Civ II Companion Guide Creation Thread

Duke of Marlbrough

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Does anyone know if there is a web site that covers everything fir Civ II? I don't mean a forum like CFC or Apolyton, but a web site (kinda like the War Academy, but with lots more info? I guess a blend between the Great Library at Poly and the War Academy; lots of info, but with graphics and a much easier to read format.
 
You are asking for a lot ! The closest thing I can think of was a "CIV2 Strategy Guide" by Ramses ( his Poly screen name... I forget his CFC name). It was ambitious, well-organized, with nice graphics. But I can't find a link to it, and can't remember if he finished it.
 
Can you give me an idea of what sections you may be working on? That way we can avoid duplication of effort.

I started going through the Governments section, just because it is the most straightforward section and fairly small. Just to have the 'one section is done' good feeling. I have no problem with someone else finishing it though.

I went through last night and pulled picture elements, such as food, trade, shield, etc, icons. All of the types of citizens/specialists during the different time periods have also been done.

Units, city improvements, and wonders are next on the list. I'm trying to think of the best way/spot to get these icons. The .gif file that is in the game folder has them with the pink backgrounds. The city build screen seemed pretty good since they would all have the same background. Maybe the cilopedia section...?
 
A good overall "quick reference guide" for game basics (units, advances, engineering work) moreso than strategy is nethogs Civ 2 Reference pack: I use it all the time, especially for a quick lookup on the engineering work required to change various terrain. It's available in Powerpoint or as a PDF file
 
I'm not sure what you mean. The riot factor is the situation when a civilization builds past a certain number of cities additional unhappy people are formed in cities that have already been built. Each form of government has its own 'riot factor', or the number of cities that can be built before creating additional unhappy people. The higher the form of government, the higher the number of cities you can build before the riot factor kicking in.
 
OOPS! I misunderstood what you meant by riot factor. I don't have the data available, but I suggest putting a line in each government discription listing the number of cities you can build before the "riot" factor kicks in for that type of gov.
 
Thanks for the info you sent Ace:
Max. Cities = Riot Factor - ((difficulty level X 2) X ((government / 2) + 2)) / 2

Where: the default value of riot factor = 14
Difficulty level = a range from 0 (Chieftain) through 5 (Diety)
Gov = 0 (Anarchy) 1 (Despotism) 2 (Monarchy) 3 (Communism) 4 (fundy) 5 (Republic) 6 (Democracy)

My main problem is that I don't get it with some of the other info I've seen.

Let's say deity, despotisim
cities = 14-((5*2)*((1/2)+2))/2
C = 14-(10*2.5)/2
C = 14-(12.5)
C = 1.5

Assuming my math is correct, is that then telling me that after the second city (assuming rounding up) that I should see the riot factor kick in, i.e. unhappy people popping up in other cities?

In my quick test, on a large map, not until I built my seventh city did the sixth city become unhappy. So, is it the 2 from the calculation, plus the 4 I have seen others talking about?


Hmm, another quick test, this time on a small map I got my first unhappy at the fifth city.

So, obviously map size matters in the calculation somehow....?
 
Duke of Marlbrough said:
My main problem is that I don't get it with some of the other info I've seen.

Let's say deity, despotisim
cities = 14-((5*2)*((1/2)+2))/2
C = 14-(10*2.5)/2
C = 14-(12.5)
C = 1.5

Assuming my math is correct,
It is not. You went astray when you assumed 1/2=0.5
It actually equals zero. They use integer arithmetic all over the place. If you replace the 0.5 with zero, you get C=4 which corresponds to your empirical observation.
Duke of Marlbrough said:
So, obviously map size matters in the calculation somehow....?
That is not surprising given that map size affects the number of turns in the game as you discussed lately. The designers had set notions about how map size affects difficulty and it manifests itself in a variety of places.
 
I haven't forgotten about this little project...

I can see why so little was done to explore the Riot Factor. It seems to have very little real effect. At the lower levels it doesn't do much and at the higher levels people are already focused on unhappiness that it doesn't seem to add much more to the mix.
 
Duke of Marlbrough said:
I haven't forgotten about this little project...

I can see why so little was done to explore the Riot Factor. It seems to have very little real effect. At the lower levels it doesn't do much and at the higher levels people are already focused on unhappiness that it doesn't seem to add much more to the mix.
Not to mention, at the highest levels like Deity and the Deity+n levels (where most of the people who do this kind of research usually play), you are often actually counting on the riot factor to help you at some point, as double-unhappies + HG/luxuries/elvis = good stuff. I guess it would help to know exactly how much to expand to start seeing benefits, but at that point you're just cranking cities out and you're not going to stop just because you've got 1 black hat in every city.
 
Nice project Duke! And your website is excellent, Sethos. That must have taken a lot of work. I looked around, and followed some links, and somewhere (a long time ago) you asked if it was OK to use what I (and other authors) wrote. Its fine with me. I think it is OK anyway, since all I have posted is part of this or other BBs. And besides, most of what I've learned/written about has been directly or indirectly built on the shoulders of others, and so on. It is always good to have a way to create useful information from the mounds of 'data' which is hard to find just when you want it.

:goodjob:
 
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