Would ancient Civ II strategy threads interest you?

[East Street Trader]

I was not here for the very earliest period but I remember spending hours and hours reading numerous old threads when I first came across Apolyton.

I had played plenty of Civ1 and a fair bit of Civ2 at that time but of course my game improved a great deal with exposure to all the Apolyton received wisdom.

But what struck me most was the companionability of the place. Good temper and not a little wit were the order of those early days.

I suppose it partly comes from the shared enthusiasm. But perhaps also from the fact that turn based strategy games seem to attract a slightly older age group.

I cannot share your nostalgia for that very earliest period as I took no part in it myself but I am a bit nostalgic for the late flowering which followed. In fact I think that is the period you describe when the level of activity on the strategy forum rivalled OT.

And the various discoveries and achievements came so thick and fast. It was really extraordinary to find the underlying mechanisms of such a familiar game being laid bare and to discover what could be done within the game once the way it ticks was laid bare.

Some of the work put in at that time was of a very high standard. I am a wordsmith by trade and found it a pleasure to read Paul's first description of his policy line in OCC. Its economy of style matches the beautiful economy of the method which it describes.

And the work on barbs, too was beautifully presented. Although that was sparked more from the scenario designer side of things.

Anyway, having recently come back to another bout of Civ3 I half hoped to find a similar buzz on the policy forum. But was not altogether surprised to find matters there to-day a little more sedate. The pace and quality of the Civ2 hayday would be hard to match.

[East Street Trader]

It's very hit or miss, but if you put your own Apolyton name (assuming it to be reasonably distinctive), or someone else's, into a search engine you will likely get some old threads that way.

Two come up on the first page of hits if I do that - there may be more on later pages I didn't look.

[vmxa1]

I perused the Civ2 forum recently and found a sort of index of threads. It was interesting, but I was surprised to not find a comprehensive strat guide.

I mean one that was aimed at the whole game play starting with your 4000bc settler.

I did not see it if it exist anyway. I did not see anything like crackers opening moves either. There is lots of very good stuff, but it is aimed at a very narrow area for the most part.

[Bloody Monk]

Originally posted by vmxa1
I perused the Civ2 forum recently and found a sort of index of threads. It was interesting, but I was surprised to not find a comprehensive strat guide.

I mean one that was aimed at the whole game play starting with your 4000bc settler.

I did not see it if it exist anyway. I did not see anything like crackers opening moves either. There is lots of very good stuff, but it is aimed at a very narrow area for the most part.

You found the Great Library topped thread narrow??

Monk

[vmxa1]

Not in the sense that it has lot of links to lot of useful information.
I was rather saying that if you wanted to fine tune some aspect of your play, then you probably could get what you need.
If you were a new player or played very little, I did not see any thread that would step you through the better techniques of playing CivII.

IOW, you start of with 4000bc, here is one method of play to get the upper hand. There are many such threads for CivIII, of varing degrees of value.

I just expected to see some siminal work ala Vels SMAC guide. In no way did I intend to denigrade the fine work done.

[Bloody Monk]

I have played many hundreds of games of Civ2 and I do not believe such a road map from 4000bc to be useful or possible.

There are just too many possibilities, almost at every turn, to make that kind of undertaking meaningful or comprehensive. If you have followed any of the Succession Games at the General/Help site, you will immediately see that for every person's turn, someone else is likely to have suggestions for how it could have been played differently.

Even for the special case of the One City Challenge style of play, where Paul wrote the Bible of preferred choices, people have made variations. And the variations multiply when there are unique map considerations, player positions, or objectives.

Using the games' tutorial as a general start and then the Great Library for broad brush ideas, the wonderful, timeless game of Civ2 can unfold in as many directions as there are players. In other words, there is no one way to play Civ2; it is totally up to you and your creativity. That is part of what makes Civ2 the benchmark for turn based games...IMHO, of course.

Monk

[vmxa1]

Of course it is true that one size does not fit all, but none the less functional roadmaps are quite possible.

Really just outlining the options and their consequences is sufficient. It was just a thought, not important. Civ2 is of no interest to me since Civ3 anyway. I would prefer to keep my fond memories of it as they are.

[SlowThinker]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
if you put your own Apolyton name (assuming it to be reasonably distinctive), or someone else's, into a search engine you will likely get some old threads that way

EST, happy to see you again ( but not in Civ2 forums).

I don't think you get further in the past than by a simple 'from the beginning' option: this way you get to 8 Nov 1999 (Where is the original OCC Thread? ).

The main problem is that threads in the old UBB format (like http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum3/HT...tml?date=16:27) are not accessible without knowledge of the link.

[Carolus Rex]

Now I'm not sure anymore that knowing the link is sufficient.

I went to the thread you linked to and then to the thread linked to in that thread. I thus arrive at a thread in which I collected the early OCC threads.

In that thread the oldest link is working (it's the thread started by geofelt where Ming pulls the first OCC off, also linked to earlier above in this thread), but some of the others do not work. I got the message "Forum thread no longer exists" when I tried...

But the links are in chronological order with the oldest one at the bottom. The others are thus not as old, yet they do not work...

The only reason I can come up with is that it's the date of the last post in each thread that decides whether the thread has survived or not. That is, the last post in the oldest thread is more recent than the last post in threads that where started after the oldest one...

It's too early in the morning for me... Does this make sense or not?

Carolus

[Carolus Rex]

No, that can't be it.

None of the other links in my collection of OCC threads works... And the last post in every one of them can't be older than the last post in the oldest thread...

Carolus

[Paul]

That oldest thread was from Feb 1999, but the last post was from Aug 2000. Most threads don't get bumped so long after the last post, so it's very likely that none of the other threads have newer posts.