Making a Clone of Civ II

[reubene]

I could be imagining things but I think I saw axx posting earlier in this thread last year that they'd already squeezed in a 8th civ in testing and that more could be added in the future. Then the next hard part will be somehow being able to load old scenarios and up the AIs in them. The scenarios themselves will likely need to be modified.

It can currently load saves from the MP Gold, loading scenarios or TOT saves is still on the todo list.

I've recently begun adding Lua support since that seems the best way to make modable the things that still can't be moded currently.

I have some basic algorithms worked out for the AI, I'm planning on implementing them in Lua so they can be modified by scenario makers without changing the engine code

 

[CurtSibling]

Sounds exciting at this stage.

 

[CurtSibling]

Yes, it can have as many civs as there are colors for. So in the original that's 8

Seeing the 8-civ limit in ToT broken is one my greatest dreams.

 

[Locopath]

I have some basic algorithms worked out for the AI, I'm planning on implementing them in Lua so they can be modified by scenario makers without changing the engine code

Just read through this thread. Seems like a really cool project!

One question, which I haven't really seen answered yet, is how is the AI going to be coded? Not trying to be a party pooper, but that seems a huge stumbling block to me.
Even just coding a "functional" AI would seem to be challenging, yet even that wouldn't be sufficient for a true "clone" of Civ II. Are the original AI algorithms known?

I'm a professional programmer (though haven't touched LUA before), so I'd be interested in contributing to this, if I can find the time
I'll at least grab the files from Git and look at current progress.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

One question, which I haven't really seen answered yet, is how is the AI going to be coded? Not trying to be a party pooper, but that seems a huge stumbling block to me.
Even just coding a "functional" AI would seem to be challenging, yet even that wouldn't be sufficient for a true "clone" of Civ II. Are the original AI algorithms known?

I don't think people will be too fussed if the AI doesn't act exactly the same way that it does in the original game. The AI is legendary for its incompetence, so a different version will probably not make people wish for the original game. I do agree that coding the AI will be a lot of work.

 

[Locopath]

I don't think people will be too fussed if the AI doesn't act exactly the same way that it does in the original game. The AI is legendary for its incompetence, so a different version will probably not make people wish for the original game. I do agree that coding the AI will be a lot of work.

Hmmm... not so sure if that's true...

Civ2 AI is indeed ancient and limited, but (for single player gamers at least) it's the core of the game they love. If the AI in this project feels too different (even if it's more competent and challenging), it will be a different game wearing Civ2 clothes. Isn't that kinda what FreeCiv already is?

Not to mention, a goal of this project appears to be compatibility with 20+ years of awesome Civ2 scenarios, which were all designed and tested against original Civ2 AI. This project might be able to load up the scenarios just fine, but would Red Front (as a classic example) still play as the masterpiece it was originally? Or would the new AI do things largely or even subtly differently, resulting in a tarnished experience?

To be clear, I'm not trying to be a super negative doomsayer here
Just, these are important questions to be asking, given the stated goals from earlier in the thread.

 

[Prof. Garfield]

Civ2 AI is indeed ancient and limited, but (for single player gamers at least) it's the core of the game they love. If the AI in this project feels too different (even if it's more competent and challenging), it will be a different game wearing Civ2 clothes. Isn't that kinda what FreeCiv already is?

I don't know. When I played the base game, I viewed the AI as mostly "decoration." They had to be there, but precisely what they did didn't really matter to me.

Not to mention, a goal of this project appears to be compatibility with 20+ years of awesome Civ2 scenarios, which were all designed and tested against original Civ2 AI. This project might be able to load up the scenarios just fine, but would Red Front (as a classic example) still play as the masterpiece it was originally? Or would the new AI do things largely or even subtly differently, resulting in a tarnished experience?

It's clear that the new AI will have to respect event generated goto commands. Other than that, I'm not so sure it matters. If scenarios depend on the AI doing specific things in specific circumstances, these effects are probably known. If the details aren't known, then the scenario probably isn't balanced all that closely. Perhaps the difficulty would change, but we're not going to be playing comparison games between the original and clone. For the most part, I think the "art" of a scenario is the units/map/tech tree, etc. If there are scenarios that really did effectively compensate for the AI, and the new version ruins them, they can be remade, or their limitations can give insight into how the clone AI differs from the original.

