I would love to be able to play civ 2, alpha centaurai and populous the begining on my dual core vista 64 bit PC. New games are just no where near as good as these. Alpha centauri was the best ever game ever and they cant even make a sequel.
What's so good about Civ2?
- Thread starter Swedishguy
- Start date
Martacus
World's Greatest Warrior
Well, I have a few reasons:
1. Playing a game doesn't take as long; even with a lot of cities/units, it moves faster than either of the two subsequent games.
2. I like to micromanage and do everything myself. No building queues, no governors automatically moving on to useless building projects for which I'd personally gut them for if I were an actual immortal overlord of a nation.
3. Waging war in any other Civ game is a nightmare. Civ I boils down to pure luck. Civ III, forget warfare period. You're not going to win. At all. I've heard tales of people "winning" a war and once in a while maybe even a city changing hands, but these involved dozens of artillery units bombarding a city for at least ten turns before the lone defending spearman was weakened sufficiently for a force of ten modern armor units to be able to defeat him. Civ IV seems to rely heavily on having lots of different types of units, every one specialized for a very specific task. In my opinion this over-complicates things terribly. I'll take my Civ II warfare--uncomplicated and direct as in the original, but with just the right amount of "common sense" added (HP and Firepower) to keep the fighting fair.
4. Just a whole lot less complicated than the later ones in general. I can micromanage everything because there isn't a whole lot to micromanage--just city production, expansion, combat, and terrain improvement. Civil disorder? Make an Elvis, rush-build a temple, and put Elvis back to work. Corruption? Not a major problem, just a few shields per turn lost early game, before the tech tree sorts the problem out permanently. I just want the basics. None of this "Great Person" stuff, no need to separate workers from settlers, health, culture, custom-tailored governments, troublesome espionage options (I STILL can't figure out how to use this effectively in Civ III or IV), corporations, etc. etc. etc. The list of useless stuff added to later editions goes on and on.
5. So it has 1996 graphics. That's what grahphics modpacks are for. Besides, I've seen (and still play games with) worse graphics.
1. Playing a game doesn't take as long; even with a lot of cities/units, it moves faster than either of the two subsequent games.
2. I like to micromanage and do everything myself. No building queues, no governors automatically moving on to useless building projects for which I'd personally gut them for if I were an actual immortal overlord of a nation.
3. Waging war in any other Civ game is a nightmare. Civ I boils down to pure luck. Civ III, forget warfare period. You're not going to win. At all. I've heard tales of people "winning" a war and once in a while maybe even a city changing hands, but these involved dozens of artillery units bombarding a city for at least ten turns before the lone defending spearman was weakened sufficiently for a force of ten modern armor units to be able to defeat him. Civ IV seems to rely heavily on having lots of different types of units, every one specialized for a very specific task. In my opinion this over-complicates things terribly. I'll take my Civ II warfare--uncomplicated and direct as in the original, but with just the right amount of "common sense" added (HP and Firepower) to keep the fighting fair.
4. Just a whole lot less complicated than the later ones in general. I can micromanage everything because there isn't a whole lot to micromanage--just city production, expansion, combat, and terrain improvement. Civil disorder? Make an Elvis, rush-build a temple, and put Elvis back to work. Corruption? Not a major problem, just a few shields per turn lost early game, before the tech tree sorts the problem out permanently. I just want the basics. None of this "Great Person" stuff, no need to separate workers from settlers, health, culture, custom-tailored governments, troublesome espionage options (I STILL can't figure out how to use this effectively in Civ III or IV), corporations, etc. etc. etc. The list of useless stuff added to later editions goes on and on.
5. So it has 1996 graphics. That's what grahphics modpacks are for. Besides, I've seen (and still play games with) worse graphics.
Full disclosure: I own Civ 2 (and FW), Civ3 Complete, and Civ 4 (vanilla).
Each of the games has something to recommend it.
PLUS: Civ2 does move along quickly, and the maps are more varied than Civ3.
Lots of interesting peninsulas. The trading system is very cool, and
lets you manage your economy using units, in much the same way
you manage your military. The science system is also elastic, letting
you research far down a branch of the tech tree if you wish.
I also really liked diplomat and spy units; watching the spaceship get
built in orbit was cool. Gotta love the advisors for comic relief!
MINUS: Hated stack death (kill one unit, kill them all); never made any sense to me.
Going back to Civ2, I keep looking for resources as I place my cities,
and then realize it doesn't matter
PLUS: Civ3 improved the air units, but nerfed the espionage. I like cultural borders,
and the ability to claim land without spamming cities. Civ3 added more
victory conditions, which gave some more variety to the game. Loved the
addition of armies; I also like using bombard units to kill units (or even boats!)
