WHAT WAS NEW ON THE SITE

31.July Column #52; By David Emery 27.July 10 New files in DB 24.July Column #51; By DanQ 23.July 10 New files in DB 17.July Column #50; By MarkG 13.July 10 New files in DB 10.July Column #49; By DarthVeda 3.July Column #48; By Derek Lande

AND THE FILES CONTINUE
(July 29, 1999) to be posted(no. 3)! Yes, even more new files(9 of them this time) are here. David Emery did a fine and quick(less than two days!) and here they are: Contact, Seven Years War, Conquest Australia, 2nd Map, Four Players Fair, Estonia, California, Civ2 Map Collection(51 maps in one file!) and Civ2 Package. If you do the math, we added 29 new civ2 files in the last week :)

(July 27, 1999) to be posted(no. 2)! This week's files(over 250 now!) are Battle of the Bands, Bow Tie Guy's Civilization II, Test of Time Unit-mania modpack(the first mod for ToT, the latest 1.3 version), Cold War, Starsaga I: Galactic Guardians, Northern Hemisphere, Ontario, Rip-off units pack, OCC - Save the whales(a One City Challenge saved game) and Yugoslavia : Suicide of a European nation. Sven has a new helper for the database, David Emery, who we hope speed things up even more. If you too want to help(always needed with so many files!), contact Sven at svenm@apolyton.net

(July 23, 1999) to be posted! This week's batch of ten files(submitted during the last month) are Better Civ, Braveheart, Sid Meier's Civilization, Killer, Facelift, Europe, Islands, Ottoman Expansion, Reality Check and Sicily. 3 Maps, 3 patches and 4 modpacks which rise the number of file in the civ2 database to 248. Couldn't you add 12 this time Sven? :)

AND THE SALES CONTINUE
(July 22, 1999) According to PC Data, the Mac versions of Civ2 continued to sell well during June. Specifically, the original(and cheaper) version was up one spot from 6th to 5th, while the Gold(MGE) version dropped from the 4th place to the 6th. Either way, it's a hit!

GIFT FOR THE PATIENT
(July 21, 1999) John Possidente has awarded ACS another exclusive! To your right, you're probably wondering who that macho man is -- why, it's your Warrior unit in the upcoming Civilization II: Test of Time!
"The format is a bit different from the old one, in that the units are taller and the shield has been replaced with an overhead key", Possidente noted.
So if you scenario builders out there want to get a head start, you needn't wait any longer! Click here to download away (only 18k) and let the creative juices flow!

FIRST TOT MODPACK??
(July 21, 1999) John says that he's been in contact with Kestrel, and that the mod work fine. Kestrel is continuing to work on his mod.
(July 15, 1999) Some games allow game files modification. Mod files for these games appear after their release. Except from Civ2:ToT :) Yesterday we posted the Rules.txt of ToT. Today, I(MarkG) got a strange mail. It was from David Hudson, a.k.a. Kestrel, and he says he has created the first ToT modpack! Of course we can't test it, but we post it anyway along with it's readme. Perhaps John Possidente can check it out and lets us know...

TOT RULES(.TXT)!
(July 14, 1999) Civ2 creators, in the future, remember that you saw it here first. What? The Rules.txt of Civ2:ToT. You asked, and John Possidente promised to publicised a sample rules.txt file of he upcoming Civilization 2:Test of Time. Well, here it is, just for your hungry eyes :)

GAMESPOT REVIEWS TOT
(July 14, 1999) Gamespot has a full review of Civ2:ToT. A summary of the three pages? "Civilisation II: Test of Time falls into the add-ons category, but offers enough tweaks, bells and whistles to satisfy the hordes waiting ravenously for next year's Civ III". The final score is 7.5/10(in older reviews, CivII had 9.2, Civ2:FW 8.2, SMAC 9.6(!) and C:CTP 8). Thanks to Carolus Rex for the note. By the way, we doubt that we will see CivIII next year...

10 NEW FILES
(July 13, 1999) I think I'll never get tired of making news posts like this. Sven posted ten new files in our civ2 db today. These are The End of Earth, Bajor - The Cardassian Occupation, Banewars, The British Isles, Cave Wars, Dino, Dune: The Battle for Arrakis, Earth 2, EU-British War and The Battle of Endor. Sven tells me that he recieved 17 new files in the last two weeks! Expect them to be posted very soon. Other than that, Thomas Mathison is working to add a "ratings by people" feature in the databse script, we hope that we will have ready soon. Stay tuned!

ToT BOX COVER REVEALED
(July 9, 1999) Well well, what DO we have here? Just to your right is the Civilization II: Test of Time box cover, as displayed in Hasbro Interactive's E3 1999 Press Kit (we got it just today). Click on the image for a larger version!