 

[axx]

At least with MGE the AI becomes mostly static on larger maps at one point.
Unlike Civ1 there seems to be less activity/effort with folks on disassembling Civ2 AI code, at least that's my feeling.

@Locopath - reubene is doing bulk of work on engine so be sure to communicate with him on github or here if you feel that you can contribute (which is appreciated). I've been messing with some UI stuff lately.

 

[reubene]

One question, which I haven't really seen answered yet, is how is the AI going to be coded? Not trying to be a party pooper, but that seems a huge stumbling block to me.
Even just coding a "functional" AI would seem to be challenging, yet even that wouldn't be sufficient for a true "clone" of Civ II. Are the original AI algorithms known?

It's not going to be exactly the same, but I think the AI for civ2 was a very primitive rule based AI. There are some reasonable documentation on these forums around how the AI handles cities and Taxes and it's possible to observe it's movement patterns in the actual game. (I only have MPG working). I don't think it's 100% possible to match any particular version, the goal will be to get it playing in a similar style and fix any glaring stupidities.

 

[Sub]

Very cool project!

I don't think you need to match the AI behavior exactly. I doubt anyone would notice significant differences, something passable and playable would suffice. The AI wasn't exactly intelligent in the first place, and it had weird differences between the different versions. For example, in the multiplayer gold edition the AI would switch to hating you if your diplomatic status changed to 'supreme', which wasn't a thing in the original Civ 2 and could be good or bad depending on your preferences (it certainly makes the game harder).

 

[Blake00]

Very cool project!

I don't think you need to match the AI behavior exactly. I doubt anyone would notice significant differences, something passable and playable would suffice. The AI wasn't exactly intelligent in the first place, and it had weird differences between the different versions. For example, in the multiplayer gold edition the AI would switch to hating you if your diplomatic status changed to 'supreme', which wasn't a thing in the original Civ 2 and could be good or bad depending on your preferences (it certainly makes the game harder).

Speaking of which FoxAhead managed to recently find the bug in the AI that made it unnecessarily hostile towards you and fix it.. something the clone project guys will probably want to look at too!
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...erface-additions-civ2uia.623515/post-16305017
.

 

[Blake00]

Just saw this project announcement on the Civ2 discord. Not a clone per say but a mobile game heavily inspired on Civ2 so should be interesting...

Merry Christmas
We are developing a mobile game similar to Civilization II for single-player only that features a challenging and fun AI engine. We also wanted to be able to play a game like this on a tablet with a smooth touch interface, while sitting on the couch. If playing single-player on a tablet against a challenging AI sounds like fun to you, we would love for you to join our community and help bring this project to life. There will be no pay to win aspects of the game. If there is enough interest from the initial versions of the game, we would like to offer the game on more platforms.

Discord - Group Chat That’s All Fun & Games

Discord is great for playing games and chilling with friends, or even building a worldwide community. Customize your own space to talk, play, and hang out.

discord.gg

 

[Blake00]

How things going @axx ? Any cool news or screenshots to tease us with? I can see the repo is still nice and active which is great to see!
https://github.com/axx0/Civ2-clone

 

[axx]

How things going @axx ? Any cool news or screenshots to tease us with? I can see the repo is still nice and active which is great to see!
https://github.com/axx0/Civ2-clone

We've switched engines which on the long run should be beneficial for the project. The main difference is now there's a game loop instead of event-based stuff.
We're also dropping imgui and making our own gui. You can find out more details in the discussions section on github.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Somehow I completely missed this thread until recently. As someone who loves the modding potential of Freeciv but is constantly frustrated by its little divergences from the Civ2 interface (tracking opponent moves, combat animation, popup logic), I wholeheartedly welcome this effort. Unfortunately I'm a middling coder and nowhere near an actual programmer so I can't contribute anything concrete to the engine's development, but if you need someone to do the menial work of translating legacy scenarios &c., I can chip in.

