Solver: For those thinking that myself and Locutus are two fanboys talking about the game, I'd like to quote Velocyrix on CtP. Back in 2001, he said: "I lurked in the [CtP] forums there for a while[..], and from what I could see, it was a game with a few innovative concepts, poorly executed. A week of lurking there, and I decided it just wasn’t something I wanted to spend time on. " And, some 15 months after that, Vel said: "From what I have seen so far, it's a simply stunning system! Best 19 bucks I ever spent on a computer game!" And about the same time: "Ohhhh man! I cannot believe I have been missing out on this GEM of a game for so long!". That's a classic example of how one can come to admire the beauty and depth of CtP if he can throw away the prejudices after hearing all the criticism

Locutus: Yes, absolutely. Velocyrix’s posts after his first experiences with the game are probably the best advertisement that CtP2 could ever wish for, both because of their contents and their source. Since they so closely reflect my own opinion, I want to give an excerpt as well:

“Oh....I can clearly see why the game was modded, but the thing is....even UN-Modded, it's so much more intricate, and epic than other games in the genre....it's, IMO, a better blending of concepts than EU [...] More governments, more options, a real sense of empire, an army system, statistics galore, EXTREME moddability....::shakes head:: I can't for the life of me explain my hesitancy where this game is concerned, but I know I'll be making up for some serious lost time now that I have it!”


Solver: Mods are indeed one of the strongest CtP points. I think that the people who contributed to our gaming experience with their mods deserve a mention for their work here....

Locutus: There are far, far too many of them and I try to avoid naming people whenever possible because I know I won’t be able to list everyone: for one thing there isn’t enough space and for another I just know I’ll forget several of them. But if you must have a list of highlights (which is probably gonna be a bore to read, but you asked for it):

For CtP1: Lee Water who made the Lee Water's mod, TP made PowerSLICs, Dutcheese designed his popular Scenario Pack, Morgoth (and his wife Katy) for their brilliant artwork, of course the (then) famous Tuscon Luke Loh, creator of Celestial Dawn's Mod, and WesW who was initially known for his True Terrain Mod but later created Awesome Aips with Nordicus and after that the legendary Medieval Mod, in cooperation with a whole group of people. There were many others of course, whose work can all still be downloaded from the CtP1 section of the Apolyton Directory. But people like Paul, Harlan (both of Civ2 fame; and Harlan also designed the Alexander the Great scenario that CtP2 ships with), skorpion59, gemini, Timothy Pintello, MrBaggins, Depp, Daniel Frappier, DiscoveryOne, Gedrin, TheBirdMan, ETB, CTPFan, and even MarkG should not remain unnamed.

And then there’s CtP2 of course: BlueO made the AI Frenzy Mod and CitySprawl Mod, Dale is the creator of Diplomod, (Super) Apolyton Pack, World at War! and Ages of Man!, OmniGod made the BMP World Map, Hannibal Ad Portas the SPQR scenarios (here and here), hexagonian is of Cradle of Civilizations fame and also made the War of the Rings scenario, Martin Gühmann is responsible for the City Mod and Goodmod and Peter Triggs can claim Call to Conquest as well as Defense of France Reconsidered. kaan made the Fix Mod, player1 is the author of MyMod, Immortal Wombat did countless small projects, most famous being OCC, Visible Wonders and Natural Wonders, Pedrunn is the mind behind City Expansion and the Space Scenario, and with mapfi's aid the Religion Mod. FRITZ did numerous scenarios and maps, Paul made ModSwapper for CtP2, J Bytheway is the creator of CtPEd and ModManager, and Martin the Dane brought us TileEdit, ReadZFSFile and recently a Sprite Editor (among other things). Let’s also not forget Diodorus Sicilus, Alley Cat, Jules, and The Big Mc. Again, these were just the highlights. The many other great names of the Apolyton CtP2 community of the past 3+ years can be found in the Apolyton Directory.

One group of people who should not be overlooked are the Activisioners: even long after they left Activision, they remained on Apolyton to help out the modding community wherever they could. Now that’s loyalty! We all owe Joe Rumsey (MrOgre), Winnie Lee (St Swithin/ st_swithin), David Ray (Pyaray), Richard Myers (Azmel/Azmel2), Steve Mariotti (MrOwl) and John Heinecke (LT John) a great deal, to name only the most prominent ones.