According to the information provided in the Press Kit, ToT, being published under the MicroProse label, will support only the Window 95 & 98 platforms and not 3.1. As for language support, this will constitute the English (US & UK), French, and German dialects. This was the case with Civilization II: Multiplayer Gold Edition in both respects.

Some of you might now be saying, "but come on... we know that MPS [then still a division of Spectrum-Holobyte] advertised in magazines very different box art than what actually made it into the final version". True, true. Let's analyze this further for a moment then: the layout you see above is consistent with those of previous Civilization II titles (the alternate FW design as aforementioned was quite different; see our News Archive if you would like to refresh your memory), and take into consideration that this cover image appeared in an official press kit, rather than simply an ad in a computing magazine.

But, to put the question to rest once and for all on all fronts, DanQ has raised the question in our ToT forums, directing it to John Possidente, resident ToT team member who has unquestionably become a "regular" on our discussion boards. Let's wait and see what he has to say...

MORE ANSWERS FROM MicroProse
(July 6, 1999) If you are looking for information on the upcoming Civilization II: Test of Time, you've come to the right place baby! Our ToT forum is rockin' and rollin' with questions on many aspects of the title, all of which are being answered in nothing short of a detailed fashion by ToT Team Member John Possidente (yes, you may recognize his name from a Fantastic Worlds scenario or two).

Here are some tidbits to tanctilize your gaming spirt, just part of those posted today (all posted by John)!

PEACEFUL ENDS: "... in the Extended Game (the one that includes colonizing Centaurus), the only peaceful way to win left is via research. Through an unfortunate coincidence (which is actually pretty predictable, considering that Brian Reynolds and I seem to read the same sci-fi) the advance that wins is called "Transcendance".

In the fantasy and sci-fi games, there's also a pure research way to win; that's one of the new things we've added. Of course, you can still build a Big Project (the FTL Ship or the Siege Engine) or toast everybody, too".

GOOD TRADING: " Trading between AC and Earth depends on whether (1) you can convince the aliens that you aren't really invading, and (2) you can get your trade units up there. Get past those, and the bonuses are sweet".

NEW STUFF: "The answer is yes, but there's only one new function. (There are lots of "new" improvments and wonders in the SF and Fantasy games, but they have the same functions as the original set.) The new one is like an airport, except that it lets you move units between cities on different maps".

MAPS IN EXTENDED MODE: "Only one map is on-screen at a time. You switch between the multiple maps using a pair of new buttons on the Map window. There's a maximum of four maps per game, and you manage all of them (cities, units, etc.) at the same time. When a unit on a different map becomes the active unit, the map changes for you automatically".

TOGGLING OFF CITY NAMES: "Hmm. Well, we didn't think to put in the city name toggle, but you're right that it doesn't seem like it would be too difficult. (I've learned not to be too confident about what is and isn't hard to implement; Civ's got some twisted old code in it.)

There's no way to get it into the first release this late, but I'll run it up the proverbial flagpole and see how many bullet holes it comes down with..."

Don't know what all the talk about is above? Well then, first get yourself briefed on the add-on from our files, and than start browsing our ToT forum today (and if you feel so included to join the discussions, registration is free).

NATURAL DISASTERLESS IN ToT
(July 1, 1999) Don't expect to see a city burning out of nowhere in the upcoming Civilization II: Test of Time. Here's what John Possidente, representative from Hasbro and member of the ToT team, had to say about random events:

"Well, we haven't put the natural disasters back in ( I wanted to, but I was outvoted. :( ). On the other hand, we have used the events macro language to add a number of random events of our own, especially in the new and improved Midgard scenario.

We've also added a "Randomize" modifier to the events language, for scenario builders. Many of the actions you can program into a scenario can now have random aspects--timing, locations, and that sort of thing".

This is just one of the many on-going discussions in our ToT forum... with answers directly from the source! What ARE you waiting for?

SEE ALSO:
JUNE '99 NEWS ARCHIVE
MAY '99 NEWS ARCHIVE
APRIL '99 NEWS ARCHIVE
MARCH '99 NEWS ARCHIVE
FEBRUARY '99 NEWS ARCHIVE
JANUARY '99 NEWS ARCHIVE
DECEMBER '98 NEWS ARCHIVE
NOVEMBER '98 NEWS ARCHIVE
OCTOBER '98 NEWS ARCHIVE
SEPTEMBER '98 NEWS ARCHIVE
AUGUST '98 NEWS ARCHIVE
JULY '98 NEWS ARCHIVE