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It is not infrequent to read messages in the forums by people stating that Civ2 is slowly dying out. I myself posted something similar once... to withdraw my statement a few weeks ago. Nope, Civ2 is not dying out. Au contraire mes amis, I'd rather say 2001 will be the year that Civ2 grows stronger than ever. Look at the statistics of my site. The last four weeks have witnessed the highest traffic since I put the counter up back in May 1999, a bit before joining Apolyton. Given that mine is a small, author-oriented site that seldom got more than 100 hits a day, I find this a remarkable feat. Remember guys that we are talking about a five-year old game!

In my opinion there are two main reasons for the extraordinary longevity of Civ2. The first one is multiplayer (and/or its variant PBEM, of which I recently became an addict). Mostly due to familiar reasons :-) I never got into multiplayer, so I am not the right one to talk about that. Perhaps one day Ming or any other delights us with an article about their intense multiplayer experiences.

The second reason is scenario making. I know a bit more about this so let me expand my point further. Civ2 scenario making had its peak from Fall-Winter 1998 to Spring 1999. Classics such as Mongols (revised version), Spartacus, Slash & Burn, Colonies, were being written at that time. Outstanding scenario creators such as Hoek, Allard, Harlan Thompson, Mike Daumen, Mike Jeszenka, Blacklove, Cam, Mr Temba, John Ellis, Alex Mor, Techumseh and many others were at their prime. I am so happy of having been part of those exciting moments! With the retirement and/or decrease in activity of some of the leading designers, interest in Civ2 scenario making started to decline.... for a very short time. The years 1999 and 2000 have constituted a true "Age of Discovery" for Civ2 scenario making. The astounding discoveries being made by people like Allard, Kull, William Keenan, Carl Fritz, or Captain Nemo have opened the door for a true Golden Age in Civ2 scenario design.

The 'second wave' of Civ2 scenario design, personified by the likes of Stefan H., Jesús M., Captain Nemo, Kull, BeBro, Mathias K., Prometeus, has produced scenarios whose technical quality is well beyond the unimaginable only two years before. In the last three months or so we have been gifted with scenarios like Second Front, The River War, Shaibani, The Odyssey, Imperium Romanum, which rank amongst the best scenarios ever written. As long as there is people writing pieces like those, Civ2 will stay pretty much alive. And from what I read on the Civ2 forums I foresee a third wave of designers emerging along the year 2001 whose works will probably outshine all what has been done before.

So you, who are reading this and have never written a scenario, what are you waiting for? Go to the Scenario League website, learn all those neat tricks and start building your own worlds! When you're done, send your scenario on to me so I can post it to the Spanish Civ2 Site!

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About the author: "Webmaster of the Spanish Civilization Site (an Apolyton Hosted Site) and an Internet Civ2 fan since those glorious CivHeaven days".

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The opinions expressed on this page do not necessarily reflect those of Apolyton CS or GameStats. They are just the personal opinions of the writer.