Civilization: Call to Power

aka: CTP, CivCtP
Moby ID: 336
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Civilization: Call to Power is a turn-based empire building game. The players start a civilization in the stone age and lead them to the future through science, diplomacy, war, trade, and other actions. Eventually, the player will be building colonies in space and cities in the ocean if the player can survive.

Spellings

  • 文明帝國:權傾天下 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

347 People (294 developers, 53 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 78% (based on 31 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.2 out of 5 (based on 61 ratings with 7 reviews)

They tried. They really did... ...

The Good
Activision paid big bucks for the Civ license, so of course they'd want to do a good job on the product. Sid Meier purists will call me a traitor, but there are good points about this game to be commended on. For example, the concept of stacked armies for combat makes sense. No battle in the real world was fought without coordinated military units, so why shouldn't that be the case in the Civ world? The graphics are the most beautiful in any Civ game to date, and various parts of the game are really beautiful to look at.

The Bad
Unfortunately, despite all the innovative features, the folks at Activision crashed Call to Power to the ground by bloating it with unnecessary frivilous accessories and skimping out on the real essentials. The interface is by far the greatest downfall. Activision tried to radically alter the interface in the hope that the player would be able to do things more efficiently. The interface is streamlined and almost all interactions take place in the bottom area of the screen. Such familiar items as the City Window are gone. Unfortunately, there wasn't anything wrong with the original interface, and the adage of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes instantly to mind. You'll notice when playing Call to Power that you get to see the map a lot. Now where do you get that usually? Yes, in real-time strategy games. Activision slapped on an RTS interface on a Civ game, and that's why most people will not like it (myself included). The graphics, although very nice, also really put strain on the system. Animations are somewhat slow, and one gets anxious getting on to the next unit while waiting for the first to lumber along. There is no "railroad speeding" in this game (as in how units seem to zoom along railroads in Civ II or the maglevs in Alpha Centauri). The unconventional warfare units are also very annoying. Perhaps there'll be a day when I'll master unconventional warfare, but the effects of ecoterrorists and lawyers are just too large to make the game enjoyable. The tech tree also leads to extremely advanced units, which take a horrifically long time to build even the simplest defender on a conquered city, whose population will obviously be reduced to low levels to make it even more difficult to defend. The battles favour defense to an amazing level, where fresh stealth bombers can be brought down by machine gunners without any SAM assistance. This makes offensive drives extremely tedious and depressing.

The Bottom Line
The folks at Activision obviously tried very hard to put a new spin on the Civ franchise, as the massive battle and interface changes show. However, they had failed to see what made the original Civ formula so successful, and in this they have created what many see as a very disappointing product. However, the license does show promise, and one hopes at least some of the problems will be remedied in the upcoming sequel, which, by the way, does not carry the Civ title.

Windows · by Kelvin Chan (4) · 2000

A sad, sad Civilizatioon game...

The Good
After playing Civ 2, and then playing this, you'll notice a complete overhaul in graphics. The terrain and models look much better than Civ 2. There are a TON of new units and governments and wonders and other stuff. You can't really say Activision wasn't trying. There is some really nice wonder movies. The game has a very satirical sense of humor and will make you laugh out loud at some points with the funny units. Like having televangelists be people with TV's for heads.

The Bad
Although i put the graphics in the "good" section, they are also a libability. Load the game and you will be assualted by bright, garish colors that are almost painful to look at. The interface in a word, sucks. Instead of the beloved cty window, they put all these sliders and buttons on the bottom of the screen. Trying to select units and cities is difficult and you'll click a bunch of times to try and select it. They even ruined how you move units. instead of the arrow keys, you have to click where they move, which causes many accidental clicks. The game is very slow. Even at the beggining. It takes forever to build units and improvements. Although it's at least reasonable in the begging, as the game progresses, you will begin to see glaring problems. Musketmen and phalanax will defend against fighter planes. Machine gunners will take down robots and tanks. When at the end of the technology tree, units and wonders become ridiculous. You'll be assualted by televangelists, lawyers and mind controlling ads. The Eden bombs (or whatever) will completely remove a city and all the improvements. Wonders will destroy all nuclear weapons, put super powerful shields around all your cities and cause all unhappy enemy cities to join you. Speaking of stuff like roads, etc. THEY COMPLETELY RUINED IT!!! Instead of just having a settler build roads, you have to allocate some of your income to public works and then build it when you finally get enough. So, in the beggining, you can build almost no roads or irrigation. Finally, it is really annoying how for each government type, there is some limit to the amount of cities you can have or else most of your cities revolt.

The Bottom Line
YUCK!!! Go buy Civ 2 or 3.

Windows · by James Kirk (150) · 2003

A great game without a name

The Good
Great mix of units, lots of non-combat unit-types, trade is handled a lot better than in "that other Civilization game", managing lots of cities is not as much of a drab as in "that other etc...", gamplay is at least as good as in "that other and so on", interface is smooth and powerful once you shake the habits from "that other ya-ki-ty-ya-ki-ty", game mechanics have been refined so you can't just go republic and buy the opposition out like in "that other oh-so-holy-and-untouchable game by that fabled and much revered whiz-kid of computer game design".

The Bad
It hasn't got Sid Meier - but then neither has "that other game" any more.... Apart from that there are minor flaws in design and mechanics, but they wouldn't have caught anyone's attention for at least another five years if Sid Meier had been the designer.

The Bottom Line
It's not perfect, and yes, the interface takes some getting used to if you have been living inside Civilization II for the past few years. Besides that, it deserves a lot of credit for actually trying to make some improvements to a game that is now close to five years old. And it's not like the developers of the afore-mentioned classic haven't had the chance to improve it themselves. Four full-priced addons later, and nothing really substantial has happened. Hopefully this will change once Civilization III is released, but until then, if you're a Civilization fan finding yourself on the winning side a bit too often, I see absolutely no reason to leave this on the self. Pick it up - It's a challenge!

Ps. Sorry Sid, none of the above is meant as a personal insult to you. Rather it is intended for the cult of dead that seem to follow you around.

Windows · by Isak (612) · 2000

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Trivia

Civilization title

Call to Power is not related to Sid Meier's Civilization in any way. It is made by a completely different development team, and the only reason it shares a name is because it is based on the Avalon Hill board game Civilization. Trademark lawsuits related to MicroProse's franchise allowed one game based on the board game to be made with the Civilization name, and any sequel must drop the title. The similar gameplay is more coincidental than anything, though it may have been inspired by Sid Meier's Civilization.

Sales

In 1999, Civilization: Call to Power won the Gold-Award from the German VUD (Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland - Entertainment Software Association Germany) for selling more then 100,000 (but less then 200,000) units in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Awards

  • Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland
    • 1999 - Gold Award

Information also contributed by Xoleras and Zack Green

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Related Games

Call to Power II
Released 2000 on Windows
Sid Meier's Civilization V
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Sid Meier's Civilization IV
Released 2005 on Windows, 2006 on Macintosh
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Warlords
Released 2006 on Windows, Macintosh
Sid Meier's Civilization II
Released 1996 on Windows 3.x, 1997 on Macintosh, PlayStation
Civilization II: Test of Time
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Sid Meier's Civilization VI
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  • MobyGames ID: 336
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Brian Hirt.

Macintosh added by Corn Popper. BeOS added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: Michael Dionne, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Evolyzer.

Game added October 30, 1999. Last modified January 29, 2024.