Civilization 2 “Wishlist”

[Alsbron]

Civ2 will probably go down as my most favorite game of all time. With the clone project thread and recent patching efforts to expand the game’s limits, I thought it would be fun to sit down and write up a list of “wishlist” features that would make the game even better. I’m not going to focus on completely new systems such as religion or culture. I’m going to try staying within the game’s framework to propose “realistic” additions.



—More than 7 civs. This is a no brainer, and there are enough colors to make it work. Brown, silver, navy, sea green, tan, gold, dark green, pink, etc. could all work.



—Borders. This was a great addition to Civilization 3. Even if Civ2 doesn’t feature a culture system, adding borders would be a great feature.



—Outposts / forts / bases / towns - add some means of securing resources and expanding your borders that doesn’t involve building a city. Large swath of dessert with oil but no desire to build a city? Claim the resources with an outpost. Towns would be a useful improvement to fill up the map, make the civ look populated from sea to shining sea. Towns could be built akin to roads, irrigation, or farmland and add trade bonuses or improve happiness in their adjacent city.



—Eliminate the “kill stack” or at least have an option. One armor shouldn’t be able to kill seven marines with one strike.



—Custom city improvements - Civ2 was great at giving you the ability to add new units, and tech, but giving the ability to create new wonders and improvements on top of the existing ones would have been a game changer.



—Custom resource placement - seeds were a usable system, but custom placement would have taken map creation to the next level.



—More unit / tech slots.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

—Eliminate the “kill stack” or at least have an option. One armor shouldn’t be able to kill seven marines with one strike.

Test of Time Patch Project already allows this by changing the rules.txt.

—More unit / tech slots.

TOTPP allows rules to be changed for ~255 techs and ~189 unit types. (I think, numbers may be slightly off.)

—Custom resource placement - seeds were a usable system, but custom placement would have taken map creation to the next level.

TOTPP allows custom placement of resources within the game, along with a few extra terrain types (for a total of 16). Unfortunately, this doesn't extend to the map editor.

—Outposts / forts / bases / towns - add some means of securing resources and expanding your borders that doesn’t involve building a city. Large swath of dessert with oil but no desire to build a city? Claim the resources with an outpost. Towns would be a useful improvement to fill up the map, make the civ look populated from sea to shining sea. Towns could be built akin to roads, irrigation, or farmland and add trade bonuses or improve happiness in their adjacent city.

Lua could be used to achieve something like this in a scenario. Lua allows for checking if a tile is occupied, finding the nearest city, and giving bonus production to that city.

 

[JPetroski]

Lua could also be used to get around the 7 civ requirement, to an extent, though only 7 could ever be present on the map/game at any one time. Much like I was able to recycle unit slots by deleting them as necessary in the game between file changes, one could theoretically replace an entire civ, their leaders, their units, etc. I had half a mind to try it on a Roman scenario but it's much too complex and I think someone else is already trying to make one. It would be a good testbed for this given some civs (like Carthage) wouldn't be expected to remain for the entirety of the game.

 

[Civinator]

I want to add two items to that "wish-list":

1. Add different movement sounds for the different units. Even TOTPP, as far as I know, doesn´t hold an enmovement trigger. The monotone klack-klack sound for all units makes Civ 2 feeling really very outdated.

2. Fix the combat animation of animated Civ 2 ToT units, so the defending unit can have those animations, too.

 

[Kaiser0985]

These could be feasible even in the current MGE edition (maybe in the CIVUIA edition):

- differentiate the maintenance cost of the units in terms of money, for example currently a battleship maintenance cost is the same as a tank, an airplane or a warrior if I am not wrong (always 1 gold) which is absurd. Keeping a battleship should cost 10 gold per turn (just to say), a tank 3, a bomber 4 and so on. This could avoid everyone having dozens of powerful units with no reason and focus on less expensive units, adding strategic depth.

- The same as before, having an harbor in the city as prerequisite to construct modern naval units and an airport for the airplanes (a factory for the tanks and hotwitzer as well), instead of having tiny 1 size villages creating battleships and carriers.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

- The same as before, having an harbor in the city as prerequisite to construct modern naval units and an airport for the airplanes (a factory for the tanks and hotwitzer as well), instead of having tiny 1 size villages creating battleships and carriers.

This already exists for Lua enhanced Test of Time scenarios. I go over how to do that in this video.

- differentiate the maintenance cost of the units in terms of money, for example currently a battleship maintenance cost is the same as a tank, an airplane or a warrior if I am not wrong (always 1 gold) which is absurd. Keeping a battleship should cost 10 gold per turn (just to say), a tank 3, a bomber 4 and so on. This could avoid everyone having dozens of powerful units with no reason and focus on less expensive units, adding strategic depth.

It should be pretty easy to add a gold cost for each unit using Lua. A shield cost is also possible (though a bit more difficult), with the disadvantage that the extra "support" cost wouldn't be explicitly shown, but rather the city would just show less overall production.

 

[Serutan]

- differentiate the maintenance cost of the units in terms of money, for example currently a battleship maintenance cost is the same as a tank, an airplane or a warrior if I am not wrong (always 1 gold) which is absurd. Keeping a battleship should cost 10 gold per turn (just to say), a tank 3, a bomber 4 and so on. This could avoid everyone having dozens of powerful units with no reason and focus on less expensive units, adding strategic depth.

Everyone except the AI. It never goes bankrupt.

