Junior CIV

[dragontrainer]

I have played Civ for years, started B.W. (before wife) and she has come to expect `Civ is a way of life`. The original Civ was WOW and Civ AGA was OOH!, Civ II was can`t see what that is but love the videos of wonders. By the way I was using an Amiga then a PSX and now at last I have a PC therefore I bought CivIII straight away. (alltogether spent $100+ on one game)

Now I have children, (don`t know how I had the time?) and my 10 year old son would like to play. Have Infogrames any plans for a junior version?! they should. I`m sure anyone can see the academic advantages. There might even be some kind of educational grants available.

The original game should be freeware now as this would lead to product upgrades thus profits for Infogrames

What happened to Microprose and Microprose Activision?

 

[Salvor]

For your last question, Sid left. Then they got bought by Hasbro I think and Hasbro got bought by somebody else, maybe Sierra (I don't remember).

Just a thought about Civ Jr. You could probably use the Civ3 editor (or Civ2 for that matter) and simplify a lot of things to make it easier for the tykes, and have them play at lower difficulty levels. As they learn, re-add some of the complexity and they'll be playing the full game before you know it.

 

[Genuis]

I played Civ 2 when I was 12.

 

[Supercilious]

There is no profit for Firaxis in designing a game for kids under 12. Maybe changing or removing a lot of stuff in the Editor can help kids still in grade school.

 

[seghillian]

Originally posted by Genuis
I played Civ 2 when I was 12.

When I was 12 there was no CIV ...

Nor PCs ...

Indeed, most of the techs in the current version of the game were still awaiting discovery!

 

[dragontrainer]

Thanks Salvor, would like to remove some of the tech advances but couldn`t see how.

Nice one Seghillian

Has anyone made a pokemon map?

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by dragontrainer
Thanks Salvor, would like to remove some of the tech advances but couldn`t see how.

Nice one Seghillian

Has anyone made a pokemon map?

From what I understand, removing things from the game can cause problems so you might want to tread carefully there. As for how to do it, there's a back door in the editor that will let you Add/Delete. Go to the advances area in the editor, click on the rename button, then click on cancel. After that just hit the A(dd) or D(elete) keys on your keyboard.

 

[RX2000]

I too was playing Civ2 when it first came out in '95 or '96, I was around 12 or 13 then. I had never played the first Civ, mostly because I didnt have a computer and wasnt exposed to computer games back then. If I would have had the chance, I probably would have loved to have played the first one when I was 8-10 or so. I was playing SimCity around that time like nobody's business. (I had SimCity on my Super Nintendo, not the comp version.)

Anyways, if your son is 10, he should be able to play the game fine, but ONLY IF he is interested in it. I have always had a natural love for history, geography, politics, etc, so me and the Civ line of games just came naturally to each other. If your son watches you play at 10 years old and he seems genuinely interested in the game, you could probably teach him all the concepts pretty easy. The good thing about the Civ games is that while they can be a tad complex if you really look under the hood, on the surface you can just know a couple of basic things and go from there and have an ok game.

 

[dragontrainer]

Thanks Willem, tried and

Completed the preliminary map last night. Just downloaded a unit editor so I reckon I`ve got plenty to.

 

[MindRunner]

Oh my friends, if we are about to become nostalgic around here, then let me just tell you a few things:

1. There were no PCs when I was 12 too…

2. I’ve been playing Civ from 1992 (10 years now) How time passes…

3. I’ve spent, not hours, days, but *full* months playing it, back then (I was unemployed, and Civ helped me a lot raising my morale)

4. It became a way of live to me too. It changed my life completely

5. I was the kind of Spectrum games fanatic teenager (since the 80’s) and I hated strategy games, until I met the original Civilization.

How I changed since that moment!!!
Now I hate “shoot’em ups”! Not even I, myself, in my wildest dreams would have said that, 10 years ago!

Thank you Sid Meier!

You really improved my quality of life. I owe you that. In fact, you’re doing that just right now. I will buy every new version of Civilization in the future. I just can’t resist it…
But please, don’t let them be so buggy…

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by dragontrainer
Thanks Willem, tried and

Completed the preliminary map last night. Just downloaded a unit editor so I reckon I`ve got plenty to.

No problem, glad to help. Just keep in mind that the editor isn't much use when adding units or wonders. It will only create a name for the unit so you will still need some graphic files for it. Your best bet for those are the Civ3MultiTool. It will copy an existing unit by creating a folder and an .ini file that will point the grapics etc. of the original unit. And wonders have to be sorted properly in the pediaicons.txt file or the game will crash. The MultiTool takes care of that for you.

 

[Octavian X]

What was that?

I'm fourteen. I was 11 when I saw Civ II on the $10 rack, and remembered watching my cousin play Civ original. That was one of the best decisions of my life. I had been plaing SimCity 2000 since I was eight on my cousin's old comp, and had watched him play the SimCity Classic long before that.

On Microprose, it was bought by Hasbro Interactive, which in turn was purchased by Infogrames Interactive (which I hate, all their games have no cheats...). They're just the people who sell Civ III, Firaxis developed it. On a side note, according to the credits, Sid Meier helped little, or none at all in its devilopment.

 

[aneeshm]

Oh great .

Even I'm fourteen , & have played civ2 since I was 11 .I bought the game when I was 10 , tried a game , wasn't patient enough to try the tutorial , and suffered as a consequence . Then , when I first played the tutorial and found Civfanatics & 'poly , it was a turning point in my life (for better or worse , I still can't decide ) .

 

[dragontrainer]

Another tip likely to keep me up all night. Thanks Willem.

I found FLICster to be useful:
1 - Let FLICster produce PCX file
2 - Then Irfanview to change PCX to BMP
3 - Then Windows Paint to redo graphic
4 - Reverse above process to install altered unit.
Didn`t cost a bean.

Have now decided to make a Pokemon scenario with map taken from Nintendo promotions. (Completed). Units to be pokemon with upgrades being evolutions. (Work in progress). Resourses to be energy items.

Thought about removing wonders.

Any other ideas welcome!

Wish I was 12.

Forgot to play with smilies.

 

[Willem]

Originally posted by dragontrainer
Another tip likely to keep me up all night. Thanks Willem.

I found FLICster to be useful:
1 - Let FLICster produce PCX file
2 - Then Irfanview to change PCX to BMP
3 - Then Windows Paint to redo graphic
4 - Reverse above process to install altered unit.
Didn`t cost a bean.

Have now decided to make a Pokemon scenario with map taken from Nintendo promotions. (Completed). Units to be pokemon with upgrades being evolutions. (Work in progress). Resourses to be energy items.

Thought about removing wonders.

Any other ideas welcome!

Wish I was 12.

Forgot to play with smilies.

Wonders you definitely have to be careful removing, and you'll have to go through a bit of a hassle in order to it. If you go to the pediaicons.txt file, and go waay down to the bottom, you'll see entries called something like #Wonder_Splash_ and then a number. That number corresponds to the position of the wonders in the list that you see in the editor and that exists in the Bic file.

If you remove a wonder, that alters the order, so if you don't correct the numbers that follow, and remove the entry of the deleted wonder, then your game will crash everytime it completes a wonder after that point. So you'll have to do some editing of the pediaicons.txt.