Civ II: Test of Time

[Jayhawk_Colin]

Has anyone ever heard of Civ II: Test of Time? I was reading about it and it's ratings were lower than regular Civ II. I was wondering if another Civ Vet had ever played it and if they'd recomend it.

 

[SVAndrei]

Even though i'm not a civ vet on the boards, i'm currently playing ToT. What can i say? The Ai is slightly improved, but not anything spectacular. Nicer graphics? Try Alpha Centaury or CTP. The best thin about ToT is the fact that you have several worlds to play on, instead of just one. That's about all. I received the game as a gift, but i whouldn't spend any of my own money on it.

 

[Jayhawk_Colin]

Yeah, after that post I tried the demo and was not impressed. I will definatly not pay 15 dollars for it. I have played both Alpha Centuri and Call to Power, but was never a big fan of either. I think they could of both been better. I did like in AC how you could buil your own troops. I wish they would bring that into the regular Civ games.

 

[Mercator]

ToT is vastly superior to earlier versions of Civ2 if you're interested in playing or creating scenarios. The only problem with it is that the default graphics are horrible. However, that can be fixed.

Have a look at this site:
http://users.tpg.com.au/jpwbeest/index.htm

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Test of Time is my favorite Civ game. The multiple worlds are really cool, and once you get teleportation (in the Fantasy game), you can teleport units around to worlds they can't normally reach. You get bizarre results when Dwarves terraform Magic Clouds and impassable sea floor terrain, and having ordinary boats sailing through the sky is a hoot.

The extended game is different in that you can play the Alpha Centauri species. Just think -- a whole planet that's yours to colonize and improve, with no fighting. And if you get the Great Library built early enough, you still get its benefits. Late in the game you can go to Earth and conquer to your heart's content.

The Midgard scenario is fiendish. I have not been able to complete it yet, because there are a couple of the quests I can't figure out how to finish.

I love the SF game, because of the challenge of colonizing such different worlds: Lalande, the orbital platforms, Naumachia (the moon), and Nona (the gas giant).

I don't look at the minutiae of computer tech or AI, etc. when deciding if I enjoy a game. If I can imagine a story to go along with it, that's when I consider it a good game.

My username, Valka D'Ur, is the name of the character I use most often in the SF game, and when playing the Stygians in the Fantasy game.

Obviously, my opinion differs from other posters here in that I highly recommend Civ II: Test of Time.

 

[ElephantU]

ToT is vastly superior to earlier versions of Civ2 if you're interested in playing or creating scenarios. The only problem with it is that the default graphics are horrible. However, that can be fixed.

Have a look at this site:
http://users.tpg.com.au/jpwbeest/index.htm

Merc - perhaps you were thinking of this page?

http://users.tpg.com.au/jpwbeest/jp_versions.htm

This one compares FW and MGE to ToT, particularly from the scenario creation point of view.

I suppose on the technical matters you could say "ToT is vastly superior..."; personally, though, I prefer the more reasonable AI of the Classic version (admittedly, I play a lot of OCC, but I think the insta-hostile AI of MGE+ is rather silly). I also think that of all the people still playing CivII, more of them are playing MGE than any other version. Might be interesting to survey this sometime, but it's hard to get everyone to answer a survey (and some like me use more than one version).

 

[Catfish]

Merc - perhaps you were thinking of this page?

http://users.tpg.com.au/jpwbeest/jp_versions.htm

I believe he's referring to alternative graphics sets for ToT. I reckon this page is a better bet.

I suppose on the technical matters you could say "ToT is vastly superior..."; personally, though, I prefer the more reasonable AI of the Classic version (admittedly, I play a lot of OCC, but I think the insta-hostile AI of MGE+ is rather silly).

I totally agree with you about the AI. Since I don't play multi-player, it's one of the reasons why I'd prefer FW over MGE; the other being x3 city objectives.

I also think that of all the people still playing CivII, more of them are playing MGE than any other version.

For that reason, if you're someone looking for other players to play multi-player or PBEM games over the Internet, MGE has the advantage over ToT. Many scenarios have been created for MGE and it's also back-compatible with FW ones. ToT is not back-compatible with older scenarios; they must be converted. However, ToT is my platform of choice because in terms of scenario design it does everything that MGE does and more.

 

[Mercator]

Merc - perhaps you were thinking of this page?

http://users.tpg.com.au/jpwbeest/jp_versions.htm

I believe he's referring to alternative graphics sets for ToT. I reckon this page is a better bet.

Maybe I was referring to both and hoping they'd visit the entire site and find both.

(...) personally, though, I prefer the more reasonable AI of the Classic version (...) I also think that of all the people still playing CivII, more of them are playing MGE than any other version.

I agree with you there. That's why I added "if you're interested in playing or creating scenarios" at the end of it.

For single-player "vanilla" games classic/FW is probably best, for multiplayer "vanilla" games MGE is probably best (if only because many more have MGE than ToT). For scenarios FW, MGE and ToT all have their merit, as Wobbegong said, but ToT at its full potential easily beats out the other two.

 

[Catfish]

I agree with you there. That's why I added "if you're interested in playing or creating scenarios" at the end of it.

Maybe that's why he added 'I suppose on the technical matters you could say "ToT is vastly superior...";' to the beginning of it. Maybe I should stop trying to read people's minds.