Robert FIN
Emperor
How to run Civ 2 "Vanilla" on 64 Bit Computers (Win 7/Vista/XP):
Hello forums! I've noticed that people's only question in here in Civ2 Tech Support forum has been; How in the earth they can play Civ 2 on Windows 64 bit?? Well there are many, many, many quides to do this but here is my attempt to make this so easy that even an idiot can do this. If you failed to do this, please tell me what is the problem and let's see if I can help. I used Andu Indorin's post to solve the problem, most of the quotes are from him. However I try to make the post to quide form and add some details on it. I did write this quide at the same time when I managed to make this work in the 1st time in my life!
Let'sfail start!
#1:
This part is easy. Just put the Civ2 disc to CD-drive (E:/), and check the contents of your E:/ drive. Do this by opening the windows menu from down-left corner of the screen and press "Computer" and go to your E:/ drive.
You see a couple of directories in your E:/ drive. There is "CIV2", "Extras", "VFW_INST" and "WING" directories and Program called "Setup". You have to copy the directory which is called "CIV2".
Now go to your C: drive from the windows menu on down-left corner of the screen and press "Computer". Create directory called "MPS" to your C: drive. Fill your new directory by pasteing the CIV2 directory there (the one you just copied). Now you should have your CIV2 directory in C:/MPS and C:/MPS/CIV2 should be filled of files from your CD.
#2:
This is the part where I failed in the first times. So, follow this link and get Cedric's five parts file-arsenal to convert your Civ 2 "vanilla" to Civ 2 Multiplayer Gold Edition. Otherwise you cannot play Civ 2 on 64bit programs. CIV 2 VANILLA MUST BE CONVERTED TO CIV 2 MGE TO MAKE IT WORK ON 64BIT COMPUTERS!!
Its easy, download the five zip. files from there and check your downloads. Double click the 1st part of Cedric's zip. arsenal. Double click the directory what is inside the zip. You find a file or many files there. Copypaste the files into C:/MPS/CIV2 folder. Repeat this to all 5 zip. files. If windows asks if you want to replace a file that already exists, just say yes to all. Then we are ready with this step. If you try to launch Civ 2 exe now, windows won't deny your access to it but the game still won't work. We have to do something more!
Just to be clear: DO NOT PUT ANY NEW FOLDERS INTO CIV2 DIRECTORY, JUST THE FILES WHICH ARE ON THE DIRECTORIES WHICH ARE ON THE ZIP-FILES!!
#3:
Now we should have Civ2 Multiplayer Gold Edition on our /CIV2 directory. Then we need Mastermind's patch which allows us to get our game really working. Get it here:
Mastermind's Patch vol 2.0!!
Once you get it downloaded, follow these instructions, this part is all my text:
Now you're done with Mastermind's program. Next I tell you how to start your Civ 2 MGE. This part must be done probably every time when starting Civ 2 in future. Me again:
Now you should have working Civ 2 game on your computer. WOOHOO!! Have fun! After this it worked for me. However some people have to do step 4 too, so read it for being sure that your Civ2 works.
#4: For some people who weren't able to load saves after getting the game working:
Done. Now you should have working Civ 2 MGE in your 64 bit Computer

!!! (You have Win 7/Vista/XP most likely.)
Let's think what we did: First we had 16bit program which won't work in 64bit machines. We transformed it to 32bit program with Cedric's zip files. Then we patched it to work with Mastermind's patcher. That's All!
If you have problems, post to this thread and we'll try to help.
As reward I don't ask anything but possible sticky rating so everyone who needs this could find it much easier way.
At last, I'd like to thank all people who made this possible. If your name isn't in the list and you feel like you deserved it, just call me and I'll fix that. Millions of thanks to these people who made my quide possible:
Prof. Garfield, for help me getting started with the issue,
Cedric Greene, for making Civ 2 MGE- upgrade zip. files and telling us how to use 'em,
MastermindX, for programming MGE patcher to us and for helping me to use his program,
Andu Indorin, for the amazing post what I did quote the most in this quide,
goofydink, for solving save loading issue,
You, for reading this quide,
Everyone I forgot to mention.
Written by:
Robert FIN
Thanks for reading
!!
Hello forums! I've noticed that people's only question in here in Civ2 Tech Support forum has been; How in the earth they can play Civ 2 on Windows 64 bit?? Well there are many, many, many quides to do this but here is my attempt to make this so easy that even an idiot can do this. If you failed to do this, please tell me what is the problem and let's see if I can help. I used Andu Indorin's post to solve the problem, most of the quotes are from him. However I try to make the post to quide form and add some details on it. I did write this quide at the same time when I managed to make this work in the 1st time in my life!
Let's
#1:
Needless to say, direct attempt of installing Civ2 "vanilla" directly to aWindows 764bit computers is a failure. However, copied all files from this old, old CD-ROM (that's read-only-memory for those who haven't had a history lesson in obsolete technology) directly to hard drive (... MPS\Civ2 directory).
This part is easy. Just put the Civ2 disc to CD-drive (E:/), and check the contents of your E:/ drive. Do this by opening the windows menu from down-left corner of the screen and press "Computer" and go to your E:/ drive.
You see a couple of directories in your E:/ drive. There is "CIV2", "Extras", "VFW_INST" and "WING" directories and Program called "Setup". You have to copy the directory which is called "CIV2".
