Civ II - Test of Time

[Caleb]

I have a question for those of you experienced at modding Civ IV. I have not yet tried my hand at it, knowing it will take a lot more dedication than it did for Civ III. However, I just had an idea that would motivate me to go through the learning curve, and wanted to know if anyone else had considered or tried this.

There seems to wide agreement that the best version of Civ ever, was Civ II - Test of Time. I have to admit that it had a stronger hold over me than the more recent versions. A common theme in any wish list for the next version of Civ is to make it more like Test of Time. So here is my question:

As Civ IV is supposedly completely moddable, can it not be used as the engine to create a mod pack that basically emulates Test of Time? Could not the rules, techs, terrain, units, etc. be all the same, with maybe just a few differences such as an improved AI?

Once such a mod pack was completed, it could then be used as a base for any modder to create his "better" Civ by adding his favorite ideas from Civ III, Civ IV and other mods. For example, ever since Civ I I have wanted to be able to build canals, and now I find that this feature has just been added to the latest official patch for Civ IV. What fun to play Test of Time with better graphics and AI, and canals to boot!

Or am I just dreaming?

[self biased]

that sounds suspiciously like the Rise of Mankind Mod. the only thing it doesn't have is the different maps, which i don't know if that feature could be emulated.

[Caleb]

Thanks. I will check it out. I suspected I was not the first one to think of this.

[Caleb]

I've checked out RoM, and it doesn't appear to have the objective of emulating Civ II. Perhaps its a good place to start, as it incorporates so many different mods it probably has most of the needed components already. But lots of other stuff would have to be removed.

[self biased]

as fun as the RoM mod is, it feels artificially inflated and/or the additions made don't add to the overall experience. maybe i just need to turn more features on, maybe i should stick to something that requires a little less micromanaging.

but, why civ 2? as much fun as it was, the game still had its issues, and the general consensus is that civ 4 is a better game.

[LDiCesare]

I
There seems to wide agreement that the best version of Civ ever, was Civ II - Test of Time.

I think more people would say the best version is Civ IV but YMMV. ToT was also seen by many as having ugly graphics by many.
What features of ToT do you want emulated? Those which make Test of Time different from previous Civ II versions are better modding and multimaps. The first is pointless, the second is hard to do, and I don't know of anyone trying to do it.

[Caleb]

I admit to being shocked at how bad the Civ II graphics are, now that I've been spoiled by Civ III and IV. I actually prefer the graphics level of Civ III. Civ IV shows so much that it is easy to miss things. Also, it requires a lot of screen space to show one tile. Civ III had the right level of detail for my tastes. The only thing Civ II did well was zoom in and out to vitually any level of detail you chose. Civ III has only two levels and Civ IV has very minimal ability to zoom out before you are at the "globe" level where you can no longer see anything but clouds.

What I hated in Civ III was the complete inability to rush Wonders. From being able to store up caravans in Civ II to ... nothing. Can't even chop forests. A reasonable balance was restored in Civ IV, with several options for rushing Wonders. But caravans have not been seen since Civ II. I loved caravans. If I didn't know what to do with a city, I built a caravan, knowing that it would not go to waste.

Multimaps was cool, but looks to be the single biggest challenge to emulating Test of Time. So I guess we are talking about Civ II in general. I have installed it on my computer so I can play it again and remind myself why I loved it so much. Maybe I will find that Civ IV really is better after all.