***   GEnie CIVILIZATION CONFERENCE   ***
                              Hosted by Scorpia
                      Copyright 1992 by GEnie and Scorpia

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> We're here at MPS Labs with Sid M., Bruce Shelley
and Quentin. We'd like to thank everyone for their interest and support for
CIVILIZATION.  We are here to answer any questions you may have. We had a
great time designing CIVILIZATION and we hope you are having fun playing it.

<[Dondo] D.ALDRICH1> Hi guys.  It's the best ever!! My first question
concerns startup.  Does everyone start with the same number of advances? If I
have only Irrig,roads & mining, do others possibly have more?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Civilizations start with different numbers of
advances depending on the difficulty of their starting locations. (ex: a
civilization starting on a river would have fewer advances than one in the
plains.

<[Dondo] D.ALDRICH1> Second Q: What exactly is the effect of those advances
that "increase" effectiveness, e.g, Oracle, Hoover Dam, etc.  Is it the same
50% kicker as other WOW's?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Basically, yes. Some WOW's add 50%. Others double
the effects. The Manual has the details.

<[Andrew] A.MAYER3> My question has to do with some of the choices you made on
the simulation. It does a good job, but doesn't seem to deal with morality of
human relations, the way, for example, the middle east Peace Conference does.
It makes everything seem purely economic. Or did you model that in somehow?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> That's a pretty broad question. In general we try
not to make specific moral judgements. We do however deal with a number of
issues like pollution, nuclear weapons, democracy vs. despotism that have a
moral dimension.

<[Andrew] A.MAYER3> Well it's frightening to think that you can create such a
realistic model without dealing with the specifics.  What do relevance do
*you* think they have?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Well, we think pollution is bad, and we don't
approve of using nuclear weapons.  In general though, the game is designed to
let you apply your own definition of morality and reap the consequences.

<[Andrew] A.MAYER3> Thanks for an incredible game, that is sucking down vast
amounts of my time.  I'm looking forward to your next effort.

<[JOHN] J.TERRA> First of all, hats off to an absolutely excellent game.....as
well as Railroad Tycoon...they are my two favorites. My first question, is it
my imagination, or do competing civilizations get their knowledge a lot
quicker once the 20th century rolls around? In other wrods, does the computer
cheat?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> In general, the computer does not cheat. There is a
certain amount of advantages/disadvantages built into the Difficulty Levels.
If you see a civilization making rapid tech. advances it might be a
Democracy\Republic, which nearly doubles the rate of tech. advances. Another
method of advancing is by trading technologies with other civilizations.

<[JOHN] J.TERRA> Yeah, but the problem is that the others gets to choose which
of yours you want...2n question is..I play the Warlord Diff level, if I want
to stay alive until the end of the game, is it better not to play with 7 other
civs????? By the way, I LOVE the We LOve the King graphics and music!

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Survival is probably easier with fewer civs.
Althought the game may not be as INTERESTING! Thanks, I'll pass that along to
our artists.

<[paul] P.MACLAUCHLA> Can I abandon a city so that a connquering tribe
can't steal an advnce from me?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> No, we had that feature in the game for a while,
but it seemed unrealistic to eliminate an entire city and its population with
one keystroke. It also make conquering territory both a military and a
political\economic problem, which is what the game is about.

<[paul] P.MACLAUCHLA> Is civil war covered in the manual?  Why does it
occur?  Great game... Thanks! :-)

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Civil wars occur very rarely and only in cities
which are in disorder or have an equal number or happy and unhappy citizens.

<[Conrad] C.EVANS7> Will the upcomming CIV book detail the specific advantages
the computer has, such as pillaging by military units?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> The CIV book will have lots of inside info. I don't
understand the question. Your military units can pillage the same as the
computer's.

<[Conrad] C.EVANS7> Will there be a minor maintenance release to fix the
norther landmass appearance and city screen problems?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> We are working with QA to document and correct any
current problems.

<[martin] M.GLAZER> fantastic game sid. any chance that we will get modem
play?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Sorry, modem play is not likely. We made a lot of
decisions which improved the one player version but which would make a multi
player version more difficult.

<[Oldog] F.KENYON1> Have progressed painfully to king 3,random: find in
20th cen last adversary is far ahead in space, but half, in pop. How?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Consider the USA and the Chinese. Large populations
are not necessarily equivalent to advanced technology.

