| Avalon
Hill |
This page is meant to keep you informed abou the Advanced Civilization computer game from Avalon Hill.
You can purchase the game from your local computer store, or direct from Avalon Hill by calling 1-410-254-9200. The Internet Shopping Network also has it in stock.
There is a demo version you can download and try out. Warning -- the demo is 2.4 MB compressed, so it will probably take you a while to download it. If you'd prefer to ftp it, you can find it at ftp://ftp.intr.net/pub/mlilback/acivdemo.exe. Note -- I'd much prefer it if you use the web link above, not the ftp one.
There are some known bugs with the game (especially for users on Windows 95), and Avalon Hill has a patch for the game. The patch is 300K, and you can download it via the web or ftp at ftp://ftp.intr.net/pub/mlilback/acptch01.exe.
Also, for questions on the game, Avalon Hill has set up a special email address, ahadvciv@aol.com, to handle questions and feedback about the game.
At the suggestions of some visitors, I think it'd be interesting to tabulate some data about how people play Advanced Civilization, and especially under what conditions they win. So, here's what I'd like you to do -- send me your completed games. On your last turn, right when it shows you a player moving on to the finish square, save the game. Then email it to me as an attatchment.
I'll then grab all the useful and useless data I can from viewing your saved game. Then I'll combine all that data to make some cool graphs and stuff showing what civilizations players prefer, what countries get played the least, how often does the player win, how much do they win by, etc.
I think this could turn out to be a pretty interesting project, so send me your saved game files and watch here to see how it turns out.
The game is very similar to the board game. Here's a quote from AH about the rules differences between the board game and the computer version:
Currently, the only rules changes involve trading and military. Trading now consist of three cards, one of which may or may not be a bluff. Only the player making the offer knows which is the bluff. There is a varient to play true to the board game and reveal only the two true cards. The second involved military only during a PBEM game. The PBEM system has everyone send in their move at the same time. Everyone moves blind of what the others have done, regardless of possition on the cenus. This defeats the purpose of military, so military now serves the same as metalworking during combat. To implement the board game rules, it would be neccessary to have excessive file transfers for the movement phase instead of just one per player.
The game takes place in the Mediterranean, with the aera of play streaching from North Africa and lower England on one side, to the Middle East. Avalon Hill has given permission to distribute a copy of the map online. This is of great benefit to players of the computer version, as it has the names of the territories on it, which is a great help in PBEM games. You can view it as a 191 K GIF or as a 106 K JPEG.
If you'd like to see what the game looks like, here are some screen shots:
There currently isn't a mac version. But, I am playing it on my PowerMac via SoftWindows (solo games and pbem). To do this, you'll need at least 24 MB of RAM (Adv Civ needs a pc with 8 MB, so that means SoftWindows needs at least 16 MB. The game is slow, but I love it so much that I'm willing to take the speed delays.)
The one trick for pbem games is mailing the files. I couldn't get Eudora on the mac to send the files successfully. So, what I did was install Eudora for Windows. To get this to run, rename the file "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\WINSOCK.DLL& to "WINSOCK.OLD", and then copy the file "C:\INSIGNIA\WINSOCK.DLL" into the "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM" directory. Then you can make a connection with MacTCP, and windows will use that.
Looks for lots more to come soon, including information on a play-by-email server I'm writing for the game. (Actually it's not a server, but it will set up a game to your specification.) If there's something you'd like to see, let me know.
