Why do you stick to Civ2 and its exp packs?

[yoshi]

El Aurens is by Boco, not me.

Yeah I know; his is the ww1 arabia scen. (You helped though. )

 

[JonathanStrange]

I loved Civ 1 but I LOVED Civ 2; not only did it add a great deal of enhancements in graphics and gameplay, it managed to still retain the simplicity of Civ 1. I liked the expansions but it was Civ 2 in its simple form that held my interest.

It managed to seem important and realistic while always being a game; anyhow that's how my teenage self felt. The in-game video advisers always amused me, as cheesy as they were, I wish they were back in Civ 4.

(I didn't like Civ III, although I bought it and played it more than most of my fav. games. I felt I owed Civ that much; to give it a chance. Did not like a whole slew of things from Corruption to graphics to...)

 

[RomeoTheCat]

I'm currently playing Civ2 because my computer exploded and it will be a while before I can get it repaired/replaced so I'm stuck with this dog that can only just play Civ2 for now.

Oh...I also enjoy Civ2. I just kinda miss World of Warcraft.

 

[Civinator]

I've found that many ToT designers in the SL haven't even read the macro.txt document that ships with the game. You don't want to be putting more effort into helping people than they are willing to put into helping themselves.

May be some of these ToT-designers never had the opportunity to read the macro.txt document, that ships with the game, because it didn´t ship for the language version of these modders. Per example the German ToT-handbook didn´t contain that information. I had to buy an additional English version, that included that documentation.

Wobbegong and Yoshi, I have read your posts with great interest. The explosion animation isn´t the big problem in modding the ToT unit sprites as every unit sprite contains the death animation, that replaces the original "explosion animation". In my eyes the problem are the missing "defense animations", as with the animated ToT units one unit is fighting while the other is standing without doing anything until the death animation of one of the units is triggered. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7710932&postcount=3

 

[Catfish]

May be some of these ToT-designers never had the opportunity to read the macro.txt document, that ships with the game, because it didn´t ship for the language version of these modders. Per example the German ToT-handbook didn´t contain that information. I had to buy an additional English version, that included that documentation.

If that were true, you'd be talking about a very small minority. Regular posters in the SL forum ought to know about it; the document gets mentioned often enough. If you don't have it and can't find it, then you ask. The missing macro.txt issue is on my FAQ page, along with a copy of the document.

The explosion animation isn´t the big problem in modding the ToT unit sprites as every unit sprite contains the death animation, that replaces the original "explosion animation". In my eyes the problem are the missing "defense animations", as with the animated ToT units one unit is fighting while the other is standing without doing anything until the death animation of one of the units is triggered.

I think he (Yoshi) meant for static bitmaps. There's no animated combat sequence from icons.bmp when animated unit sprites are disabled. There should be an override. The one from earlier versions of Civ2 would appear over the unit taking damage.

Funnily enough, in Civ4 I use the Quick Combat options which disable the combat animations altogether. I got tired of waiting for fights to finish. The only indicators I receive that combat has taken place, aside from missing units, are an audio cue and a message in the Event Log (If you click on it, the screen will centre on the location.).

 

[yoshi]

May be some of these ToT-designers never had the opportunity to read the macro.txt document, that ships with the game, because it didn´t ship for the language version of these modders. Per example the German ToT-handbook didn´t contain that information. I had to buy an additional English version, that included that documentation.

I suppose that since the document is not officially part of the game, the expense of hiring translators couldn't be justified (remember, that includes updates).

There's an assumption that everyone that mods this game has basic English reading/writing skills (maybe Microprose should have developed an Esperanto version ).

I also posted the Macro.txt and some good links for events-related stuff here in this forum in an thread I opened a while ago titled, "Events Thread" (original title huh?).

Wobbegong and Yoshi, I have read your posts with great interest. The explosion animation isn´t the big problem in modding the ToT unit sprites as every unit sprite contains the death animation, that replaces the original "explosion animation". In my eyes the problem are the missing "defense animations", as with the animated ToT units one unit is fighting while the other is standing without doing anything until the death animation of one of the units is triggered. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=7710932&postcount=3

What Wobbegong said. Sorry, should've been clearer. No ToT scenarios that I know of make use of animated units (i.e. no one has created any new animated unit sprites--at least none that have been published). Unfortunately, the animation is limited to the area of the attacker's unit slot so hits still won't register (but as you said, any explosions can be added when one of the combatants is destroyed).

You're right about the defence animations; looks kind of odd only having the attacking unit move, but it's still better than no action at all.

It would've also been great had they added a 'work' animation for Settlers but...c'est la vie.

If I were to make new animated units for a ToT scen, I'd do it mainly to give players a clearer indication of what is happening on the map and for "immersion" purposes (a little action is only reasonable these days).

Although one could use something like the Cruise Missile sprite file--over 1 MB--and create an elaborate attack animation, the Warrior sprite should suffice and give people downloading your scen a break at the same time (note there may be sprites with even shorter animations but I can't remember which ones now).