I've done on-and-off experiments with modding Freeciv, including a Civ2 skin that was almost perfect but that I currently can't use ToT-height units on Civ2-height terrain without breaking the UI, and its definite advantage is providing a flexible foundation for infinite variations. Some of the comments earlier in this thread had suggested a toggle between MGE/ToT under the tacit assumption they would each need dedicated rulesets, whereas Freeciv has rules for Civ1 and Civ2 and a hybrid Civ2–Civ3, with the ability to run them on the standard grid or Civ5/6-style hexmaps, all running off common baseline definitions. I don't know where the current build is code-wise, but with an eye to future expansion once the OG's been replicated to satisfaction, building the engine with such modularity in mind will save a lot of back-tracking and revision later: I follow several OpenRA mods, and some of them go far beyond the inspiring games' features, even without custom DLLs.

Case in point: C-evo aping SMAC and letting you craft your own units.

Hmmm... not so sure if that's true...

Civ2 AI is indeed ancient and limited, but (for single player gamers at least) it's the core of the game they love. If the AI in this project feels too different (even if it's more competent and challenging), it will be a different game wearing Civ2 clothes. Isn't that kinda what FreeCiv already is?

I think my single biggest gripe with Freeciv is that AI attitudes feel entirely black-boxed: a civ will be Enthusiastic at contact and plunge to Hostile in twenty turns without any indication why. At least the MGE bug is reliably consistent.

 

[Blake00]

We've switched engines which on the long run should be beneficial for the project. The main difference is now there's a game loop instead of event-based stuff.
We're also dropping imgui and making our own gui. You can find out more details in the discussions section on github.

Thanks for the update mate! Very cool. New interface looks a bit different but I found your discussion thread on github about its advantages and how you plan to mod it to look better & more like the Civ2 GUI. So few githubs turn on the public forum discussion section so I'll have to remember that you're one of the ones that has a Discussion area and will keep an eye on it!

I'd much sooner want to see something similar done with Colonization. I think FreeCol died years ago, and Civ4Col always fell short. I'd kill for a direct, moddable remake of the original and its chunky low-res pixels. Room for better quality music, an expansion beyond the independence war... one can dream.

I'd love that too! I run the Sid Meier's Colonization Discord, Reddit & Facebook fan groups so I'm always on the lookout for a fan rebuild project. Running the groups keeps me up to date with most of the community news too so I should mention that FreeCol is alive and well. They recently hit the big v1.0 release! However yes it does feel like it's own beast and that even with the classic Col ruleset activated it doesn't feel like a true accurate rebuild/clone of Col.

Which is also the problem with FreeCiv. When I shared this thread around heaps of Civ social media groups a year or so ago I copped lots of snarky unhelpful "you're wasting your time bro, just play FreeCiv with Civ2 rules" comments because they just didn't get the difference between FreeCiv and a true close as possible Civ2 clone that can load Civ2 saves, maps, graphics & scenarios. Yeah they can make FreeCiv more like Civ2 but it's still not Civ2. The GUI and AI behaviour is very different and more importantly you can't load Civ2 scenarios and mods on it. Yes there's a mod that makes the GUI look more like Civ2 but it broke after updates and yes maybe some way, some how, some one could design a mod that allows people to play Civ2 scenarios but that would probably break after 5mins too. That's why the FreeCiv modding scene is a mostly a graveyard containing 2 decades of dead mods that require you to roll back to some ancient version to try them. Modders come in, do something really cool, then the next FreeCIv update breaks their mod, so they fix it, then the next update breaks it, they fix again, then it breaks again... and after a while they just go "stuff this" and never come back and we end up with another addition to the FreeCiv modding graveyard.

I've done on-and-off experiments with modding Freeciv, including a Civ2 skin that was almost perfect

Oh wow, I didn't know you were one of said brave FreeCiv modders who tried to mod the game only for something to go wrong lol. That's really cool that you worked on a Civ2 mod for it, did you ever release it? Another guy did a FreeCiv Civ2 mod a few years back that I've been meaning try but of course have to roll back to some old version to try it. Sounds like maybe yours would have been even more impressive. He posted it on a few sites and even came here to share it (screenshots hidden in spoiler tags):
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...-civilization-2-on-the-freeciv-engine.625553/

I follow several OpenRA mods, and some of them go far beyond the inspiring games' features, even without custom DLLs.

