Converting Civ Archives to PDF

Prof. Garfield

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I'm going to call this the Civilization II Compendium Project.

Here you can find the pdf of the Civilization II Compendium (in .zip form) as well as the LaTeX source code. If I move these items, I will link to the new location.

I've compiled the LaTeX code on ShareLaTeX https://www.sharelatex.com/ , so anyone should be able to compile it there without any problems. (A basic account on that site is free.) At the moment, any save files referenced in the book will be kept in the LaTeX source code.


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Original Post

Is there any interest in taking Civ 2 knowledge from old threads and putting it into PDF form? I just did The Essential Starlifter using LaTeX, and it didn't take very long.

If you think this is a good idea, please take a look at the original thread and the attached PDF and let me know if you have any concerns about presentation, formatting, or whatever.

Original PDF removed.
 

Attachments

  • Civilization_II_Compendium_v02.zip
    1.3 MB · Views: 702
  • Civ II Compendium LaTeX Code v02.zip
    1.1 MB · Views: 252
  • Civ_II_Compendium_v02_Table_of_Contents.pdf
    274.4 KB · Views: 279
In principle, this is a good idea. But you are correct to wonder if there is enough interest to justify putting much work into this. So, speaking for myself...

I only play a few times per year, and usually do not bother to look up anything anymore. This is partly because the Great Library at Apolyton has failed me in recent years (I am not even sure it is still up) and the War Academy here is pretty useless. It sounds nice, that you might offer the best files as pdfs, which I could organize easily on my laptop, but to be honest, there is a strong possibility I'd never get around to DL'ing them or using them.

Just for the record, I also use LaTeX (but am not volunteering myself!).
 
I got the idea when I realized that you can cut and paste forum posts into LaTeX without worrying about the existing formatting. Then it is a matter of putting in \section and \subsection and putting backslashes before % (easy with a editor that has colours). Some other stuff is needed also, of course.

i may end up doing this anyway to learn more about LaTeX (especially managing large documents) without having to actually write something myself, but if there is little interest from the civ 2 community for these documents, I won't go to much trouble putting in the italics from the original document, checking that the paragraphs are the same, etc.
 
I support any effort in getting Civ II info preserved in a more permanent form. Right now it may seem like these forums are not going anywhere, but a ton of the old Civ II modding info is gone from Apolyton and old personal sites, so the more copies exist, the better. There will come a day when CivFanatics no longer exists as a site, and while one might presume that Civ II will be relegated to a curiosity of history and not played much by then (if it can be played at all on holographic quantum computers ;)), projects like the ToTPP on this very forum suggest otherwise. So, the more info there is in various forms, the better.

Formatting is a minor issue, imo. Quantity > quality is definitely the maxim to follow here.
 
Remember solo's Early Landing Guide? Guess how many pages it is. Find out the answer in version 0.1. (Unfortunately, the pdf size limit for this site forced me to upload it as a .zip file.)
 
Version 0.2 is up. I've made a separate pdf containing the Table of Contents that can be examined without using an archive utility.
 
I'm going to call this the Civilization II Compendium Project.

Here you can find the pdf of the Civilization II Compendium (in .zip form) as well as the LaTeX source code. If I move these items, I will link to the new location.

I've compiled the LaTeX code on ShareLaTeX https://www.sharelatex.com/ , so anyone should be able to compile it there without any problems. (A basic account on that site is free.) At the moment, any save files referenced in the book will be kept in the LaTeX source code.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Original Post

Is there any interest in taking Civ 2 knowledge from old threads and putting it into PDF form? I just did The Essential Starlifter using LaTeX, and it didn't take very long.

If you think this is a good idea, please take a look at the original thread and the attached PDF and let me know if you have any concerns about presentation, formatting, or whatever.

Original PDF removed.

What EXACTLY does this do, though? I've had ENOUGH trouble with getting Windows 10 to run Test of Time as it is, and I really DON'T want to screw ANYTHING else up. Thanks for helping me in advance.
 
All this is/was is a PDF file containing some old strategy guides and game mechanics explanations. You open it with a pdf reader (after unzipping it). There is "source code", since that is the way that LaTeX knows what the text is and how to format it. You don't need to worry about that unless you plan to take over this project, although I may have put some saved games from a comparison game somewhere in the source code zip instead of the pdf zip.
 
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