Separating workers from settlers was a good idea, and not tying support
for a unit to a particular city is also very liberating.
MINUS: Cleaning up pollution is a pain, and espionage is useless (see above)
Tech tree is too rigid, separated into ages
PLUS: Civ4 took the idea of cultural borders and squared it (adding religion).
The tech tree now has ORs as well as ANDs, which adds flexibility.
Units can be promoted and specialized, which gives interesting choices,
and the variety of units is richer. Lots of strengths and weaknesses.
The leader characteristics make each tribe distinct; in Civ2 they were
an awful lot alike.
MINUS: They nerfed rush building in Civ4 -- just about everything has to be built
from scratch, and it takes *forever*
Impassable mountain ranges
are just silly, and naval warships are too protected against shore or
aerial bombardment.
Each of the games has something to recommend it.
PLUS: Civ2 does move along quickly, and the maps are more varied than Civ3.
Lots of interesting peninsulas. The trading system is very cool, and
lets you manage your economy using units, in much the same way
you manage your military. The science system is also elastic, letting
you research far down a branch of the tech tree if you wish.
I also really liked diplomat and spy units; watching the spaceship get
built in orbit was cool. Gotta love the advisors for comic relief!
MINUS: Hated stack death (kill one unit, kill them all); never made any sense to me.
Going back to Civ2, I keep looking for resources as I place my cities,
and then realize it doesn't matter
PLUS: Civ3 improved the air units, but nerfed the espionage. I like cultural borders,
and the ability to claim land without spamming cities. Civ3 added more
victory conditions, which gave some more variety to the game. Loved the
addition of armies; I also like using bombard units to kill units (or even boats!)
Separating workers from settlers was a good idea, and not tying support
for a unit to a particular city is also very liberating.
MINUS: Cleaning up pollution is a pain, and espionage is useless (see above)
Tech tree is too rigid, separated into ages
PLUS: Civ4 took the idea of cultural borders and squared it (adding religion).
The tech tree now has ORs as well as ANDs, which adds flexibility.
Units can be promoted and specialized, which gives interesting choices,
and the variety of units is richer. Lots of strengths and weaknesses.
The leader characteristics make each tribe distinct; in Civ2 they were
an awful lot alike.
MINUS: They nerfed rush building in Civ4 -- just about everything has to be built
from scratch, and it takes *forever*
Impassable mountain rangesare just silly, and naval warships are too protected against shore or
aerial bombardment.
As a dedicated player of Civ 2 and Civ 3 who has not yet managed to really get into Civ 4.
This is not always a good thing; really big Civ 3 games get an epic scale going that I've not been able to get out of Civ 2, in part because, i think, there is more of a feel of the nature of the game changing over time than there is in Civ 2.
So do I, but I disagree with your point 4; up to a certain point, the more to micromanage the better, and I do not think any Civ yet has actually hit that point; the things Soren Johnson has said about the design process of Civ IV make it sound unfortunately like shying away from an idea of "too complex" well short of what I would optimally want.
You exaggerate maybe a little ?
War in Civ 2 can be won with bulk production and swarming - and can be won even more easily by buiding your economy first and bribing everything in sight, I can't recall the last game of Civ 2 when I fought an actual major war at any point other than the very beginning rather than just hitting someone's capital and then buying every other city I wanted, or the sort of rolling over musketeers with massed armour that's hardly a war at all. War in Civ III needs a somewhat more complicated ability to handle logistics, and a grasp of force concentration; it's harder, but more rewarding for a'that. That said, firepower and hitpoints are two ideas that it was really bad to remove from Civ III and IV.
This is not always a good thing; really big Civ 3 games get an epic scale going that I've not been able to get out of Civ 2, in part because, i think, there is more of a feel of the nature of the game changing over time than there is in Civ 2.
So do I, but I disagree with your point 4; up to a certain point, the more to micromanage the better, and I do not think any Civ yet has actually hit that point; the things Soren Johnson has said about the design process of Civ IV make it sound unfortunately like shying away from an idea of "too complex" well short of what I would optimally want.
You exaggerate maybe a little ?
War in Civ 2 can be won with bulk production and swarming - and can be won even more easily by buiding your economy first and bribing everything in sight, I can't recall the last game of Civ 2 when I fought an actual major war at any point other than the very beginning rather than just hitting someone's capital and then buying every other city I wanted, or the sort of rolling over musketeers with massed armour that's hardly a war at all. War in Civ III needs a somewhat more complicated ability to handle logistics, and a grasp of force concentration; it's harder, but more rewarding for a'that. That said, firepower and hitpoints are two ideas that it was really bad to remove from Civ III and IV.