[Oldog] F.KENYON1> (Game is major event: Congrats!) Any thoughts on how, now,
you would change civ?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> It's too early to think about changes. So far we're
pretty happy with the way the game turned out.

<[Wendy & John] WENDYSUE> Our 1st question is this:  Is there any way to
locate a specific unit (i.e. a specific phalanx, etc.) on the map (especially
from the city screen)?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> The best way is to call up the Map function on the
information window of the City Display. This display shows the location of all
units supported by this city as light grey dots, and trade cities as light
green dots. (pg. 76 in manual).

<[Wendy & John] WENDYSUE> thanks...actually, our 2nd question was already
asked...great game :)  We bought two copies because otherwise we'd be headed
to divorce court :)

<L.MICKLUS> Sid - I'd like to know what your three favorite NON-MICROPROSE
games are? (Reverse registeration card, eh). Bruce - same question.

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> EMPIRE, SIM CITY, and an old game called The
SENTRY. I'll also add my all time favorite SEVEN CITIES of GOLD.

<E.DICTOR> What is the method the program uses to automatically allocate land
for development during normal population growth?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> The computer picks what it thinks is best,
supplying food first, then resources, and then trade.

<E.DICTOR> Is there such a thing as a trustworthy computer-run civilization?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Well, a civilization that is at war with three
other civs is likely to be trustworthy. At least until those wars are
concluded.  In general, Lincoln and Gandhi are the most trustworthy. G. Khan
is not to be trusted.

<E.DICTOR> Since I got the game I haven't had a full night's sleep! That's the
best compliment I can think of.

<[Paul] P.DRYE> The only way I've been able to win a war is by being much
bigger than my opponent and mashing him/her/it. It works but it's crude. Can
you give us some idea of how the computer prosecutes wars, so I know how to
crush him better (hahahaHAHAHA! Love this game!)?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> In general more is better, there are a couple of
tactics that can help defeat a larger civ. Go for the enemy capital, this may
split the enemy civ and will force them to build a new palace.  Use extra cash
to incite revolts in enemy cities. Or bribe other civs to go to war with your
enemy.

<[Paul] P.DRYE> As well as revealing the whole map, the "Shift 1234..." hint
Quentin posted, the function keys are remapped (some of them at least). What
do the new keys do? They've mostly mystified me.

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> We strongly discourage the use of the 'cheat' keys.
This information is used for our debugging only.

<D.JARVIS2> To start with, Railroad Tycoon and Red Storm Rising are my
favorite games, bar none.  When I was in the Navy talking about RSR once, one
of our Electronic Warfare guys said "you can't talk about that, that stuff is
classified! We told him it was from a comupter game.  QUESTION- how come those
fun little animations aren't in the Amiga version of RRT? The RSR ones were
great!

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> I don't know much about the Amiga RRT, it was done
in England and is designed for the capabilities of the typical European Amiga
configuration, which may not be as fully configured as the typical US machine.

<D.JARVIS2> That's a shame, settling for 2nd best, when a memory check
could have accomplished the config check. Is there any limit on amount of
signal towers?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> I think the limit is the same as the IBM:
96 signals+stations.

<H.AXELRAD> IThis question may have asked, but, Has either one of you
played the Board game Civilization by Avalon Hill?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Yes, we've all player the AH game, Bruce
used to work at AH.

<[mel] M.CHIN5> Both RRT and Civ are thoroughly addicting one-player games.
Do you plan on any multi-player games such as these?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Dan Bunten is writing some good multi-player games:
Command HQ, etc. He's working on one now called Global Conquest. I'm not sure
what we'll do next.

<[mel] M.CHIN5> Do you have any ideas for your next project?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> We've got a French and German version of CIV which
we're finishing up now. After that we'll start thinking about new game ideas.

<[Dondo] D.ALDRICH1> Hi again.  I am afraid the "details" are **not** in the
manual concerning two WOWs--Copernicus doubles effect of knowledge production,
but Newton "increases the benefit" of U's & L's;same for Michelangelo.  What
exactly is effect?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Newton increases libraries and U's by 50% Mike's
chapel increases the benefit of catherals from 4 happy improvements to 6 happy
improvements. These effects were being fine tuned when the manual was being
written.

