Civ IV to Civ II?

[Playsoneasy]

Others have highlighted the key differences. It's still a fun game, in a stripped-down, simplified way. I don't know if they were able to preserve the wonder videos and advisers in the console version.

Can confirm. As someone who played the PS1 version of Civ2 extensively, the advisor council and wonder vids were things that added some real flavour to the game.

Stack death -- kill one unit, kill them all -- makes Civ 2 resemble Civ 5, after a fashion.

Yes, the potential to lose a whole stack of units all at once forced one to consider unit stacks and unit spread. The one exception (in the PS1 version anyway) was if a stack of units was occupying a fort; they would be protected from the "kill one kill all" rule inside a fort.

The term ICS "Infinite City Sprawl" was invented for Civ 2, since it is a viable strategy.

I think there was a limit to how many cities that could be at any one time, something like 255 cities (at least in the PS1 version)? Not sure how many exactly though.

One Civ2 feature which hasn't been replicated elsewhere in the franchise is the tech tree choices: one doesn't always get free rein to choose from all the available techs to pick, but even more intriguing is the linkage of trade commerce and science.

I still have my physical copy of PS1 Civ2, complete with tech tree poster, and yes there are a lot of techs the discovery of which is dependent on other prerequisite techs being discovered.

One can build *units* for trade (caravans early on, freight later) and when each one arrives, it gives you a lump sum boost in both gold *AND* beakers. Some Civ2 master players found a way to exploit this, resulting in an extreme trade economy and super-early spaceship launch dates... say, 1AD. One needed to keep bribing the AI to keep them from attacking, and gifts of tech usually worked.

Freight (and caravans IIRC) was also useful for helping to rush-build wonders. One thing I miss in later Civs is the ability to spam freight to quick-build wonders.

 

[Patine]

Yes, the potential to lose a whole stack of units all at once forced one to consider unit stacks and unit spread. The one exception (in the PS1 version anyway) was if a stack of units was occupying a fort; they would be protected from the "kill one kill all" rule inside a fort.

This is not unique to the PS1 version. The PC version also has forts that negate the one-stack-kill rule.

 

[Playsoneasy]

This is not unique to the PS1 version. The PC version also has forts that negate the one-stack-kill rule.

It would be interesting to know just how similar the PS1 and PC versions of Civ2 were.

 

[Playsoneasy]

I know there are no custom map sizes in the PS1 version of Civ2. You have a choice of "large", "medium" and "small" map sizes, and each game seems to take place on a randomly selected map from a list of preselected choices (I do remember growing familiar with certain map layouts so I don't think they were randomly generated). Also, there's a limit on how many civs one can have - seven, including you. Another consideration, each civ is a set colour (England is Orange, France is dark blue, America light blue etc) and it is not possible to have two civs sharing the same colour in the same game, so one cannot have England and Greece - both orange, for example - on the same map.

I'm not sue if any of these map-or-civ-related limitations were present in the PC version of Civ2.

 

[Lennier]

This is not unique to the PS1 version. The PC version also has forts that negate the one-stack-kill rule.

The PC version also had cities negate the one-stack-kill rule.

I know there are no custom map sizes in the PS1 version of Civ2. You have a choice of "large", "medium" and "small" map sizes, and each game seems to take place on a randomly selected map from a list of preselected choices (I do remember growing familiar with certain map layouts so I don't think they were randomly generated). Also, there's a limit on how many civs one can have - seven, including you. Another consideration, each civ is a set colour (England is Orange, France is dark blue, America light blue etc) and it is not possible to have two civs sharing the same colour in the same game, so one cannot have England and Greece - both orange, for example - on the same map.

I'm not sue if any of these map-or-civ-related limitations were present in the PC version of Civ2.

They were also present on the PC version.

 

[Playsoneasy]

They were also present on the PC version.

I'm surprised about that. I thought the PC version would have more choice and flexibility in that regard.

 

[Patine]

I'm surprised about that. I thought the PC version would have more choice and flexibility in that regard.

1996 was still a long time ago as computer technology goes.

 

[Lennier]

Just to clarify, the PC version had the same limitation on choice of civilizations. You could customize the size of the map, up to 10,000 tiles, at least 40 tiles wide and tall.