A Civ II MGE "No-CD" patch...

The last MGE version is 5.4 dated 26 March 1999, Patch 3. I tried that "no cd" crack a few years ago (on a win 98 machine) and it worked just fine.

It works as Starlifter said, fine for me. Thanks to you all!

Ok, took me a little while to get all the patches I wanted running, but I don't like the MGE interface when playing the single-player version...so I came up with this alternative 2-part-patch

In the .zip files you need, you'll find

i) Civ2 MGE patch including the No-CD crack (for all the times I've gone to play a network game only to find I haven't got my CD with my laptop! )
ii) MS-DOS batch files to install and uninstall as necessary with a converter file! To use when you want to convert between the multiplayer and your original version.

Your two downloads are below...

File 1 and File 2

Installation is simple

i) Unzip File 1 to c:\mps\civ2\
ii) Unzip File 2 to c:\mps\civ2\civ2mge\
iii) Run the installmge.bat file in c:\mps\civ2\civ2mge\
iv) Create any necessary shortcuts to both civ2 and the converter

Done!

NB: if you've installed civ2 to a folder or drive other than c:\mps\civ2\ then I'd recommend moving the game to this directory, rather than adjusting the three batch files accordingly

Extra NB: if you don't want the converter, and just the patch that gives you MGE with no-cd crack, then download all, run installmge.bat and manually delete converter.bat, uninstallmge.bat and the folders 'original' and 'civ2mge'

EDIT: found a bug in the conversion but all fixed now with a nice new conversion

Has anyone tried running civ2_13.com in Vista? I had no problems with it in XP but when i run it in Vista it says Crack Unsuccesseful!!!!....damn Vista....anyone have an idea?

Hmmm, I guess it's a little late in the game for a No-CD patch for Win7 x64

starlifter said:

Since Thunderfall has actually posted a NO-CD patch (AKA "crack") in a different thread, and many have asked in this section about running Civ II MGE with no CD, I'll make some comments and include the link of TF's post.

TF's thread is here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=79489&t=4208#post79489

And the NO-CD crack is here: http://www.civfanatics.com/uploads/Civ2_No-CD_patch_crack_(MGE).zip

Click to expand...

The first link seems to go to a wrong topic; "Send Ctp2 Clan Ways" started by Tripa not Thunderfall.
And the second link is to a page that no longer exists.

Maybe not so strange that links this old don't work.


Why do people want no-cd-cracks? (I know about piracy but I'm sure that's not the case here.) Is it so inconvenient to use the CD?

Sir_Lancelot said:

Why do people want no-cd-cracks? (I know about piracy but I'm sure that's not the case here.) Is it so inconvenient to use the CD?

Click to expand...

Sir Lancelot, after 15+ years my CD isn't exactly in great condition. The No CD Crack guarantees I'll be able to continue to play the game even if my CD goes. Also, with the No CD crack I can play on my netbook (which has no cd/dvd drive) and my laptop (whose drive has a bad lens) without the annoyance of carting around my external dvd drive!

I simply use PowerISO. I made an .iso image of my Civ2 CD a long time ago, put it on my HDD (~500 MB) and whenever I want to play it, I just load the image.
Additionally, I keep my favorite scenarios/patches within that image and can take it anywhere on a simple USB drive along with the program to play civ2 anywhere any time.

Still, it would be much better to just have the no-cd crack and play MGE like the old civ.
I never understood why game developers chose to force players to have the CD in the drive to play, it's a very, very poor security measure that is easily broken a day after premiere of the game. It only serves to annoy normal players that purchased the game and doesn't prevent piracy in the least. But that is another story.

dizpo said:

Hmmm, I guess it's a little late in the game for a No-CD patch for Win7 x64

Click to expand...

Am just encountering this too...
Bummer.

Sir_Lancelot said:

The first link seems to go to a wrong topic; "Send Ctp2 Clan Ways" started by Tripa not Thunderfall.
And the second link is to a page that no longer exists.

Maybe not so strange that links this old don't work.


Why do people want no-cd-cracks? (I know about piracy but I'm sure that's not the case here.) Is it so inconvenient to use the CD?

Click to expand...

Note: CD refers to CD/DVD in this context.


1. The BB has had changes and things archived, and link structure changed.

2. The context of this 10 years ago was that the board owner (TF) ok'd this particular hack. A hack is any unofficial change in an author's program. In the old days of PC's, floppy disks and later CD's were used as one method of ensuring that a person had the original CD. Today, the concept is obsolete since you can mount a disk image to a virtual CD (e.g., with the free version of Daemon Tools).

3. Is it so inconvenient to use the CD?
ABSOLUTELY.
A person would be a brain dead village idiot if they preferred using a mechanical CD (e.g., the physical MGE CD).
Power consumption, noise, inconvenience, swapping, et al.




The real MGE problem today is that if you dust off your old Civ2 CD, you will not be able to install the game using the installer from the original MGE disk in x64 without effort (though there is a thread on how to do it at CFC).


Further, there are 4 separate 'main' issues in MGE for use in a vanilla Win x64 OS. One can use a virtual PC (MS has a 'free' XP machine available for Win 7 Pro and higher). Many threads address some of the methods.


Each of these 4 items should be addressed, and solved in succession, to play Civ 2 in Windows 64 natively. There is a "simple way" to do all this, and several more complicated ways. Some methods have been partly addressed in other threads I've read.


Since this thread is simply for No-CD (which means hacking the Civ 2 MGE executable to eliminate the machine level calls for CD accesses), I'll make new topic regarding modern machines, for future generations that play Civ 2 64-bit devices without using a virtual envronment.

Celebrine said:

Am just encountering this too...
Bummer.

Click to expand...

Civ 2 MGE can be played natively in any version of NT windows, with no CD, and near-zero CPU power draw. But it is a pain for most people to plow that road themselves. I need to test a few things first, but will make a new thread for an AiO solution soon.


Note regarding top (original) post from 10 years ago: the 2 links are not valid (the link to TF's original post is not correct because the thread ID's have changed).

The Civilization II nocd crack patches just 3 bytes in the original 1.3 file, and still works today as long as you do it from the command prompt in a 32-bit environment. I've successfully retested it using Win7 x64, using the MS Windows XP Mode (which is run within Win7 x64, and is32-bit).


The new link and filename ('new' since my 1st post) for the NoCD crack (hack/patch) which replaces 3 bytes (see footnote):

www.civfanatics.net/downloads/civ2/utility/Civ2_13crk.zip



Footnote:

The NoCD crack does not work on Win 8.1

It's very nice to have those hex addresses, I just cracked my own civ2.exe with the first free hex editor that I got from google search. Anybody can do it if they can't use the patcher for some reason.

hutmeil said:

The NoCD crack does not work on Win 8.1

Click to expand...

Ditto 8.0

However, there is a workaround ->
copying the No CD.exe file from my Win 7 computer and simply dropping it in the Civ 2 folder did work (I had to add .exe to the filename once it was in my Win 8 Civ 2 folder).

The x64 patch is giving me an error ->
ERROR : File Civ2 Exename does not exists
ERROR : Operation aborted
But is still working. I currently have Civ 2 up and running on my new Win 8 machine.

I now have a thumb drive dedicated to saving copies of my Civ 2 files.

(deleted)

How can I run this on windows 8? It says ''This app can't run on your PC''