Oooh I'm a big OpenRA fan too, and like you am a big fan of the 3rd party modding scene for it too and lurk a number of their discords. My favourite projects being Shattered Paradise, Rominvo's Vengeance, and the Dune 2 Classic mods. I even used (with permission) some of their assets in my Civ2 Red Alert 2 Siege of New York scenario. Funnily enough just yesterday I met up with a few of my childhood buddies to relive our youth and play a few games over LAN and we spent most of the play playing OpenRA mods lol. I haven't for a while but I used to record a number of our games, we all suck at playing as we don't play regularly enough to remember good skills lol (8th video down onwards in playlist):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZqnaGtTZxFZb0xC04yziiMuNA_UwJmGr
.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Oh wow, I didn't know you were one of said brave FreeCiv modders who tried to mod the game only for something to go wrong lol. That's really cool that you worked on a Civ2 mod for it, did you ever release it? Another guy did a FreeCiv Civ2 mod a few years back that I've been meaning try but of course have to roll back to some old version to try it. Sounds like maybe yours would have been even more impressive. He posted it on a few sites and even came here to share it (screenshots hidden in spoiler tags):
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...-civilization-2-on-the-freeciv-engine.625553/

No public release, but if there's an appetite I can pack it up for export. Fortunately it's a graphics pack rather than a rules overhaul, so it's a bit more resilient against engine updates: I pulled newer SLeague sprites to replace Nemo's units used for the Amplio2 tileset and imported most of the original Civ2 soundscape. (Unfortunately it doesn't [yet] parse multiple files for a single definition like, say, OpenRA, so the generic cheers for city improvements can't cycle.)

I'd hoped to replace IsoTrident with Catfish's terrain, but while it technically works, the top clips on the map and unit icons get cropped in the city view in a way that hides their status. It seems Freeciv uses the terrain dimensions as the 'base' tile definition, so until they decouple unit dimensions from the map tiles, a proper ToT graphics pack remains a buggy proof-of-concept. MGE-era units should work (the Trident/IsoTrident tilesets use dimensions essentially identical to Civ2), I just haven't combed the archives here for free-to-use assets.

I'll see about bringing Comrade_Oleg's work up to par and releasing everything as a consolidated set.

Oooh I'm a big OpenRA fan too, and like you am a big fan of the 3rd party modding scene for it too and lurk a number of their discords. My favourite projects being Shattered Paradise, Rominvo's Vengeance, and the Dune 2 Classic mods. I even used (with permission) some of their assets in my Civ2 Red Alert 2 Siege of New York scenario. Funnily enough just yesterday I met up with a few of my childhood buddies to relive our youth and play a few games over LAN and we spent most of the play playing OpenRA mods lol. I haven't for a while but I used to record a number of our games, we all suck at playing as we don't play regularly enough to remember good skills lol (8th video down onwards in playlist):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZqnaGtTZxFZb0xC04yziiMuNA_UwJmGr

I forget how exactly I found Crossfire, but it was that moment I realized how criminally I'd overlooked the engine's modding potential, especially for a neophyte whose boldest forays with the OG were .INI hacks. Next thing I knew I'd gone public with a mod based on the Downfall Parody Universe (including full video cutscenes!), plus a couple of projects inspired by other CFC forays. N.B.: Last public release was in 2015; I've kept the internal build updated with the main engine, but I've been holding off the next patch until I've finished the next campaign mission... and I was never good at mission design even in the RAED days.

Aye, Romanov's Vengeance is ace; it's basically CannisRules for the modern era. Recently I checked out a couple of nifty mods: Pink Alert, whose coolest feature is a tech progression system similar to the CWC mod for Generals where the arsenal unlocks through combat experience; and Tiberian Aurora, which has basically thrown down the gauntlet for if-and-when they remaster the second-gen games. (Speaking of Generals, it blows my mind that this mod has effectively replicated the whole game.) And then, of course, there's Cameo...

Fortunately they put together a framework for standalone installers: much like Freeciv, a lot of early projects were likely abandoned due to the hassle of engine updates. Medieval Warfare and The Great War had a lot of nifty features, but this was back when mods ran off the root installation, and those versions are so old I'm not even sure if they're still available.