Out of interest, what about Civ 3 air units strikes you as an improvement ? I dislike them a lot and I've never grasped why that model was considered an improvement.
againsttheflow
unpolitically uncorrect
I would tend to agree. Civ3's better IMO but not in this respect. Planes could definately be improved if they combined ideas from both to both cut back on micromangement and incorporate missions or something like them.
I disliked the range restriction for the Civ2 fighters, and that the human
player had to count the squares. One square miscounted, and you lost
the unit -- and the enemy had nothing to do with it. Similarly, for the Civ2
bombers, it was a pain to have to manually rebase them, stepping-stone fashion, manually.
Civ3 bombers could be rebased to any of your cities
in one turn, though they would heal faster if that city had an airport.
The bombing missions for Civ3 fighters and bombers had some automation:
if the mousover gave you a crosshair, then you could hit that target,
and you were automagically returned to base. I suppose this turns the
fighters into fighter-bombers, but I really, really loved the automation.
When C3C added back lethal air bombardment (which I didn't like that they removed in vanilla
) that made bombers just as useful as artillery, but with greater range.I could soften up an AI city inside the cultural boundary before the arty
arrived. And if I destroyed the barracks -- bonus!
I didn't have a great deal of success with air-to-air combat in Civ3,
since one never knew where the AI kept its bombers hidden. In Civ2, I had just a few occasions where one of my fighters could leap out and engage
an AI bomber who had not yet returned to base. So, yes, I would agree
that Civ3 (and Civ4) have diminished air-to-air combat.
I would think that the improvement in the "go to" command in Civ 3, of default showing you the route and how many turns it will take to go to whatever square your mouse is, and of actually taking a sensible route most of the time, would both make it a lot harder to lose bombers through miscounting squares, and allow you not to have to move the unit square-by-square manually if you'd prefer not.
againsttheflow
unpolitically uncorrect
What I liked about civ two is that you could leave for enemy territory from one city and go back to another that was closer/on the other side of the enemy. The Civ2 system needed improvement, that's why I would like to see an engine with a sort of combination between the two. Keep the rebase, air superiority and possibly other missions but leave more flexibility for strategy.
GenMarshall
High Elven ISB Capt & Ghost Agent
1. By default they run on a windowed mode
2. Simple and easy to modify graphics
3. Simple and easy modding
2. Simple and easy to modify graphics
3. Simple and easy modding
Weird_bug
Warlord
Yes. It is so annoying in Civ 3/4 how you can't just click minimise, or X, or another window; you have to alttab out of it, or bring up the start menu.
againsttheflow
unpolitically uncorrect
Swedishguy
Deity
Go to the Options menu in Civ4. You will see an option that allows you to run Civ4 in window mode.
It would be great if you actually made some research before saying Civ4 can't be run in a window.
It would be great if you actually made some research before saying Civ4 can't be run in a window.
IamJohn
(was)?
Actually both are in civ4, they are just tied to eachother. As a unit is hurt it's power goes down. These effectively are it's hitpoints. It's firepower is the average of that number and it's fully healed power.
Yes, but that's indirect. I don't think firepower should necessarily go down as hit points go down, nor that either of them should be tied to attack and defence strength, these are four different things that should be capable of varying independently.
IamJohn
(was)?
It's realistic, I doubt that a severely wounded guy is as good a shot as the guy would be unwounded, or that a tank would shoot better and move faster then it would if it only had one track left, with smoke pouring out the back. 
It's realistic, I doubt that a severely wounded guy is as good a shot as the guy would be unwounded, or that a tank would shoot better and move faster then it would if it only had one track left, with smoke pouring out the back.
Well, yeas, but that's a reduction in attack strength, not a reduction in firepower. The damage the shell it fires does when it hits you isn't going to change, just the odds of it succeeding, no ?
IamJohn
(was)?
Yeah, but it's the actual inflicted damage that counts, not how big of a hole in the empty ground where nothing is that actually counts.
Are we actually in violent agreement, then ?
To my mind, you injure a unit, you reduce its attack and defence strength to some extent, but not necessarily its firepower. Attack and defence affect its chances of injuring its opponent, firepower the damage it does when it succeeds in hitting. A catapult with one hit point left is still firing the same rocks.
westamastaflash
Lord Commander
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2007
- Messages
- 933
I love the Civ 2 Scenarios. Nothing like trying to beat back the Hodads on Deity. They smash 3 or 4 starfighters into my Pan-American cities every turn! But a few veteran marines and you're ok. When they start nuking you, then you lose :-(.
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