note: This is The Column, a part of Apolyton where primarily Markos and Dan write whatever we want :). Well, not just the two of us. The Column is open to everyone. If you feel like writing submit your article to civ2@gamestats.com

PREVIOUS ARTICLES

#29 RAINBOW PERSONALITY Colours are capable of elicting varying emotions within us; what do they say about our ruling characteristics? #30 DEAR WEBMASTER The good, bad, and the ugly of fan mail, from one who knows it well. COLUMN ARCHIVE

I have been an avid visitor of this site virtually since its birth. I have seen the site grow from a shadow of the Ultimate Civ2 Site. I have seen the forums grow from tiny saplings to matured trees. The driving force behind this was MarkG and Dan, the maintainers of this site. All along, we, the people, have gained so much from these two people. We have an excellent Civ2 site at last, some fantastic forums, and an ever-increasing horde of information about Civilization-clones. One thing that particularly irks me though, is that, we, the people don't seem to do enough.

I admit now that I probably don't use this site as its maintainers hoped. I mainly use the off-topic forum, but then and again make rare escapades to the on-topic forums. However, I have written several strategies that I'm sure can be found on this site, and had updated the Hall Of Fame for a while before time took its toll and I no longer could keep it running.

It seems to me that we, the people, take the work of Mark and Dan for granted and aren't prepared to put anything back into the community of the scale they do. Granted, there are some excellent scenario designers, and people who work on certain pages. Some of these scenarios are excellent and the pages tremendously interesting. But in five years time, they aren't going to be remembered like our hosts.

My point is that I think the community needs to breathe new life into Civilization 2. Feel the importance of this site, and be a part of it, rather than just a visitor. Even if being part of the community is just writing a column such as this once, or offering a small strategy, we the people need to keep this site ticking when Civilization 2 begins to fade out of other's attention.

I myself have made a site based on Civ2 (indeed, some of you might have seen it), and know how difficult it is to regularly keep it updated. I spent roughly two hours every day on it, seemingly hard work, but it reached nowhere near the peak this did. I remember several people quite well saying, "If only you had a forum, to give it a community feeling".

Community in a site is what creates the popularity. If there is a feeling that you somehow belong to that particular site; that that site is your home on the streets of the internet, you will visit that site more. The forums on this site have created an enormously successful community. Now, it is time for the community to give something back to Apolyton. Poly to the people!

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.