 

[Blake00]

No public release, but if there's an appetite I can pack it up for export. Fortunately it's a graphics pack rather than a rules overhaul, so it's a bit more resilient against engine updates: I pulled newer SLeague sprites to replace Nemo's units used for the Amplio2 tileset and imported most of the original Civ2 soundscape. (Unfortunately it doesn't [yet] parse multiple files for a single definition like, say, OpenRA, so the generic cheers for city improvements can't cycle.)

I'd hoped to replace IsoTrident with Catfish's terrain, but while it technically works, the top clips on the map and unit icons get cropped in the city view in a way that hides their status. It seems Freeciv uses the terrain dimensions as the 'base' tile definition, so until they decouple unit dimensions from the map tiles, a proper ToT graphics pack remains a buggy proof-of-concept. MGE-era units should work (the Trident/IsoTrident tilesets use dimensions essentially identical to Civ2), I just haven't combed the archives here for free-to-use assets.

I'll see about bringing Comrade_Oleg's work up to par and releasing everything as a consolidated set.

That would be awesome as my Civilization HD video series (that's taking forever) will be covering FreeCiv and I planned to try out that old Civ2 mod and do a video on it. So if you end up putting out something better you can bet I'll do video on that instead heh! If you do end up going ahead with it you've got my blessings to post about it here in the Civ2 forum since the 'other games' forum section is a bit dead.

I forget how exactly I found Crossfire, but it was that moment I realized how criminally I'd overlooked the engine's modding potential, especially for a neophyte whose boldest forays with the OG were .INI hacks. Next thing I knew I'd gone public with a mod based on the Downfall Parody Universe (including full video cutscenes!), plus a couple of projects inspired by other CFC forays. N.B.: Last public release was in 2015; I've kept the internal build updated with the main engine, but I've been holding off the next patch until I've finished the next campaign mission... and I was never good at mission design even in the RAED days.

Aye, Romanov's Vengeance is ace; it's basically CannisRules for the modern era. Recently I checked out a couple of nifty mods: Pink Alert, whose coolest feature is a tech progression system similar to the CWC mod for Generals where the arsenal unlocks through combat experience; and Tiberian Aurora, which has basically thrown down the gauntlet for if-and-when they remaster the second-gen games. (Speaking of Generals, it blows my mind that this mod has effectively replicated the whole game.) And then, of course, there's Cameo...

Fortunately they put together a framework for standalone installers: much like Freeciv, a lot of early projects were likely abandoned due to the hassle of engine updates. Medieval Warfare and The Great War had a lot of nifty features, but this was back when mods ran off the root installation, and those versions are so old I'm not even sure if they're still available.

Ahh good stuff. I've seen a number of these but not your mods. Any screenshots of your work? One of your blog posts had a broken image icon and the other didn't seem to have any images so I'm curious what it looks like! That Cameo mod is nuts, they'll import anything haha!

Oh yes the standalone installers was such a great moment as my videos were just filled with comments from people asking how to get the 3rd party mods working and I'd struggle to help them as I had to get help too from a mate due to all the powershell and SDK make command stuff you used to have to do. Although sadly the classic Dune 2 mod guys still haven't embraced that feature. Oh and I forgot to say OpenRA Crystallized Doom is another project I follow and they were kind enough to let me use some of their units for my Civ2 C&C Africa scenario remaster.

Oh and did you ever stumble upon the Enigma SC mod? I looks utterly amazing however sadly it's on hold while the author waits for improvements to the Gen 2 stuff in the OpenRA engine.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Any screenshots of your work? One of your blog posts had a broken image icon and the other didn't seem to have any images so I'm curious what it looks like!

Sadly no, though the broken image is just the logo. I've been hemming and hawing over making an official ModDB page for 0.2, but I figure, if Cameo can mash up all the franchises, I should be shielded for Fair Use.

Oh and did you ever stumble upon the Enigma SC mod? I looks utterly amazing however sadly it's on hold while the author waits for improvements to the Gen 2 stuff in the OpenRA engine.

I probably saw it during an early scrape of the index, then forgot about it when no demo appeared. If I had a dollar for every 'mod' that was just a preview gallery...

 

[LuKo]

What's the status of the game?