Catfish, I am not up on the technicalities of the game, as in the difference between mods, scenarios, etc. To me, Test of Time is a Civilization II variant, and yes, the strategies one uses to navigate the tech trees IS different from those in the regular Civ II game. Example: In ToT Lalande, some of the techs considered "early" in regular Civ II are actually not available until late in the game - IF you play one of the alien civs. And since you cannot communicate with any of the human civs at that time, it does require different strategies to get those techs. You cannot research them yourself, so you need to figure out how to get them, or plan in advance for when they do become available.