<[Dondo] D.ALDRICH1> Great.  What is relationship between gold/lightbulbs and
income/tech advance?e.g, how many to get each? Thanks!

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> I'm not sure I understand the question. The number
of lightbulbs required for an advance increases as you acquire more
technology.

<[Dan & Mark] DEWEY> Two questions concerning things that aren't in the manual
(I have read all of all of them, but I might be wrong).  First, what is the
choice "subvert city"?  Why does it cost twice as much?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Subvert city has the same effect as Incite revolt
except that Incite causes the other civ to declare war on you. Subvert can be
done without causing a war.

(Job 16)<[Dan & Mark] DEWEY> Second, I notice if you use RMB on CHANGE in the
city screen, you get a feature called "AUTO" that seems to go through and
build everything one by one.  Have I found a cheat?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> No, AUTO is another late-breaking feature. It puts
the city in a mode where it automatically builds city improvements as
recommended by your domestic advisor.

<[Conrad] C.EVANS7> A followup on my previous question - only MY settlers can
pillage, NOT my military inits. (I just checked)

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> As far as I know, any military unit can
pillage (Shift-P)  Only settlers can clear up pollution (p).

<[Conrad] C.EVANS7> okay.. my mistake I was trying P sorry .. great game

<[Courtney] C.SEITH1> FIrst, question-kind of a followup of a previous
one,  what ideas are you planning to "look into"?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Any suggestions?  We don't have any specific plans.

<AGNARI> have you though about giving some user flexibility over controlling
things like frequency of barbarians? that is to say, let them adjust the
level/frequency

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> The frequency of barbarians is tied to the Diff.
Level. also, building cities causes that area to stop generating barbarians,
so build lots of cities

<AGNARI> Q #2, when I'm attacked in the Democ government, and I try to go to
war to defend my self the people keep revolting about the units away from
home. What gives with these pinheads, do the want the country defended or the
armies at home so how do we deal with hostile countries and citizens at home?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Well, under a democracy there ar always a wide
variety of opinions. Your options are to change govt. to Monarchy/Communism.
Republic is also better than Democracy, build Women's Sufferage, or raise your
luxury rates.

<AGNARI> I've usually tried to build every city feature that helps the
population(temple/libray/univ/cath) ect.  OIC so after attack go back to
Monarchy, but what if the civilization is only being supported do to the
increased production Demo fosters

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> IT'S NOT EASY BEING KING!  Trade-offs like this are
what this game is all about.

<LORD.MHORAM> I would just like to make a comment. Sid, et.al., I've been a
fan of Microprose stuff since I first bought Hellcat Ace for my Atari 800
YEARS and YEARS ago. I have a stack of MPS games you wouldn't believe, and I
hope you continue making these wonderful programs... accolades and applause
all arund

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Thanks, mom.

<LORD.MHORAM> chuckle

<M.HAULT> At prince level, I captured Paris and got a bank, court, and temple.
I quit, reloaded, recaptured, and got barracks and granary. The third time I
got a bank and barracks. What gives? Also, is this related to the seemingly
random generation of wonders by computer players?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Variability is built into the game. Things are
designed not to happen the same way each time.

<M.HAULT> Maybe,  but how can the computer have different improvements at the
same time if there are three different sets at the same turn in a game?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> When you capture a city some of the improvement
remain and some are destroyed.  Those which are destroyed will vary each time
you capture the city.  You are seeing the improvements which remain
undestroyed.

<[Bobo] F.FREECE1> Microprose has been releasing sequel/updates to some of
it's "Classics". Any chance of ever seeing PIRATES II!? (and I can get rid of
my C-64)

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> We've talked about it here at MPS. Nothing definite
at this point.

<[Bobo] F.FREECE1> Why no chance to immediatly restart after quitting? Or at
least after winning?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE>  It turned out to be very difficult to reliable
reset all the game variables without reloading the game. To be safe we require
a reload.

<[Bobo] F.FREECE1> Why the dig at Dan Quayle? (4 levels under Lenin?)

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE>  We took Dan out for a while but there was a
groundswell of sentiment for putting him back in the game.

