Civilization II
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| Civilization II | |
|---|---|
 North American boxart, PC version | |
| Developer(s) | MicroProse |
| Publisher(s) | MicroProse |
| Designer(s) | Brian Reynolds Douglas Caspian-Kaufman Jeff Briggs |
| Platform(s) | Mac OS, PlayStation, Windows |
| Release | February 29, 1996 PlayStation January 20, 1998[1] |
| Genre(s) | Turn-based strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single player (Multiplayer with Multiplayer Gold Edition) |
Sid Meier's Civilization II (Civ II or Civ 2) is a turn-based strategy computer game designed by Brian Reynolds, Douglas Caspian-Kaufman and Jeff Briggs. Although it is a sequel to Sid Meier's Civilization, neither Sid Meier nor Bruce Shelley were involved in its development. Civilization II was first released in 1996 for the PC and later ported to the Sony PlayStation.
In 2002 Atari re-released the game for newer operating systems, such as Windows Me and Windows XP.
The Multiplayer Gold Edition was included in the Civilization Chronicles box set released in 2006.
Gameplay
Civilization II is similar to the first Civilization, with some changes to the units, civilizations, additional wonders, tile "specials" and technologies. The graphics (greatly improved with clickable links and movable windows) were changed from a top-down view to an isometric representation. The Artificial Intelligence, or AI, was improved as well, including the elimination of most random events (such as the situation where Wonders of the World were built spontaneously in the original Civilization) by now making the computer player go through the same production requirements as the human player.
Rivers no longer occupy the whole of each tile along its length. The river is just part of each topography square it flows through, adding productive value, defensive bonuses and movement ability.
The game features entirely new concepts, such as firepower and hit points (thus preventing phalanxes from beating battleships), and changes to some units' abilities and strengths. For instance, engineers and settlers can be automated to improve surrounding areas, but no longer ignore enemy zones of control. Legions cost more to produce but have greater attack and defense values; some new units are added such as stealth bomber and stealth fighter.
One memorable element in the game is the ability to consult the 'High Council' for advice (as long as the player still has the CD in the drive). The council consists of film clips of actors portraying advisors in the areas of the military (a brawny man, often drunk, angry or both; he becomes a stereotypical American general when Modern Age is reached), economics (a smooth-talking merchant, later a snooty and suave businessman), diplomacy (in the Modern Age, a saucy femme fatale with a vaguely Eastern European accent), technological progress (a nerdy scientist), and the people's happiness (an Elvis Presley caricature, wearing sunglasses even in the Ancient period). They often argue with and insult one another, as each advisor's department demands a different set of priorities. The counselors' costumes change with each new era. In many ways, the 'High Council' constitutes a bit of comic relief, especially from the expansionist "military" adviser, who will insist on more troops even when the player has 60 battleships, or during the Medieval Period will sing the last refrain from the 18th Century English traditional song "Down Among the Dead Men", punctuated with a hearty "No complaints, sire!". Amusingly, when the player is experiencing anarchy, the characters begin talking at the same time, interrupting each other, and finally beginning to fight, with all counselor windows shutting down and turning into the "A" symbol of Anarchy.
There are two paths to victory (and bonus points to the score) in this game: to conquer every other civilization, or to build a spaceship and reach Alpha Centauri before any of the other civilizations. The latter can be much more difficult because there are a limited number of turns in the game, which ends in the year 2020. If the spaceship does not reach Alpha Centauri by then, the game will simply end with the current score. The player can continue playing after all civilizations have been conquered, the spaceship has reached its destination, or the year 2020, but there will no longer be any scoring. The sooner a player conquers every other civilization, or the space ship arrives, the better as far as scoring is concerned. However, there are many things that can be done to gain points, so it occasionally is better to hold off victory to gain more points by, say researching extra 'future technologies'.
The scoring system measures the player's performance in the end of each game. Population is a major influence on scoring as each happy citizen contributes two points, each content citizen contributes one point, and each unhappy citizen contributes zero points. This means that higher population yields better scores. Players may increase the luxury rate to the maximum (depending upon their government type) right before the very end of the game in order to increase happiness, maximizing their scores. Additionally, each wonder of the world owned by the player will also add 20 points to their score. Each square with pollution deducts ten points. The length of time there has been peace (no armed conflict or war) up to the end of the game also adds 3 points per turn, and if the player won using a spaceship, additional points are rewarded, based on the amount of people who reached Alpha Centauri alive. The final score will also give a civilization percentage, based on the difficulty level the game was played at (chosen at the very beginning of the game). The higher this percentage is, the better. Finally, a title will be given to the player. Particularly good ones include "Lion-Hearted," "the Great" with the greatest obtainable title being "The Magnificent."
Civilizations in Civilization II
In Civilization II each civilization was led by two leaders- male and female. All the civilizations from the original game returned along with seven new civilizations (Japanese, Celts, Vikings, Spanish, Persians, Carthaginians and Sioux).
Expansions
There were two expansion packs that slowly added more features to the game. The first, Conflicts in Civilization, included 20 new scenarios: 12 created by the makers of the game,[2] and 8 by fans. It also added an enhanced macro language for scenario scripting.
The other was "Civilization II: Fantastic Worlds." It also added new scenarios that had many unique settings such as one scenario dealing with colonization of Mars, one scenario called Midgard that had Elven, Goblin, Merman, and other civilizations from fantasy. There was also some scenarios based on other Microprose games such as X-Com and Master of Orion scenarios. Fantastic Worlds also created a whole new scenario editor that allowed changing units, city improvements, terrain, technology trees, placing triggers, and vastly enhancing the game.
