Modifying civ2 to my liking, questions

[SpiderJohn]

Hi all,

I’m new to this website but have been playing Civ2 off/on for 5 years, so I wouldn’t say I’m a newbie to it. I have a couple questions:

1. I’ve read in the past that you can change the rules.txt (?) file to customize the game in many ways. I’ve never messed with it up to now but would now like to take nukes out of the game completely. Is there a way to modify the .txt file that would allow this? My current playing style is somewhat peaceful (ie. defensive) and I find the nukes to be tedious, taking away from the game.
2. In the same vein, is there a way to modify the game that limits the level of units that can be attained? To wit: I’d like to play a game where say the highest level units would be perhaps cannons, Dragoons/cavalry, ironclad/frigates, and musketeers. I think that would be an interesting way to play a world domination game.
3. Is there a way (like in civ3) to choose your climate/landmass type?

Thanks for any help you can give.

BTW… My usual is: Emperor/7 civs/Raging horde/large map on MGE. Almost always go for winning the tech/space race

 

[ElephantU]

Welcome to CFC.

Yes, RULES.TXT is the place to make changes to accomplish the things you asked for, but realize that you will not be able to use the modified version for any of the comparison/competition games here at CFC. RULES.TXT must be unmodified for GOTM or Democracy games, or any multi-player games.

To take nukes out of play you can modify the techs involved or the units. Eliminating techs will screw up your space race, but I believe you can change the techs required for units to "nil", as well as the techs required for Manhattan Project. The sections you want to look at are @CIVILIZE and @UNITS. You could try @ENDWONDER to make MP expire with NucFission too; don't know if that will work. Save a backup copy of RULES.TXT and open it with NotePad (NOT Word!). You should be able to make higher level units impossible by giving them a starting tech of Plumbing (Plu).

Customizing climate and landmass is done when setting up the game by choosing "Customize World" instead of "Start New Game". Suprised you have not tried that in 5 years.

 

[SpiderJohn]

Thanks for the help ElephantU. I was wondering if I could just take out MP, but I'll try your suggestion with the units. Worse comes to worse, I'll reload the program.

It's kind of embarrasing that I missed the "Customize World" option in the main menu, I'll have to look for that. Seems I'm a creature of habit and always start with a computer gen'd world.

Like I said, I've been playing for about 5 years (very sporadic), but I seem to play the same way over and over. For example, until I came to this site a month ago, I'd never thought of a SSC. Just tried it in my last game, and while it worked pretty well, at least one of the AI civ's was ahead of me at Mobile Warfare. I guess I need to read more here and try some of the other strategies/ideas.

 

[ElephantU]

Try working on narrowing your Tech Path and getting Republic going earlier. I usually try to go Monarchy-Trade-Philosophy-Republic. Some people even skip Monarchy, but the single food settlers are much better for early city building and terrain improving.

SSC: (HangGardens?)-Colossus-Shakespeares-Copernicus-Newtons.

 

[SpiderJohn]

I guess the reason I stay in Monarchy so long is my determination to get to Democracy as fast as possible. In the process I have to pass up some of the lead-in tech's to get Mike's, which you almost have to have if you want to go Republic early. Is there a way around this? BTW,,, I don't know that I've ever gone for HG. Maybe that would help.

Guess I'm more of a newbie than I thought.

 

[harperbruce]

Originally posted by SpiderJohn
Guess I'm more of a newbie than I thought.

I've been playing this thing for 2-3 years, and I'm still learning tricks. I'm trying the Monarchy route for city expansion after reading it on here, and I like it very much, so that I'm ignoring Republic instead of going for it as soon as possible.

I think the main thing here to learn is that there's probably no one right way to play this; it's a stylistic thing as much as anything else.