The GitHub repository was updated a couple days ago, so it looks to be in development still. I haven't tried it lately, so I don't know the state that it is in. This post has a screenshot of the interface as it was a little over a year ago. I think more recent effort was to make it cross platform, so it may not have progressed too much.
Making a Clone of Civ II
- Thread starter Prof. Garfield
- Start date
The GitHub repository was updated a couple days ago, so it looks to be in development still. I haven't tried it lately, so I don't know the state that it is in. This post has a screenshot of the interface as it was a little over a year ago. I think more recent effort was to make it cross platform, so it may not have progressed too much.
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... in the case that ToT should be modded in the next millenia, too, it would be needed to also fix the combat graphics for animated units and the movement sounds.
I wonder if movement sounds are already possible with Lua. I think it's possible to tell a unit is moving and one could add a sound to that as "music" and then have the default movement "sound" be silent.
Indeed, that would really be something...
CurtSibling
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... in the case that ToT should be modded in the next millenia, too, it would be needed to also fix the combat graphics for animated units and the movement sounds.
Irrelevant in comparison to having more than 7 civs in game.
CurtSibling
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These sort of projects always start off with a big boost of enthusiasm, but sometimes fizzle away as modders move to other things, or life gets in the way.
I hope the team keeps on it, as the idea is cool, but I have seen too many mods go into deep freeze over the years.
Yup as pointed out by Prof Garfield there's been recent changes on the github page , so no sign of fatigue yet thankfully. I also spoke with @axx over PM just a month back and asked him how things were going with Civ2 clone and he said he was trying to conquer some UI issues due to limitations of Eto which he chose for its cross platform capabilities, and that we would have seen more progress by now had these issues not occurred. I haven't tried the builds myself (not a programmer and I hate trying to compile stuff haha) but I believe they can load scenarios and savegames now but I don't think there's much AI activity. So definitely well past "dreaming" stage now JP! 
Yes it's coming along nicely. Like all similar project the activity can be sporadic and comes in waves. I've been trying to figure out how the original implements dialogs in the past month and I've figured it out more or less.
I'm too lazy to post what's done and needs to be done, but just look at the commit history to get a feel where we're at.
@Blake00 you don't really need to be a programmer to compile it, just download Visual studio (you don't need all the unnecessary cabbage it comes along with, just c# stuff), open the project and press Run.
I'm too lazy to post what's done and needs to be done, but just look at the commit history to get a feel where we're at.
@Blake00 you don't really need to be a programmer to compile it, just download Visual studio (you don't need all the unnecessary cabbage it comes along with, just c# stuff), open the project and press Run.
My apologies I was referring to the one Garfield and I were talking about. I haven't really been following axx's one. Too many projects to keep track of them all
I never did anything beyond suggest that maybe it could be done using Lua. I figured that @axx 's project was underway, and I don't have any experience with C#, let alone know how to change it to make it cross platform. Since there was a project, I wasn't going to duplicate effort either.
ahh right.. sorry JP yeah I'm so used to this thread being about axx's Civ2 clone project these days so I forgot it was kind of hijacked from you & garfield's original project ideas haha.
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.
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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.
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Yes, it can have as many civs as there are colors for. So in the original that's 8
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
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Sounds exciting at this stage.
CurtSibling
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