Later, the original game was re-released as Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition, which bundled both prior expansion packs and added options for networked and hotseat play, and features tweaked AI. However, all of the music tracks that were in the original release of Civilization II have been removed - only some of the "new" ones remain. The tweaked AI is also perpetually unfriendly, rendering most diplomatic functions useless.
Civilization II: Test of Time was released in 1999. It was a stand-alone game with new features, such as redrawn, animated units, support for multiple maps in one game, and some new campaign modes.
Reception
In 2007 Civilization II was placed on IGN's 100 greatest video games of all time, coming in at #3.[3] This list also included console games, and Civ II was the second highest-ranked PC game behind Tetris at #2.
Legacy
Civilization II is a game with longevity. While most PC games come and go in a matter of months, this game was still going strong after several years and inspired many titles including Activision's Call to Power series and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. This longevity, at least in part, is due to an unending stream of mods and scenarios produced by its enormous fan base. The game was followed by Firaxis' Civilization III and Civilization IV.
Game modification
| This section possibly contains original research. (November 2008) |
While expansions are sold separately, the PC version is programmed so that computer-savvy players can modify the game themselves. Amongst the files installed on the user's computer when the game is installed is a file called "rules.txt" which controls the game. The text file itself practically encourages the user to modify the game, giving instructions on how to change the various parameters of each main category, including: units, technologies, wonders, terrain and leaders. There is even a 'cosmic' section that controls more global settings pertaining to items such as governments, happiness levels, city sizes, and technology learning.
Each section lists the parameters that can be changed. For example, alterations can be made to a unit's name, movement allowance, hit points, production cost, cargo hold (if applicable), technology that allows it, technology that makes it obsolete, and any one of a series of special abilities (reserved to handle the capabilities of specific units such as submarines). While the 'units' section has by far the most parameters, changing values in other sections can be equally intriguing. For example, one can change when a Wonder of the World expires, the prerequisites for a technology on the tech-tree, or alter the food output of a special tile (like wheat, for example).
Another text file that can enhance gameplay variation is the file "city.txt" which holds the list of city names that are used as defaults for each successive city built.
Advanced computer users can also modify the game by changing the visual files (such as units.gif or terrain.gif). While there is a risk of damaging the gameplay, it is possible to change the appearance of units, terrain, people, etc.
Another option is to use the Scenario Editor and create a specific game with the desired alterations. In addition, the newly created files (such as rules.txt and units.gif, mentioned above) can be copied to other locations (primarily the directory where the original games files are located), thus altering the conditions of gameplay for random games too.
Lastly, the included Map-Editor allows for custom world building prior to playing a random game. In addition to setting the land mass and ocean shapes, it is possible to set the 'resource seed' for how the special tiles are generated (the default value of '1' indicates random).
Multimedia
Civilization II's music is in the Red Book CD-audio format, the same as that found on normal music CDs. The songs are quite varied; some are from the 19th century classical era, such as the Blue Danube Waltz, while others have a tribal, tropical sound to them. The music can be played back through any CD-ROM drive. Over 200 MB of space on the Civilization II CD is taken up by the music, 280 MB is occupied by the videos (many of them are historical footages), whereas the actual program data takes up less than 30 MB.
The five different releases of Civilization II have added and subtracted tracks from the mix, with Fantastic Worlds containing the largest number of tracks of all releases.
- Wonders of the World Music
Whenever a player builds a Wonder of the World, a short video with music is played. The music is often taken from other sources:
- King Richard's Crusade - Dance of the Furies, Christoph Willibald Gluck
- Leonardo's Workshop - Cantaloupe Island, Herbie Hancock
- Michelangelo's Chapel - Credo, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
- J.S. Bach's Cathedral - Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Johann Sebastian Bach
- Shakespeare's Theatre - Taken from the prologue to Henry V
- Statue of Liberty - El Capitan March, John Philip Sousa
- Isaac Newton's College - Concerto For 4 Violins & Strings in B minor, Antonio Vivaldi
- Adam Smith's Trading Company - The Entrance of the Queen of Sheba from the oratorio Solomon, George Frideric Handel
Most videos, however, feature original compositions with often discernible inspiration,[4] either from Peter Gabriel's soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ'':
- Pyramids - "The Feeling Begins"
- Great Wall of China - "Gethsemane"
- Sun Tzu's War Academy - "Gethsemane"
Trevor Jones' and Randy Edelman's soundtrack to The Last of the Mohicans:
- Colossus - Main Title
- Great Lighthouse - "Elk Hunt"
- Marco Polo's Embassy - "The Kiss"
- Magellan's Expedition - "Promontory"
- United Nations - "The Glade Part II"
Or various other sources:
- Oracle - Theme from Harry's Game by Clannad
- Women's Suffrage - Swinging at the Daisy Chain by the Count Basie Orchestra
- Hoover Dam - A remix version of "Arkam Bridge" from the soundtrack of the PC game Mechwarrior 2 Ghost Bears Legacy by Gregory Alper & Jeehun Hwang.
- Manhattan Project - I Had My Chance by Morphine
- Apollo Program - Telegraph Road by Dire Straits
See also
- Civilization Fanatics Center
- Apolyton Civilization Site
- Civilization (series)
- MechWarrior 2 Soundtrack
References
- ^ [1] IGN.com's "Civilization II, game summary"
- ^ Apolyton site, Civ II expansion scenarios
- ^ "IGN's Top 100 Games". IGN. Retrieved 2007-07-23.
- ^ Wonder Music Revealed - Civilization Fanatics' Forums
External links
| Video games | |
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| Tabletop games |
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| Predecessor games | |
| Related games | |
| Free games and mods | |
| Miscellaneous | |