By the way, there's something you can do with the fidget animation: add a unit selection icon of some kind and make the usual unit selection icon (i.e. the one that appears when you've selected a unit to move) invisible. If you want to get detailed, you could even do a circle around the unit a la Civ3--would actually be be easy because you could just copy the images directly from the Civ3 Art folder (then just paste the original unit image over the circle).

Funnily enough, in Civ4 I use the Quick Combat options which disable the combat animations altogether. I got tired of waiting for fights to finish.

You mean you don't get a kick out of sitting there watching a system resource-intensive feature whose sole purpose is to serve as eye candy? And you call yourself a strategy gamer!

(Funny, I argued this point for Civ3 and Civ3 is like Pong compared to Civ4.)

I can understand a need for a little action, but whole battle scenes that are completely uncontrollable (hence purely for show) is overkill.

 

[yoshi]

Civinator, sorry I forgot to check your link. Nice work.

 

[civiijkw]

...
There's an assumption that everyone that mods this game has basic English reading/writing skills (maybe Microprose should have developed an Esperanto version ).
...

But how many people are able to speak Esperanto like a native?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[yoshi]

Bwahahah >slaps knee<. (Note sarcasm.)

 

[Maniacal]

I like the graphics (although I modded mine using stuff from here and various mods/resoruces), also it runs well on my old crappy Dell at my dad's, don't have much else to play there.

The graphics really are nicer than the ones in Civ3 and Civ4, and I find Civ4's tiles to be too large.

EDIT: The graphics in Civ4 are a bit, kiddy sometimes it feels like.

The movies and advisors in Civ2 are awesome ,so is the music. I wish they'd release the sorurce code.

 

[AbiMurnu]

I still play Civ II because, like others in the thread, it's the only game that's ever made me sit down for 5 hours without me noticing. I find it really hard to sit still, especially at my PC as it's situated next to a radiator but I still get lost when I put Civ II in. To be honest, I only started playing it again three days ago after a couple of years of it gathering dust. Unfortunately my disc kept crashing whenever my game tried to play Wonder videos so I've had to disable them (I tried making a copy of the disc but it didn't work ). I couldn't get into Civ I after playing II, I don't know why. I hated III. I put it in, played for around five minutes and it's been sitting in the case since. I just couldn't get used to it. Saying that... I've ordered Civ IV (w/ expansions), it was only £10 so not much of a loss if I can't get into it but I've heard some good things about it.

 

[Flygon]

About the wonder movies crashing everything, see about getting the VIDEO and KINGS folders off the internet and put them into your CIV2 folder. You may not get the CD audio sound track, but you sure as heck get the movies.

 

[AbiMurnu]

Great! Thanks. I'll give it a go later on when I'm not too busy (shouldn't really be on the forum just now lol, got stuff to type up.)

 

[Jacen_Fel]

I still play Civ2 and its expansions because simply but I feel like Civ II is the most civilization game to date. I never really liked Civ III much at all and delayed buying Civ IV until about a month ago and I am still playing Civ II more than Civ IV though I did finish three games on Civ4 I just haven't liked the new direction so much that has been taken as far as some changes. I mean no caravans and dumbing down trade? And the new spy system? Gimmie a break...I also disliked the oversized tiles and then will make expanding really expensive so you can't build a huge civilization. I think maintenance costs for structures is far more realistic than city maintenance costs.

I also enjoy Test of Time though it's hard to find people to play that with, the multiple layers of the world on all the TOT scenarios was always fun. Civ II in general has so much replayability with the tons of awesome scenarios and diety games against computers on a big enough map are still fun/occasionally challenging so that is a plus as well .

I think everyone else has covered the other stuff I would say in here so that's all I have for now. Oh yea, turn based is even fun because it lets you do other stuff when its not your turn so you don't just completely spend the entire time playing.

 

[yoshi]

I think maintenance costs for structures is far more realistic than city maintenance costs.

I didn't understand the logic of that one either. That and the new artillery system; as a concept, it worked fine in Civ3 (one of the few improvements over Civ2) except that the AI wasn't able to use it properly, thus giving players an advantage.

Then the guys at Firaxis wonder why players stick to Civ2: Civ3 has no events and Civ4 is a nightmare to mod, while the vanilla game is just not convincing. Civ3 is slow as $hit and Civ4 is a system resource hound.

 

[ColdWizard]

It's fun, I like the graphics, and I can mod it.

I wish they'd release the sorurce code.

They lost it.

 

[Flygon]

If they lost it, I see no reason why someone with enough knowledge cannot disassemble the exe.

I mean, they have done it for a lot of other games, to drastic amounts on certain ones (I am pointing to the Sonic the Hedgehog Mega Drive games here).

 

[yoshi]

Too much work and not enough interest.

 

[Flygon]

Do I could as interest. ^.^