Civ2 Game Mechanics Reference Booklet

[Starlite]

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I last visited Apolyton, but I'm still playing Civ2 every now and then.

The big news is that I've finally put the finishing touches on my Civ2 Game Mechanics Reference Booklet and it is available for download. I've been working on this since 2000, and it's been almost ready for release since 2003, but I've finally found time to finish it off and post it here.

The Reference Booklet is designed for printing and comes as a Word document that summarises important information about the mechanics of Civ2 in easy-to-read tables, putting all you need to know to make those tough gaming decisions at your fingertips.

The booklet aims to take the guess-work out of managing a civilisation. If you’ve ever asked, “When is it profitable to build a Bank?”, “Should Wine be mined or irrigated?” or “Why is my industrialised city starving?” this booklet is for you.

Tables include Wonders of the World, Spaceship construction details, Tax earnings calculations, Unit upgrades from Leonardo's Workshop, terrain conversion charts (I'm especially proud of these), the effect of City Improvements and Governments, and even the mix of terrain needed to build the perfect city.

Here's a sample of just one of the many tables and charts included in the 22-page booklet (24Kb GIF):



If you're still playing Civ2 (or even if you're interested in updating the tables for Civ3), you won't be sorry for the download! The file is hosted on Apolyton as Civ2Booklet.zip

(Sorry that printing it isn't as straightforward as I'd like -- Word sometimes makes things difficult.)

Once you've had a look, I'd be very happy to hear any feedback or suggestions for improvements.

I was actually hoping to add a link to this booklet from the database, complete with description and screenshot, but I get an error that the CGI file doesn't exist whenever I click on "Add a Link". Any help with this would be much appreciated.

Happy gaming!

[Peaster]

Starlite, Thanks for posting this. I have been pretty busy lately, but I did take a look at your booklet and it seems very helpful.

[rah]

Hopefully I will get some time to look at this.

[StuporMan]

Hello Starlite,

I have taken a look at your document and it looks like a very helpful quick reference tool. If I might make a recommendation, however, you might want to consider converting this set of documents into PDF format. This should make printing this out in booklet form a bit easier for most people. At the very least it will make the document (more) portable as PDF files tend to be displayed in a more device independant manner. If you want to make a quick conversion of what you already have you can visit this website and it will convert your existing .doc files to PDF documents for you.

Convert Documents To PDF

You may have to play with your document settings before the PDF conversion will get everything aligned properly, but once you do it should work properly for everyone who downloads your file. There are some other tools around that you might find more useful, but this is probably the most straightforward one that I have been able to find.

I will try and take a close look at your booklet and let you know if I have any more feedback for you. Thank you for compiling such a useful document!

StuporMan

[Starlite]

Great advice. I thought you needed to buy Acrobat to create PDF files, which is why I didn't consider it.

I do have one question. The booklet is formatted in A5 size for A4 paper. This is because, if I formatted for A5 paper directly, I don't believe pages would line up back-to-back correctly on most A4/Letter printers. It does make for a bit of a mess, though, and makes printing on Letter paper less straightforward.

Any thoughts on the best way to format for A5?

[StuporMan]

Unfortunately I am just a silly American and do not know much about A5 sized paper. The only advice I have is to Google your question. I have found that you can answer nearly any question in this manner (given enough time). Perhaps another forum member can assist you with this problem.

Good Luck!
StuporMan

[Starlite]

A5 paper isn't that difficult a concept: it's half the size of A4 paper.

You get the same effect by folding a piece of Letter size paper in half. Obviously, a much nicer size for a reference booklet.

Incidentally, A4 is slightly narrower and about an inch longer than Letter. Word has an A4/Letter resizing feature, but I've no idea if it works.

[ramses II.]

@Starlite
You needn't buy Acrobat. Take Open Office 2.0 instead.
With that you can write PDF files, too.

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

I get an error message when I try to unzip the downloaded file. Anyone else having problems?

[Starlite]

I just tried it and it seems okay.

You may have got a transmission error, in which case either clear your browser's disk cache, or set caching to compare every time you visit a page.

You may also be using an older version of a ZIP utility. I recommend Info-Zip, which is freeware, available at http://www.info-zip.org/. Windows XP Explorer doesn't seem to have any trouble.

BTW: I've been looking into whether there's a better way to present the booklet and, so far, I'm not inclined to change anything. Despite its improved portability, PDF suffers from the fact it can't print two pages per sheet like Word can (at least, not Acrobat 5). This makes it impossible to get an A5 booklet to print back-to-back.

Given the variety of printers that might handle a smaller-than-paper page in different ways (mine aligns to the right, but others might centre), I think what I've got is pretty good. I will look into incorporating the terrain charts in the same document, but it will only work if Word can shrink text objects.

Otherwise, sorry to say, but the limitations of modern software demand some sacrifices if we want to get a professional-looking print-out -- and that's been my aim, all along.

[Kaak]

Nice work starlite!!! i think this would have had a much warmer welcome a couple years ago when there were more people still playing!