<H.AXELRAD> I wanted to know if I should watch out for 'liberties' taken by
the computer. for instance, in RRT, the computer expanded from his stations in
all directions. what about CIV, any 'funny' computer stuff I shuold look for?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> In general, the computer plays by the same rules as
the player. The difficulty levels adjust certain factors in the players favor
or the computer's favor.

<H.AXELRAD> the second q is mor like a comment. first, let me say that i'm
glad you guys have gone public, the company looks like it should make a strong
move. second, i noticed that the last 2 games from MPS i liked wer based on
board games...1830 and CIV... any plans to do some others.... like TITAN?? (my
favorite and i think a good game)

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Board games and computer games are very
different, but we look at lots of sources for general game ideas.

<[Wendy & John] WENDYSUE> Is there any advantage to having more than one or
two units fortifying a city? I tend to overfortify...is that why I'm in the
Dan Quayle ranks? :)

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Yes, each unit will help to keep the population
from disorder (unless you are in Dem\Rep). Also each unit gets a chance do
defend the city if it is attacked. I usually keep at least two defensive units
in each city.

<[Wendy & John] WENDYSUE> thanks again....and I have a suggestion...how about
a political strategy game? I.E. election - congress or presidential?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Interesting.

<[Speed Demon] D.DUSSIAS> Yeah, I was wondering whats your background Sid or
Bruce, like what did you major in, & what do you develop on, and what
language do you use?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Sid: I have a degree in Comp. Science from the
University of Michigan.  I've been writing games for about 10 years. First on
the ATARI 800, then the C-64, and now on the IBM.  Most of our programs are
written in C. Bruce: I have a degree in Forest Biology from Syracuse
University and the SUNY College of Forestry. Graduate school in economics at
UVA. Been working on games for over 11 years.

<[Speed Demon] D.DUSSIAS> (why do Amiga Ports take so LONG?)Last
question, Any words for a fellow CS student in Michigan? :')

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> GO BLUE. <grin> Amiga ports are done England as
time permits.

<E.KERN1> what does the game consider to be the most effective use of nuclear
weapons, besides none ie..capital city,military targets?ga

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> If you must use Nuclear Weapons, the enemy capital
is probably the best target. But any attack is likely to cause retaliation.

<E.KERN1> also wanted to second the vote for pirates II...and im happy
to be a stockholder (of Microprose, that is).

<[Anthony] A.LLOYD3> When a computer civilization is producing something, is
the AI good enough to  change midstream or does it have to wait till
completion?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> The computer will change production in midstream
if the situation changes.

<R.BESAW1> I saw a mention aboyut Pirates II is that a for real thing

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Pirates II is just a rumor at this point, but
things may change.

<R.BESAW1> well lets just say it's the ONLY game that I continully go back to
time and time again and KOEI made a stab at a version of it but fell way short

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Argggggghh! Thanks.

<[Mel] M.CHIN5> Early in a game of CIV, when a civ is eliminated another
appears to replace it somewhere else... until when does this happen?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> I depends, if no empty continent is available, new
civs will not appear after the year 1 AD. No new civs will appear in any case
after the year 1750 (or so, I forget exactly).

<[Mel] M.CHIN5> I know that Bruce used to work for AH. Does he still
play any boardgames regularly?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> Not much recently. Some German imports. '1835', a
railroad game about German railroads. Friends gather at my home  occasionally
on Thursday nights...ga

<[Mel] M.CHIN5> How about Empire in Arms? .

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> I playtested that game every Wednesday night for
over a year with Craig Taylor et al. Promised myself never again.

<[paul] P.MACLAUCHLA> Is it my imagination, or does the "Go To" instruction
sometimes use a non-direct route?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> The GoTo command has a few weaknesses. It will try
to use roads if possible and this may lead to an indirect route. Its best to
move a unit yourself unless you're not to conerned about when it gets to its
destination.

<[paul] P.MACLAUCHLA> Is it possible to win a game with an economic rather
than military strategy?

<[Sid & Bruce] MICROPROSE> It is possible but not easy. With a large treasury
you can Subvert enemy cities, bribe enemy units, and buy peace with other
civs.  This can get pretty expensive though. A mixture of economic and
military strategies is usually most effective.

<SCORPIA> Sid, Bruce, and Quentin (who probably did all the typing ;)...thank
you for being here tonight!! And that concludes tonight's conference...thank
you all for coming!