How is the Mac Civ II Different from PC Version?

[Gatekeeper]

Monolith94:

Oh, really? Do explain, please. I'd love to discover something new about Civ II.

Gatekeeper

[FlameFlash]

Secret level? Now I'm interested... you better not be pulling my leg!

[JJJ]

The two MGE's are the same, except the mac version is 10x buggier. I've never had the PC version crash on me (I've played it a lot more) and the Mac version has crashed several times. Good thing I had auto save on... grrrrr.

[finbar]

Mine was virtually faultless after the release of the last patch. Very, very occasionally it will still freeze during an AI turn - usually the Barbs - in a game, but nowhere near as often as it used to.

I remember when we were communicating via email with the guy from MacSoft who was doing the patches. He said most of the Mac-version problems were the result of the very original, slapdash conversion to create the PC multi-player version of the game. I remember him passing on some of the messages left within the code by those who did the conversion - they often weren't sure what they were doing, and left messages to that effect.

[JJJ]

I'm using OS 9 and it's very unstable in multiplayer.

[Henrik]

I've been playing Civ 2 online in os 9 for ages without much problems (though I did have the occasional termination of the program, basicly I've found that if you use the kingchat during the barbarian turn chances are tilted towards the game terminating).
I've not played a lot of MP since I got osx but my impression is that it still works well.

[finbar]

Originally posted by Henrik
(though I did have the occasional termination of the program, basicly I've found that if you use the kingchat during the barbarian turn chances are tilted towards the game terminating).

Doing anything during the barb turn used to be a problem. I've also found that typing too much King Chat in one slab will sometimes crash the game.

[Gatekeeper]

Y'know, it's just strange for me to read the beginning of this thread way back in December 2001. I was known as CYBERAmazon back then ...

Heh. And I still play lots of Civ II (standard edition). Every once-in-a-while I'll play one of the scenarios from the Gold version, but only rarely. The "crash-upon-exit" still pops up more often than not with that version.

Gatekeeper

[Henrik]

Never had that happen in os x...

EDIT: That would be in "classic" on my OS X machine

[Gatekeeper]

Consider yourself fortunate. Between that bug and the overly-aggressive AI, I pretty much ignore Civ II Gold. Thank goodness for classic Civ II.

Gatekeeper

[-Jrabbit]

(wimp)

I run MGE with the current (1.1) patch on OS 9.1 and have rarely experienced a problem. Haven't crashed in over a year, and have only observed a minor glitch or two along the way.

As for differences, my experiences with AI attitude (eg when gifting techs to get maps) seems different from that described by some PC brethren. On my game, the AI civ's attitude goes back to negative (Uncoop, or worse) usually after just one turn. Not a big deal, but it makes alliances worthless and getting repeated maps impossible. Wondering if this is true or just a "seems to be."

Also, is it true that a map trade Requires the AI to be Worshipful? It seems that way to me.

I suspect that these are actually 2.42 vs MGE issues...

[Gatekeeper]

I've noticed the one-turn attitude change as well, but mostly in the latter stages of the game (say, after 1750 AD). However, I've traded maps with nations that were "cordial," but never below that level. I know that the higher the difficulty level, the harder it can be to trade maps. At Emperor and above, I've had "worshipful" nations refuse to trade maps ... more often "enthusiastic," though.

Gatekeeper

[-Jrabbit]

Hm. I always play Deity, so that's probably the cause.

The attitude change observation is common even in BC years.

[Henrik]

The attitude thing only happens with MGE, on both PC and mac as far as I gather (and I've been doing a lot of comparing as I have PC testers for my civ 2 MGE scenarios).

[finbar]

I only ever play Deity and I've never had an AI civ exchange maps with anything less than an "enthusiastic" attitude. Usually, it requires "worshipful". Sometimes they won't even exchange when they're "worshipful". Another factor that seems to enter into their willingness to exchange maps is the Great Wall. If I have it, they seem more willing to exchange. It might just be coincidence. I must test the theory.