to just generate a random game.Lastly, there is a Multiplayer mode that, if not tackled, feels a bit disapointing. There is either email or hotseat multiplayer games, where you must wait for each player takes his/her turn. For as long as you know, player turns can last to tedious hour after tedious hour. How tedious. Diehard fans of the genre will probably have mercy for it, but thankfully, the singleplayer can last up to 20 hours and even after you've beaten it, there's almost always a reason to play again and again because there are no scripting momments, no set pathes, and no restrictions in any of the playthroughs.
I shall say again: As everything else went wrong with the series, Call to Power is such an overrall accomplishment that it sqeezes almost 20 years of abysmally-original computer gaming into a catagorey of minorities whilst exluding the best of the best gaming into an endless loop of horrible inferity by topping itself with the title of the best TBS game to date. Seriously, get this game.