Civ2 ToT and scenario compatibility

[SvenSlayer]

Sorry, no Throne Room, no Wonder Movies, no High Council anywhere in ToT.

Nuts! I liked the movies and throne room and high council. Oh well, I guess it doesn't detract from the actual gameplay, but they were cool to look at. (I can be picky about my eyecandy.)

Might get the game soon - keep putting it off.

 

[MikeLynch]

I find it odd that nobody seems to have mentioned the #1 reason I like TOT more than any other version: many more tech and unit slots.

I don't play downloaded scenarios often (okay, pretty much never), but I use TOT because I've added units of my own for regular SP/MP games using some of the awesome unit graphics others have made. I heart my Grenadiers and Pioneers

Edit:
I never really seriously considered this before, but shouldn't it be possible to use TOT's Events feature to resurrect Wonder Movies? I know I've used an Event to play a Civ movie (the spaceship landing movie IIRC).

 

[SvenSlayer]

Well, it certainly seems like ToT is more popular than MGE - at least, from this poll. I wonder why ToT received such relatively poor reviews compared to the other Civ2 titles. It could be that people expected more from the final stand-alone product bearing the Civ2 name. Can't say - still haven't played it.

 

[Mercator]

ToT's popularity is really only a recent and slow turnaround and MGE is probably still in the majority, certainly for multiplayer.

The reason it got bad reviews is because, at first glance, ToT is nothing more than yet another version of Civ2, and a version with horrible, dark, smudgy graphics at that. The only nice thing are the multiple maps and the different "games". But those latter ones are just fancy modpacks, really.

But looking closer it becomes clear that it is everything MGE is and has the potential of being much more. It has many more (scenario) creation possibilities. I don't think reviewers ever really look at that, if only because they don't have the time to.


Edit: And yes indeed, ToT would be able to play the wonder movies. If it doesn't work outright at least you should be able to write an events file that will make it work. The main problem of course is that people who don't have any other version of Civ2 won't have any other Civ2 CD with wonders on it.

 

[Ace]

Another possible reason for the lack of popularity of ToT is that it never got the sales support that civ2 and MGE got. I have never even seen ToT in a store (or FW for that matter, and I used to check the software stores regularly during the 90s). It might also be similiar to the lack of fame for Civnet compared to Civ1. Civnet is a better version of civ but it was released about the same time Civ2 was released and was overshadowed by Civ2.

 

[Mercator]

Very true... Or actually, not entirely. I happened to be in London when ToT was launched and there was one store there (well, maybe more, but that one was on the way from/to the hotel) that was completely plastered with it, posters and everything.

I didn't buy it then though, and I hardly ever saw it after that. My copy is a jewel case version without a manual I found rummaging through the bargain bins several years later.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

However, in MGE, you can go to any city screen and from there, cycle through all your cities by using the Up/Down arrows. This is much handier than going through the F1 screen. Also, in the find city list, the cities are in alphabetic order instead of a random listing.

Thanks for the info, Ace. I play the single player Mac version and both of the above are standard features.

 

[Catfish]

I never really seriously considered this before, but shouldn't it be possible to use TOT's Events feature to resurrect Wonder Movies? I know I've used an Event to play a Civ movie (the spaceship landing movie IIRC).

It'd be possible using the CityProduction trigger and the PlayAVIFile action, but the difficulty would be having them play only when the human player builds a wonder. However, if merely copying the AVI files to the ToT directory works (as suggested by others), that method would be redundant anyway.

I wonder why ToT received such relatively poor reviews compared to the other Civ2 titles. It could be that people expected more from the final stand-alone product bearing the Civ2 name.

Yes, I've read a few reviews of ToT over the years and that's a regular and legitimate complaint. Back when people were writing reviews ToT was a full-priced game. Throw in the ugly graphics and you have an unpopular title. Frankly, it deserved mediocre reviews.

I kind of had ToT foisted upon me when veteran scenario designer Harlan Thompson insisted that I get a copy of the game. He ended up sending me the CD. My initial reaction was pretty negative, but when I started looking at the nuts and bolts, at least from a scenario designer's perspective, I found that it was a superior engine to either MGE or FW. I've stripped away the old graphics and now my version of the game bears little resemblance to the monstrosity that came on the CD. If anyone wants to try replacement graphics, you can find some here. They can be easily installed and uninstalled.

My main complaint with ToT is the aggressive AI model for diplomacy which it inherited from MGE. This makes it very difficult to maintain alliances as everyone's out to get you. From that perspective earlier versions of Civ2 have the advantage.