Is Civ 2 Retro Yet?

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by duke o' york
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I wish my girlfriend played Civ 2, but I'm very glad she doesn't visit 'poly.

"Hey baby, come here and try out my hotseat!"

The attitude I get from my g/f regarding Apolyton and civving in general is amused tolerance.

[Alex]

Originally posted by Six Thousand Year Old Man


The attitude I get from my g/f regarding Apolyton and civving in general is amused tolerance.

well, my wife's attitude is just tolerance. no amusement at all.

as for the subject of the thread, I stopped playing Civ2 a long time ago, but recently I had to do a business travel and the only computer I could put my hands on was an old Pentium 233 w/ 32 Megs of RAM. I thought "time for my good ol' Civ2"... I installed the game, started playing it and BAM! the old magic returned, intact, pristine, just like in the first day. Oh the joy!

the short answer is: I'm a geek.

[duke o' york]

Don't even dare to show up here and suggest that it is possible to fall out of love with Civ 2!

[Alex]

hehe, for me Civ2 will always be like an ex-girlfriend whom I occasionally have sex with.

[DrSpike]

Except that Civ3 wont complain when you play a little Civ2.

[N35t0r]

I'll probably play Civ2 for a loong while... And when i get bored, i might as well start trying to be good playing... that'll be a new challenge

As for someone asking about what was disliked about civ3, i can start by noticing the lack of ZOC... it's just plain annoying to have to build a wall of units to block out something... Plus you cannot acquire territory by sheer military presence... (such as adding a cultural border to Fortresses and Colonies...) Anyway, the best thing would be to add culture and borders into civ2... it is just superior.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by duke o' york
I wish my girlfriend played Civ 2, but I'm very glad she doesn't visit 'poly.

"Hey baby, come here and try out my hotseat!"

What, you're afraid we'll steal her away with our Viggo Mortensen-like Civ2 machismo?

[Carolus Rex]

I'm a geek and Civ 2 is simply the best game ever made... It's the very reason I'll never get rid of my old desktop... Can't imagine what not being able to play it would be like ... *shivers*

Carolus

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by N35t0r

As for someone asking about what was disliked about civ3, i can start by noticing the lack of ZOC... it's just plain annoying to have to build a wall of units to block out something...

ZOC was a crutch for the human player in Civ2 since the AI never did anything clever with it except by accident. For the human player, we all just use diplos, spies or air units to easily bypass ZOC. Civ3 ZOC is better IMHO: You have to build a fortress to get it and instead of blocking units, you get a free attack when they pass by. Civ3 understands the futility and cost of the Maginot Line defense. If you really want to block out a defensive line on map, it SHOULD cost you an arm and a leg in unit costs to fill that line.

Plus you cannot acquire territory by sheer military presence... (such as adding a cultural border to Fortresses and Colonies...) Anyway, the best thing would be to add culture and borders into civ2... it is just superior.

To claim land, you must settle it and build on it. Just marching an army through it gains you control only for as long as the army is present. The Mongols conquered vast tracts of land, yet they never achieved a cultural bonding of their empire since they were mostly known for just looting and pillaging. Compare this with the massive settling and building of the Roman or Egyptian empires.

[Caesar the Glutton]

you make some interesting points...perhaps I'll re-install Civ 3 tonight and give it another shot...

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by Carolus Rex Can't imagine what not being able to play it would be like ... *shivers*

Philosophers have puzzled over this question for centuries.
They haven't come up with any good answers yet though.

[Spacecow]

Oh come on! NOBODY else got sucked into SMAC!?! The gameplay is similar enough to Civ2 to where I can't help but wonder why nobody mentioned it... after all, the main criticism of SMAC when it came out was that it was Civ2 in space! I just like the personalities and the diplomacy (and I still kinda like the story after all these years) aspects of SMAC.

Though I gotta admit, I got stuck playing Civ2 about a week ago, and I've been addicted to the same game since!

Back to the original topic, however, I like the comparison between Civ2 and chess... Chess will never be retro, because I think it'll be around as long as humans are. Civ2's modifiability also compare somewhat well with a deck of cards (how many games can you play with one silly deck of cards), which will also never be retro. In the same way, I would dare to say that Civ2 might possibly never be retro, because the gameplay is just so wonderful. The limiting factor for Civ2 is that, unlike chess and cards, Civ is a computer game. This means A) it gets judged by things like its graphics, which could make some think of it as retro, and B) you have to have a computer that will run it in order to play it - if windows 2010 decides that it doesn't want to run it, or some nutsovirus knocks out computers and topples the computer industry, or some other "I can't play Civ on my computer" scenario happens, Civ will die out, therefore becoming old, and possibly later on becoming retro.

Graphics may age, but gameplay is forever!

PS - Someone should make a "I can't play Civ on my computer" scenario in Civ... all cities go into revolt... only a despotism led by Sid Meier can appease the people...

[rah]

And I thought I was a diehard

[yaroslav]

Civ2 all the way. In fact, many months is the only game I play, well, except the minehunter, of course

[DrSpike]

Do you mean minesweeper?