I'd like to see the game changed so it's possible to attack AI units on your city squares with no diplomatic penalties (i.e. without a DOW and regardless of peace/cease fire status.).

 

[Petromax]

More civilizations is the most obvious. The diplomacy system could probably be improved.

Another thing is the Senate. It would be nice if it were more than just a random impediment. I imagine that every government could have its own version of the senate, with varying powers depending on the government type. It would basically be a way to represent internal conflicts in your civilization. There would be two internal factions: the player and the senate. Instead of just outright blocking your actions, the senate could impose conditions. Maybe you could have a relation value with the senate just like with foreign leaders, and you'd have to keep them happy with you to get things done smoothly. The senate could permit a war for a limited duration, or demand the construction of certain buildings. The player could always ignore the senate's demands, at the risk of inciting a civil war. I think this idea could be made more or less complicated and still work. Basically, the senate should be something you can interact with somehow.

 

[Blake00]

—More than 7 civs. This is a no brainer, and there are enough colors to make it work. Brown, silver, navy, sea green, tan, gold, dark green, pink, etc. could all work.

The holy grail! We'd all love that one!

—Borders. This was a great addition to Civilization 3. Even if Civ2 doesn’t feature a culture system, adding borders would be a great feature.

@FoxAhead was doing some super cool experiments with visible borders for his Civ2UIA tool last year however it's not released as he couldn't get it quite working how he wanted as it revealed hidden cities.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...dditions-civ2uia.623515/page-11#post-16289598
However what he got done looked pretty bloody good to me haha. And I think you normally see borders before cities when running into them in SMAC, CTP & Civ3 anyway. Hope he releases it as an optional feature one day as its amazing work I really didn't think would be possible in Civ2.

 

[Bultro]

eliminating the kill stack is not just an expansion, it would change strategy heavily.

A simple wish: the final "REPLAY" of Civ1, inexplicably removed in Civ2.
Maybe it could be done with an external program that parses the autosave files each turn.

Another simple thing, of the very few that weren't improved from Civ1, is specific music and jingles for each nation. Why replace them with those generic fanfares?

 

[Broken_Erika]

eliminating the kill stack is not just an expansion, it would change strategy heavily.

Test of Time Patch Project does that.

 

[Dadais]

Test of Time Patch Project does that.

Even more, it allows to choose to do that or not

 

[Buck2005]

I avoided this topic earlier in order not to jinx existing CIV2 modernization projects. However, the current progress suggests that it is unlikely that even one of them will be completed in the foreseeable future, so why don't I also speak out in the field of fantasy. For example, what I also wanted in a potential modernization of this game.

The main thing I would like is not a mechanical increase in existing game mechanics. Many players really want more civilizations, more units, more technology, and so on. Never understood this desire. After all, there are many modern games that provide these opportunities. In addition, the unique TOTPP patch makes most wishes come true now. Personally, I would like the modernized Civ2 to have exactly the same features and functionality as now, but with the ability to easily and reversibly edit this functionality. There is a wonderful quote by Antoine D Saint Exupery: "Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n’y a plus rien à ajouter, mais quand il n’y a plus rien à retrancher".

Therefore, for me personally, 7 civilizations, the current number of wonders of the world, technologies, units, but with the possibility of their maximum possible (convenient and simple) editing, would be quite enough. For example, 7 political forms of government in Civ2. This is quite a sufficient number for the level of generalization used in the game. But it has always seemed to me wrong that these forms of government are used in a purely linear way: from "bad" to "good." Having opened more advanced government forms after despotism, you will never return to this system, since in Civ2 gameplay it would be absurd. However, humanity in real history quite successfully used this social formation for a long time (about 3 thousand years, and somewhere for all 5 thousand years), while creating quite successful and competitive societies. Of course, I am not saying that it is worth rehabilitating or somehow encouraging people to use this political regime. We are talking about the correct modeling of the objective reality in which we live. If people are using this mode now (in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Brunei, or any other country that you think is currently using this mode), then it clearly looks attractive and effective for the people who use it. In Civ2, you will never use this form of government, as it is absurd with other technologies. The same can be said about other forms of government (republic, communism, and so on). I would consider the most correct to completely equalize all forms of government, giving them very specific characteristics that can be effectively used in various game situations.

Also, it would be possible to tie the use of a certain form of government not to the presence of certain technologies, but to more complex structures. For example, in order to obtain a monarchy, the player had to have not just a "code of laws" and a "ceremonial burial", but a certain number of cities, with a certain number of inhabitants, with a certain number of city buildings, units, and also terrain improvements near the city. However, these are already particulars, and, as far as I understand, this can be implemented even now using TOTPP. I want to say again: this is not at all about a simple mechanistic increase in all available Civ2 functionality. No more than 7 governments and 7 civilizations. Enough of that too. The ideal game would be the same Civ2, but with the most convenient and easy-to-use editor.

Of course, I express my strictly personal opinion, precisely as a player (and not a designer) of Civ2, who uses this game for its intended purpose - that is, still plays it.

 

[Bultro]

Test of Time Patch Project does that.

I meant: I don't want at all to remove the kill stack. We're talking about making the game better, and that's not an improvement.
Civ2 strategy is based on the kill stack, if you put 7 marines in one tile and they die it's your fault.
Without the kill stack, instead of cleverly placing your army on the territory you could just mass them on one tile and send forward that juggernaut; this does not make the strategy more interesting