Some Civ2 Questions

[shinjuji]

Hay everyone I was wondering if there are some people in this forum who could answer these questions.

All of the questions below are for when you are playing Multiplayer over the internet (Civ 2 Gold)

(1) I read that the ways of ending a civ 2 game is by destroying all of the other civilizations, and going past a certain time frame then it's called a draw. Is it possible to make it the ONLY way of winning is by destroying each other and not any other way? if so how?

(2) If your playing over the net with other people but you decide to stop half way through can you save the game and continue another time from where you saved it and all the civilizations are left how they were when you last played? if so how

(3) Is it possible to chat to each other when playing over the net? if so how?

(4) Is there a way of making the game simutaneous or does it have to go your turn then player 2 then player 3 etc.. and you have to wait untill your turn comes up again before you can make your move or is there a way use all just play at once instead of waiting for each of the players to have their turn? If so how?

Thanks to anyone who help me with these questions it is greatly appreciated.

[La Fayette]

Welcome shinjuji

The questions you ask are about Multiplaying.
I bet you will get the more precise answers if you ask those questions on the civ2 Multiplayer forum (7 lines below this one).

[Mercator]

You should definitely ask in the multiplayer forum. I have no experience with it myself, but I'll try answering the questions anyway:

1) Well, in the single-player game you can still continue playing after 2020, but your score won't end up in the hall of fame. I would think you can simply continue playing in multiplayer, if you all agree.
If that doesn't work, and the game really forces to an end, I'm pretty sure you could use the cheat menu to change the end-date. Of course, you'd have to trust the person doing the cheating that he won't look at anything else.

2) Yes. I'm guessing at least the person hosting the game should save the game (it will be saved as a .net savegame). When you restart, the host loads it as a multiplayer savegame and the other players join in again like normal.

3) Yes. There's a "Chat to King(s)" option or something in one of the menus somewhere.

4) Yes. If that isn't among the startup option of a multiplayer game, you can do it manually. Add the line "Simultaneous=1" (without the quotes) to the civ.ini file (located in the Windows directory). That will make the multiplayer game simultaneous... You might need to make the civ.ini file read-only (change in file properties) to prevent Civ2 from resetting it again.

[debeest]

Both in single-player and in multi-player, the other way to win the game is to land a spaceship on Alpha Centauri. In multi-player, I gather that never happens, because long before that point, it's obvious who's going to win.

In single-player, during the setup at the beginning of the game you can turn off the spaceship option by choosing the "blood-lust only" option. I'm sure you can do that in MGE, too. But for practical purposes, that's the only type of win that ever happens.

[shinjuji]

Thank you very much for your help I got excactly what I wanted to know, What is the difference when playing multiplayer between a simultaneous game and a normal game?

[Sparrowhawk]

Basically it is as you describe it above.......

During a "normal" game, player 1 plays and until he ends his turn, the only thing that players 2-7 can do is adjust city builds (including rush building) and adjust worker placement but they cannot move units.

During a "simultaneous" game, once the turn begins, all players turns begin, and like a SP game, they proceed through production and then into the movement phase of units. The next turn doesn't begin until all of the players have ended their turn (so Player 3 for instance could be the last one to complete their turn) after which the cycle continues.

Basically Simultaneous play greatly speeds up the early game, before their is much interaction between the players, and allows you to quickly get to the point where the civs have met.....which brings about its greatest drawback. With Simul play the host usually has the least amount of "lag" time (the time required for the players to communicate with the host computer) so the host can order an attack when the person he is attacking doesn't even know there is a unit there yet. (and this is to a lesser degree for the other players, as the player with the slowest connection will have the most lag time and never get the initiative in an attack).

Therefore, if you decide to play Simultaneous, my suggestion would be for you to play up until first contact, and then save, change back the change Mercator suggests above and continue the game normally).

Unfortunately the slowest part of the game, and the part which would benefit most from Simul play, is the later stages, when everyone has many cities to manage and many units to move.

I suppose you have to decide which is more important to you, playing fast or playing on an equal playing field for everyone.

/me