CIVILIZATION 2
...Civ 3 review coming soon...
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Genre |
Turn based strategy |
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System |
486 |
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Year |
1996 |
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| Developer |  |
This was my top game for several years and was only knocked off its pedestal by its descendants. The replay value is extraordinary, with the random maps producing new challenges each time you play and the difficulty settings producing very different games, requiring radically new strategies. The "just one more turn" factor in Civ2 is greater than that for any other game I’ve played and for a turn-based strategy game, it can generate a surprising amount of adrenaline when it comes to knocking heads with the opposition. I’ve not tried it multi-player, mostly because this aspect was rather an add-on by the developers, but also because the time required is prodigious.
HISTORY
The original Civilization was produced by Sid Meier and Brian Reynolds, two of the very top game designers. It ran happily on a 286 with 1MB of RAM, sacrificing graphical niceties for truly great gameplay. Civilization 2 was produced when the entry level machine had a P90 chip, 8MB and ran Windows 95. The interface and graphics were enhanced and some new elements introduced, but essentially it was the same game as the original, just much improved.
THE GAME
Starting in 4000 BC, on either a randomly generated planet or on Earth, with a single settler, the aim is to build, maintain and improve the cities that make up your civilization, keeping at bay both rival nations and marauding barbarians. By conducting research and setting up trade routes, you are able, over time, to build more sophisticated improvements and military units, helping to accelerate your civilization’s growth, protect it better or, if you are so inclined, embark on a policy of expansion by conquest. The ultimate aim, aside from just staying alive, is to send a spaceship to the star system of Alpha Centauri and get it there before 2020 AD, when the game, for scoring purposes at least, ends.
The graphics are undemanding by today’s standards (2000), but crisp and good to look at. You view the world from an isometric viewpoint and the territory is divided into squares, delineating a variety of terrain, ranging from fertile grasslands, through hills and swamps, to largely useless mountains and sterile tundra. The land/sea ratio is set at about 40:60, though this can be adjusted if you prefer (as can such factors as rainfall, weathering and temperature). Units are clearly drawn and represent the full gamut from simple unarmed settlers, through legions and chariots, to riflemen, tanks, stealth bombers and, ultimately, nuclear missiles. A full range of naval units is also available, from the fragile trireme to the aircraft carrier. Air units include fighters and bombers (standard and stealth), and even cruise missiles.
The main work is done in and around the cities and the city interface. Each city will generate trade, which can be divided amongst the taxman, scientists and producers of luxuries; food, which not only feeds your population but promotes growth; and "production", with which you build the improvements and units your civilization needs. You control what your city builds as well as what it produces, from the exceedingly well designed city tote. From here you can decide whether to construct such improvements as city walls (defence), aqueduct (allowing further growth), marketplace (increasing trade revenue) or temples (improving the happiness of your citizens). As you research further and uncover new technologies, the number and effectiveness of improvements increase, as do the available units. In all there are several dozen of each available by game end.
The early part of the game involves striking a balance between building new settlers who can go out and found new cities, and both maintaining your defences and improving the cities you already have. Expand too fast and your cities may be overrun by barbarians. Spend too much time making yourself safe and you may find your rivals have settled on the best territory, making it difficult to expand without going to war.
As you reach the dark ages, you will find the choices facing you multiplying. Do you make peace with your immediate neighbours and concentrate on settling far flung lands, thereby extending your lines of communication, while decentralising your kingdom? Or do you switch production to building a large, modern army and navy and take out everyone near you? If the latter, what will be the effect on your scientific research and will it leave you vulnerable to a more technologically advanced rival? At every stage and with every strategic decision, you stand the chance of making, if not a fatal then certainly a very damaging decision. What to build with the limited resources in a certain city? A temple to keep the masses quiet, or a barracks to train your soldiers more effectively? Perhaps you have a city rich enough to build one of the Wonders of the World, thereby conveying great advantages upon your whole civilization, all the while tying up that city’s production for many years.
Combat is fairly simplistic, but sufficient unto the game, which doesn’t really pretend to be a wargame. The AI takes the attack and defence values of the units involved, applies modifiers for terrain, experience and fortifications and, using the standard convention of hit points, calculates who wins. One of Civ2’s major advances over the original is in the balance of the various military units, so while there are still occasional weird results (sail powered frigate v Aegis cruiser anyone?), for the most part the time and money invested in improving your military are well spent. Capturing enemy cities is an excellent way of extending your territory, but you can also utilise espionage to convert them to your cause for no more than cold, hard cash, thereby avoiding war damage.
A further consideration comes into play as you enter the industrial age. The scourge of pollution. Population, traffic, industry and nuclear war add to it; Mass Transit, Recycling and Solar Plant improvements mitigate it and your settlers (or engineers as they become after a while) get rid of it. Should you fail to keep it under control, however, you risk global warming, which melts the icecaps. This results in most of your terrain squares becoming less hospitable, with desert replacing plains, and jungle or swamp popping up just about everywhere else. With the sudden loss of food growing capacity, your cities quickly starve and population plummets.
There is some multimedia enhancement to the game, but not too much. Each of the Wonders of the World has an associated mini-movie and there is a town council of five which can be consulted at any time, with such advisors as the bullet-headed General and the Elvis-impersonating Attitude advisor. The music is, however, pretty rancid. Fortunately you can play without the CD in the tray, though you do lose the council, which is a shame, unless you have gone for the full install.
There were a few patches produced which addressed some slightly esoteric faults, but also making a number of improvements as suggested by players, which is refreshing. The last of these is patch 2.42 and I strongly advise upgrading to this version.
SUMMARY
I have played this game and its predecessor for more hours than all the rest of the games I own combined. For the first dozen or so attempts (each game can last as long as a week if you don’t burn too much midnight oil), there is a lot of learning to do. The value of building marketplaces against granaries; which path through the tech’ tree should you take; how big an army to amass before starting the war; what political systems work best in which situations etc. etc. Once you develop a basic strategy with which you are happy and, most importantly, one that works, the next bunch of games will require you to make minor adjustments according to your situation. If you are inclined to ignore the naval technologies until later in the game and then find yourself stuck on a small island, you’ll need to think again. If your preferred method is to keep defences light and explore as rapidly as possible, then you may be in trouble if the setup puts a hostile rival right next door. The third phase is when you hone your techniques, fine tuning your cities to maximise production; getting to the freer political systems quickly and accelerating away from your rivals in the technology stakes; building all the critical Wonders of the World before the opposition can and, finally, getting your spaceship to Alpha Centauri sometime in the 18th Century, or even earlier. As an overall aim, maximising population is the best thing for a big score. I remember the satisfaction at cracking the 100 million mark for the first time. The counter tops out at 320 million, but you will be doing well to get up there however good you are.
AND FINALLY…
There is an excellent map editor that comes with the programme and many of the elements are customisable so, predictably, the anoraks have been beavering away producing all sorts of scenarios. Some of them are very good, but as I said earlier, this isn’t a wargame and doesn’t pretend to be, so watch out for the scenarios that set you up to fight and no more. A sequel of sorts, Civilization, Call to Power came out last year. It extends the playing era for about another thousand years into the future, adding undersea cities, additional units, Wonders and technologies, but completely screwing up the combat. If you get into Civ2 and want to play something more up to date later, then for the moment Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri is the one to go for, but he and Brian Reynolds are also working on Civ3 (try Apolyton for a seriously comprehensive site) in their spare time. It should be out sometime in 2001 if the PR wonks are to be believed.
OTHER REVIEWS etc.
| PC ZONE | Just the Budget review, but have a look all the same. |
| GAME CENTRE | Part of their Top 40 games of the millenium! |
