quote:

I'm responding to your comments in the seventh edition...if you wish, you can edit, and include it as an "article" in the next edition. I'm very sympathetic to your idea of giving military units an "identity" thus a "history"thus a "glorious tradition", but I suggest that in Civ2, one can implement this to some degree.

As you know,each unit, domestic or military, is identified by place of origin, either in that little window to the lower right-hand corner of the city window, or within the city window itself, where the location is shown of the city's active creations settlers, soldiers, vessels, etc. The name of the town can lend itself to the name of the unit, so that if, I as the English set out with a task force to knock off the other six civs, I would first sail round, to the embarkation point, the escort from their cities of origin - the battleship "Landsend", the AEGIS cruiser "John o' Groats" the destroyer "Southendonsea". Then I would stow to the gunnels the good ship "Clydebank", the tirene built in the city of that name, with my attacking force the 1st "London" rifle brigade (i/c Colonel Cockney) together with 3rd(armoured) regiment The Black Watch under Col 'Aggis(No's 1 and 2 got disbanded thro lack of shields - I'm not that good a Civ2 player, you'll notice) Commodore (Al) Atsee in charge of the entire battle-group. The units, themselves, you see, are real, the fictitious "officers" in charge, I had to keep in my mind for future promotion, awards,whatever.

The tank boys acquitted themselves real well...in that key battle of Gyznwddnia they soon found themselves "awarded for valour" along with a stray Brit camel that happened by, and sank an enemy warship (I kid you not - this has happened in my games). I, as His Majesty George The Umpteenth, would have been pleased to have promoted Colonel 'Aggis to the rank of General had he, and his men not been wiped out by that last barb chieftain (Sometimes I think the AI cheats). Nor could I award it to Colonel Cockup of the Penultimate Paratroop Platoon (home city: PPP) - his reinforcing group dropped in AFTER the last battle - into the wrong city. I could give the Commodore a posthumous Purple Heart...he WOULD go that fatal Fourth Square! So, by default, Colonel Cockney is now Commander-in-Chief, altho his lot fired not a shot, spent most of the time in handy forts with this AI spy - perhaps that was her mission...?

On this performance, he could rise, by default, up through the ranks to eventually, take over as your Defence Minister, Mark - it sounds as if you need one who can show you where the bodies are buried (and any live ones, too). In 2.42 I just click onto the Defence Minister from the "Advisor" menu, and lo! there are lists of (friendly)military units, both active and a-building. At the bottom there's a button marked"Casualties" I click on this, and I can see what troops I've lost, and which. the enemy. I can get some idea of the other civs' strengh by clicking onto my foreign minister...if we have have an embassy for whatever civ, I can note numbers of units and gold held by that civ.

Anyway, MarkG, I hope I've shown you what a little imagination, and a lot of weird city naming can do (Well, there is a town called "Alice" why not, then "Black Watch"?)...if nobody else gained aught from this article, I have...some names for those 200 cities, that I invariably build!

If you'll remind me, I'll write some more about the relationship between FIFA and Civ2 - I have both games,in another article - if you can stand it...

Best wishes,

George Garrett