Now go to your C: drive from the windows menu on down-left corner of the screen and press "Computer". Create directory called "MPS" to your C: drive. Fill your new directory by pasteing the CIV2 directory there (the one you just copied). Now you should have your CIV2 directory in C:/MPS and C:/MPS/CIV2 should be filled of files from your CD.
#2:
NEXT, Downloaded Cedric's five-part MGE patch conversion -- http://www.civfanatics.com/civ2/downloads/cedric/ -- and manually copied (i.e., overwrote) those files into the same directory.
This is the part where I failed in the first times. So, follow this link and get Cedric's five parts file-arsenal to convert your Civ 2 "vanilla" to Civ 2 Multiplayer Gold Edition. Otherwise you cannot play Civ 2 on 64bit programs. CIV 2 VANILLA MUST BE CONVERTED TO CIV 2 MGE TO MAKE IT WORK ON 64BIT COMPUTERS!!
Its easy, download the five zip. files from there and check your downloads. Double click the 1st part of Cedric's zip. arsenal. Double click the directory what is inside the zip. You find a file or many files there. Copypaste the files into C:/MPS/CIV2 folder. Repeat this to all 5 zip. files. If windows asks if you want to replace a file that already exists, just say yes to all. Then we are ready with this step. If you try to launch Civ 2 exe now, windows won't deny your access to it but the game still won't work. We have to do something more!
Just to be clear: DO NOT PUT ANY NEW FOLDERS INTO CIV2 DIRECTORY, JUST THE FILES WHICH ARE ON THE DIRECTORIES WHICH ARE ON THE ZIP-FILES!!
#3:
THEN followed the above directions:
Now we should have Civ2 Multiplayer Gold Edition on our /CIV2 directory. Then we need Mastermind's patch which allows us to get our game really working. Get it here:
Mastermind's Patch vol 2.0!!
Once you get it downloaded, follow these instructions, this part is all my text:
After all, Mastermind's program is easy to use. However, everyone is not so good in computer things that this part would be easy. At least I as a noob was asking Mastermind all the time "How to do this??" and "How to do that" before I made a breakthrough. Here we go:
1. Open the program.
2. Press the button, right side to text "Civ 2 Exename".
3. Then you see your CIV2 directory (if you don't, just find it from C:/MPS) and select exefile called civ2.exe.
4. Press patch.
5. If it says that CIV2 is now patched you are ready with this part. Close program.
*Note1*: If it says that civ2.TMMbak file already exists, go ahead and delete the file manually from C:/MPS/CIV2 folder.. And try again!
*Note2*If it says that it cannot patch, you probably failed with zip files part. Tell us details then.
Now you're done with Mastermind's program. Next I tell you how to start your Civ 2 MGE. This part must be done probably every time when starting Civ 2 in future. Me again:
I'm not sure if it starts smooth with your computers now but I have to do these steps always while starting Civ2. Skip this part if it just goes straight to main menu.
1. Find civ2.exe from /CIV2 folder. Double-click and give it rights to continue, Civ2 won't hurt your computer!
2. You get black screen with waiting cursor. Hold down "Alt" button on and quickly click TAB button. Keep Alt down during this step! Now you can switch to screen with Civ 2 main menu without the options (Named Civilization 2 Multiplayer Gold).
3. You see main menu without options now. Do Alt>TAB again and this time choose the smaller black screen. In my computer its the one in left of the nameless black screens.
4. Big black square appeared on to center of main menu. Now just left click it.
5. Civ 2 started like a dream.
6. Test it and if it works, just play and have fun!
Now you should have working Civ 2 game on your computer. WOOHOO!! Have fun! After this it worked for me. However some people have to do step 4 too, so read it for being sure that your Civ2 works.
#4: For some people who weren't able to load saves after getting the game working:
Could not load saved games. Fortunately, from another thread in this tech support section regarding ToT Saved games, a solution was offered:
goofydink: I use winxp here. I had the same problem that is mentioned here. What I found out is that the saved game files need to be saved in a different folder than what comes up as the the default save folder. TOT in my case has the default save folder as C:\Microprose Software\Civilization II Multiplayer Gold Edition. The saved games would not load from here. When i saved a game to to C:\Microprose software, it loaded fine. So in my case anyway it is a pathing issue. I hope this is helpful.
SO, for simplicity sake, created a Microprose Software folder in the C:\ directory, and copied the Civ2 directory from Windows 7 "default" Program Files x86 directory to the new folder. Problem solved: saved games now loading.
Done. Now you should have working Civ 2 MGE in your 64 bit Computer



Let's think what we did: First we had 16bit program which won't work in 64bit machines. We transformed it to 32bit program with Cedric's zip files. Then we patched it to work with Mastermind's patcher. That's All!
If you have problems, post to this thread and we'll try to help.
As reward I don't ask anything but possible sticky rating so everyone who needs this could find it much easier way.
At last, I'd like to thank all people who made this possible. If your name isn't in the list and you feel like you deserved it, just call me and I'll fix that. Millions of thanks to these people who made my quide possible:
Prof. Garfield, for help me getting started with the issue,
Cedric Greene, for making Civ 2 MGE- upgrade zip. files and telling us how to use 'em,
MastermindX, for programming MGE patcher to us and for helping me to use his program,
Andu Indorin, for the amazing post what I did quote the most in this quide,
goofydink, for solving save loading issue,
You, for reading this quide,
Everyone I forgot to mention.
Written by:
Robert FIN
Thanks for reading
