How long did it take you to really understand Civ2?

[Bereta_Eder]

After playing civ 1 and civ 2 for so much time I thought my self as an expert.

Until I found Apolyton and discovered how much I don't know.

So... I haven't finished my learning experience with civ yet!

I can't remember when I got the grasp of the game. It was so long ago.

But I remember my VERY FIRST GAME of CIV 1. Strange huh? It didn't have a nice ending..!

[airdrik]

I never had a manual. I started by playing civ1 on a computer at school before (durring) and after my geometry class (which I still got an A in). My strategy was go to chivalry (though I never actually knew which steps to take to get there) and conquere the world with knights. That worked until I tried to play on warlord when the germans decided to wait till they had armors before taking me over (I didn't finish that game because that was the end of the year).

After that it was a couple of years before I got a copy of Civ 2 MPGE!! By that time I had found this site and learned some startegies that boosted my starting difficulty level to about prince or king, or even emperor.

That copy of civ 2 got deleted, and it wasn't until this last spring break that I got a hold of another copy, and since I can only play it on the weekends, progression will be slow.

[Dis]

if I could have played civ2 in school I would have never left school . but they didn't have civ2 on commodore 64's or commodore pets

[airdrik]

When I started, I was a freshman in high school (it seems so long ago, but actually it wasn't) in the 1995-1996 school year. But it was fun conquering the world on chieftain with knights and ironclads , then getting my tail wooped on warlord by the Germans with their armors.

[zyxpsilon]

Hardly ever understood ALL of what is involded in Civ's... anyone pretending to grasp the whole of it is lying!!
The full extent of such a complex game is a never-ending quest for more.
That's what makes it so interesting, and keeps me going back at it again and AGAIN!

Seriously?
Within a couple of weeks and a few sleepless nights, i managed to step up to deity's levels; only to find out that even more challenges were waiting for me in scenarios.

But; the most satisfying element of all those games is to remember the very first try...

Founded a city; only to have it demolished by Barbs!!
That was such a mess then, now that i "know" how to play.
But i guess, i still don't!

[airdrik]

Actually, maybe someone like ming, or paul, or one of those guys who can reach AC on diety with a size 4 city pre-1800, and have been able to do it for the last couple of years might be able to truely understand civ 2. But then again, maybe not. (though it might be a ton easier if we had the source code for it )

[War4ever]

one only needs to understand the relationship between trade..... science.... happiness.....and real estate to win Everything else in the game is icing! As has been proven by many here.... you can win easily with one city...... you can sleeze in the breeze with 200+ cities..... you can economically shatter other kingdoms then bribe them to death.... be an anal perfectionist with minimal cities..... give a damm about micromanagement and fix disorder as it occurs ..... reach for the stars.... win wars of attrition......WLT*d...... build every wonder.... build no wonders....two continent trading strategies..... caravans for wonders only..... SSC.... etc etc....

Understand the relationships in my first two sentences and victory is like taking candy from a baby on ANY level

[sboog]

Well, rwprice, I don't know how to answer. I have been trying to get the hang of just the basics for a few weeks now. It is just not coming along that fast.

When I read here posts which say they grasped the game when they were in the 7th grade, it gives me hope. On the other hand, I have been out of the 7th grade a loooonnng time, and it's just not coming together for me.

So, ask me again in about a month.

sboog

[MattHiggs]

One full reading of a tactics manual... and about 2 weeks of solid playing. Now I am a grand master

[Archangel MasterBob]

A couple of weeks probably before I got the hang of it, a year or so before I became a veteran of the game.

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[rwprice]

After thinking about it, and reading Sboog's comments, I think I might like to rephrase this question a little. What I meant by "understand" is not so much a strategy or "what to do" issue, but rather, how long was it before you saw the point of the game? How long before you understood the goal of playing, the underlying theory of the game? I think that's the real issue. You can understand game mechanics, but if you don't see the point to them, then you're just going through the motions. What I'm interested in knowing is...after you started learning, how long was it before you said "oh, I get it...this is a really cool game!"?

[Chronus]

Hi rwprice,

In that case, it didn't take me long since I'm one of those weirdos who actually enjoy reading the manual. Civ2 has a nice chapter devoted solely to the conditions for winning.

Many games that have some sort of military aspect to it tend to make "conquering the world" a win. Much to my delight, Civ2 allows a peaceful means (via the space race) as well.

[Caesar the Great]

Well first time I was introduced to it, I was at a freinds house in 1996, he had just gotten a new computer for his birthday, and with it civ 2, I watched him play it for a long time, but he was never very good, and still isn't. Then after about a year I finally bought my own copy. I mainly played of cheiftan, occaisonally warlord for a good 2 years. Then I tried emperor and besides the unhappiness it was a piece of cake, and I didn't start playing on deity until OCC and multiplaying, never bothered to play regular games on deity. And now, vast empire building bores me, turns take forever and little progress is made, so I basically stick to games with 10 cities or less, besides multiplayer games. I understood the game in '97, up until then I'd been playing with the assumption of production is king. One day, I decided on a new crazy strategy, maximizing trade, and it was incredible, my sciences were soaring above the AIs, for the first time I didn't build great library, although I regretted it later b/c as the AI stole techs from me the guy with GL always got it and traded it to all the other AIs..... from that point on I understood the game....


My lie story.

[Juggler]

I first played Civ1 before Civ2 so the question for me should really be "How long did it take me to really understand Civ1?". Well I got Civ1 just after it was released and I didn't fully understand the concept of the whole game; building and researching were still a big mistery but soon I was familiarized with the game and if you master Civ1 it won't take you a long time to master Civ2 (you just have to get used to some new creations).

[Vlad Antlerkov]

About a year. That's the amount of time between my first playing the game and my first game at Warlord level. (Laugh if you want )

It took me a considerably shorter time to actually get the hang of it -- around a month or so.