Civilization II

Civilization II , or Sid Meier's Civilization II, is a turn-based strategy game, the sequel to Sid Meier's Civilization. Brian Reynolds was the lead designer. It was released in 1996 for the PC and later ported to the Sony PlayStation. It is also called Civ II for short.

Note that Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is the indirect sequel to this game, since one of the ways to win is to launch a spaceship to a planet in Alpha Centauri, how the game Alpha Centauri starts off. Civilization III was the actual sequel.

Description

Civilization II is very much like the first Civilization, with some changes to the units and civilizations and additional wonders, units, tile "specials" and technologies included. The graphics (greatly improved with clickable links and movable windows) have been changed from top-down view to isometric representation.

Rivers no longer occupy the whole of each tile along its length. The river is just part of each topography square it flows through, adding productive value and movement ability. Rivers now act much like roads- moving from one river square to another will cost only 1/3 of a movement point.

The game features entirely new concepts, such as firepower and hitpoints (meaning phalanxes cannot so easily beat battleships), and changes some units' abilities and strengths. For instance, engineers and settlers can be automated to improve surrounding areas, but no longer ignore enemy zones of control. Legions cost more and have greater attack and defense values; some new units are added such as stealth bomber and stealth fighter.

One memorable element in the game is the ability to consult the "High Council" for advice (as long as the player still has the CD in the drive). The council consists of film clips of young actors portraying advisors in the areas of the military (a brawny man, often drunk, angry or both; he becomes a stereotypical American general when you reach Modern Age), economics (a snooty and suave businessman), diplomacy (a saucy Femme Fatale with a vaguely Eastern European accent), technological progress (a stereotypically nerdy scientist), and the people's happiness (an Elvis Presley lookalike). They often argue with and insult one another, as each advisor's department demands a different set of priorities. The counselors' costumes change with each new era. In many ways, the 'High Council' constitutes a bit of comic relief. Amusingly, when the player is experiencing anarchy, the characters begin talking at the same time, interrupting each other, and finally beginning to fight, with all counselor windows shutting down and turning into the "A" symbol of Anarchism.

Scoring and Winning the Game

There are two paths to victory in this game: to conquer every other civilization, or to build a spaceship and reach Alpha Centauri. The latter can be much more difficult because there are a limited number of turns in the game, ending in the year 2020. If the spaceship does not reach Alpha Centauri by then, the game will simply end. The player can continue playing after all civilizations have been conquered, the spaceship has reached its destination, or the year 2020, but there will no longer be any scoring.

The sooner a player conquers every other civilization, the better as far as scoring is concerned.

There is a scoring system which will measure how well one did. Each happy citizen contributes two points, each content citizen contributes one point, and each unhappy citizen contributes zero points. This means that the higher the population of your civilization, the higher you can expect your score to be. Corrupt players may increase the luxury rate to the maximum (depending upon their government type) right before the very end of the game in order to inflate their scores. Each wonder of the world will also add 20 points to the end score. Each square with pollution deducts ten points.

The final score will also give a civilization percentage. The higher this percentage is, the better. Finally, a title will be given to the player. Particularly good ones include "Lion-Hearted," "the Great" with the greatest obtainable title being "The Magnificent"

Expansions

There were three expansion packs that slowly added more features to the game. The first was Conflicts in Civilization included 20 new scenarios, 12 created by the makers of the game, and 8 produced by fans. It also added an enhanced macro language for scenario scripting. It was followed by Fantastic Worlds which added 19 new scenarios as well as a variety of editors for the game. The final expansion was the Multiplayer Gold Edition, a re-release of the original game, which bundle the prior expansion packs and added options for networked and hotseat play.

Test of Time was released in 1999. It was a stand-alone game with new features, such as redrawn, animated units, support for multiple maps in one game, and some new campaign modes.

Awards

Civ II was placed on the IGN.com Top 100 Games list ^*, coming in at #4. This list also included console games, and Civ II was the highest-ranked PC game.

Related games

Civilization II is a game with longevity. While most PC games come and go in a matter of months, this game was still going strong after several years and inspired many titles including Activision's Call To Power series and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. This longevity, at least in part, is due to an unending stream of mods and scenarios produced by its enormous fan base.

The game was followed by Firaxis' Civilization III.

Features

Civilizations

In addition, if one looks at the programming, it reveals that the Arabs and Incans were originally to be in the game, one need only replace another available civilization's information with theirs to play them. It is also possible to edit the text and other data files to easily add a custom civilization.

Technologies

The programming shows Plumbing can be activated as an early researchable advance; however, it adds nothing to the gameplay.

Units

There are 45 units in Civilization II. Most of them existed in the original 'Civilization', but there are a few new ones (Paratrooper and Marines, for example), and a few have been renamed. (For example, Militia are now called Warriors, and Cavalry are now called Horsemen.) In addition, some previous units have had their properties changed. The biggest examples of this are how the Chariot's attack was reduced from 4 to 3 and how sea units can no longer conquer an enemy city.

For more details: Civilization II units

The Barbarians have a special version of the diplomat that acts as a 'leader' to various spawned units; 'capturing' (defeating) it will net the player a certain amount of gold, that amount depending on the difficulty level. A popup box will report this is a 'ransom payment'.

City Improvements

Wonders of the World

Ancient

Renaissance

Industrial Revolution

Modern

Game modification

While expansions are sold separately, the PC version is programmed so that computer-savy players can modify the game themelves. Amongst the files installed on the user's computer when the game is installed is a file called "rules.txt" which controls the game. The text file itself practically encourages the user to modify the game, giving instructions on how to change unit capabilities, add up to three custom units, and change other basic charactersistics of the game such as when wonders expire.

Advanced computer users can also modify the game by changing the visual files (such as units.gif). While there is a risk of damaging the gameplay, it is possible to change the appearance of units, terrain, people, etc.

NOTE: It is advised that before modifying any of these files, the user copy these files to a safe location in case any file is changed in a way that affects the game irreparably.

Trivia

Sound effects used during combat come from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Music and Video

Civilization II's music is in the Red book CD-audio format, the same as that found on normal music CD's. The music can be played back through any CD-ROM drive or stereo. Over 200mb of space on the Civilization II CD is taken up by the music, while around 280mb is occupied by the videos. These two features are often removed ("ripped out") in pirated copies of Civilization II, leaving only the program data and reducing the size of the game to around 30mb.

External links

Civilization Lost, a Civilization community
The Civ 2 & ToT Scenario League
Civilized Online Gaming Community
Moby Game's entry on Civilization II
Civfanatics: site covering Civ1, Civ2, Civ3, and Civ4
Apolyton Civilization Site
Custom Civ2 Scenarios
Alan Nicoll's Civ2 web pages
Game Demo

Civilization II | Civilization II | Civilization II | Civilization II | Civilization II

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Civilization II