From: brianr@tekig1.PEN.TEK.COM (Brian E Rhodefer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: Civilization, To buy or not to buy, That is the question.
Summary: A close call: Buy if you're desperate
Keywords: Civilization, amiga.
Date: 13 Aug 92 03:28:08 GMT
Reply-To: brianr@tekig1.pen.tek.com
Followup-To: poster
Distribution: na
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.

In article <1992Aug13.013435.21285@wam.umd.edu> mfirooz@wam.umd.edu (Mark Firoozfar) writes:
>Hi all,
>	I am the owner of the IBM version of this game.  I loved it so much
>that I had to get it for the IBM in my work.  I have an A500 at home, so 
>I can only play the game at work.  
>	Fortuantely, the game is now available on the Amiga.  And reading 
>the posts on this group is giving me the idea that it is heavily bugged.
>I have not actually seen the game running on an amiga.  But I would like
>some opinions from those who have seen it on an amiga and the ibm. 
> .....
>	So please help me go in the right direction.  Is the Amiga version
>worth the $50 or should I keep on camping out all night at work and save my
>

I got hooked on Civilization on my last visit to a friend's house:  30-hour
nonstop playing stint, etc, etc.

Directly I heard that the game was available for the Amiga, I started calling
around.  No one had it in stock (seems like nobody stocks ANYTHING anymore), but
they'd order it.  A software rental company had a copy, so I rented a copy to
tide me over until the one I ordered gets here.  Although I haven't played it
very much on either platform, I guess I can give some broad comparisons:

*) The Amiga version's graphics are done in 320x200x5 format.  They stink.
   Most of the cute little screens that come up when your tribe acquires things
   are now text-only (seems like I remember them having pictures on the IBM).
   The pictures of your towns are much less detailed.  Not that I can criticise
   Microprose much - what other format were they gonna use?  When you go to
   640-pixel horizontal resolution on the Amiga, the color palette drops down
   to 16 (4 bitplanes max)... Considering the very modest animation demands,
   I suppose they should have used HAM graphics, though.
   
   On the bright side, I guess the Amiga won't be regarded as "just a games
   machine" for too much longer - it's not *up* to being a games machine.

*) At least the game multitasks.  This is a plus, given the interminably long
   "new game" sequence.  I brought up my terminal program, connected to my
   employer's machine, and began this readnews session while Civ was building
   a new world.  I've been discovering that my starting city is surrounded
   by resource-less mountains as I've typed this.

*) Microprose took all that time they saved in not converting the graphics to
   HAM, and spent it on replacing Intuition's mouse & menu system with one of
   their own devising.  It doesn't work TOO bad; it seldom misses more than four
   closures of the mouse buttons in a row...

*) I haven't seen any of the "endgame" crashes that folk have mentioned, but
   I *have* noticed that the game will crash on any attempt to exit it before
   it's done a save-game operation.  This isn't really so bad, since the time
   required to reboot the Amiga is insignificant compared to the time required
   to get another game started.

My system is an A3000 25/100.


Brian Rhodefer