Is there life after Civ2?

[Captain Nemo]

I am putting the finishing touches to Red Front 1.4 and simultaneously upgrading 2194 Days of War to include the better graphics of RF... But that will be done in a few days, so I started thinking about my next scenario (if any) and wondering if there is still enough life left in Civ2 to justify the huge effort of putting together another scenario? Who would play it?
Are there any other games that support the kind of scenario-making that Civ2 allows?
What do you think?

[William Keenan]

Many other games offer scenario building options, but none (IMO) have the scope that Civ2 has. So, why downgrade?

It will be a long time until we see civ3, at least a year or more. So that leaves us with civ2. Fortunatly there is still an uncharted frontier of civ2 left to explore: Test of Time.

[Archangel]

FW and MGE are dead, so use ToT!

[Mao]

NEVER!!! FW FOREVER!

you could try a scenario about some other great land battles Nemo...Japanese vs. Chinese? Chinese have to hold out and survive for American aid?

[Captain Nemo]

How about this scenario:

D-Day to Falaise...(Title: "Invasion!", "Overlord", "Second Front", "Ike's War")
Starts on June 6, 1944 with your invasion fleet off the coast of Normandy ends once you have routed the Germans and broken out of the Hedgerows of Normandy.
Designed for MGE hotseat play with the Human player controlling the "Allies" and "Allied Air Force" (Two separate civs to prevent the planes from landing in captured villages in Normandy)
Germans likewise split as Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe Civs.
Possibly a fifth civ "French Civilians" that would be "in the way" of the military operations.
A sixth civ could be ai-controlled French Underground (Maquisards) although they played a relatively small role in the early invasion.
The only way to land planes in France is by capturing a few key German airfields in France since the Allied Air Force civ would have only air units and could not capture cities.

Other key ideas:
Very strong defensive positions along the Coast of Normandy, including coastal batteries that can fire "missile" type units and invisible "floating mine" units.
Capital ships and LSTs set to 18 cost causes them to draw "missile" fire if they approach the beaches while smaller vessels (LCAs and LCTs) with lower cost can reach the beaches with less risk.

Dual defense line of "beach" terrain with low defensive value and "barbwire" terrain with high movement cost and low defensive value. Behind these lines strong German bunker type units, machine gun units, anti-tank guns etc...

No coastal cities except a few key harbors like Cherbourg & Le Havre to prevent Allies from easily bringing equipment and troops into Normandy. (All units have to be offloaded on the beaches)(Disable all settler/engineer functions from the menu)

One feature that I am not 100% sure would work: Set population food consumption to 0, make terrain produce no food (So city population would stay constant). Rename food "fuel" and set settler role for all motor vehicles (They all consume 2 "fuel") Create fuel "depots" terrain around British cities that would allow British cities to send numerous food/fuel convoys to France to support the units based in France. This would simulate the very complex logistics of supporting the invasion force across the channel.

Battle of the Hedgerows: a checker board of terrain with high defensive value and slow movement criss-crossed by terrain with roads and low defensive value. The allies could move along the roads but be exposed to deadly attacks from Germans in the hedgerows.
Scenario duration: 30 or 40 turns (Days) Objectives: to break out of the German containement and secure a harbor and airfields to support the advance through France to Germany.

British units would be very slow(Montgomery)

Allies would own the sky (Possibly could leave the Airforce ai-controlled to prevent it from over-achieving?) but be logistically difficult to operate (Fly from Britain to France in 2 turns then return in 2 turns so instant air support would not be available until the capture of local airfields)

German tanks would be very superior to Allied tanks and extremely costly to knock out without air support.

OK this is an outline, any comments? any additional ideas? Any better ideas?

Other options would be a German version of Red Front or a big scale battle of Stalingrad (The War of the Rats)

Does anyone have experience with ToT scenario building? What additional work is involved and what can be carried over from FW/MPG.

[Sten Sture]

For what it's worth, I am a long time civ2 player, but only recently started playing scenarios... I can't believe how great some of these things are. It is absolutely the best kept secret in the gaming world.


If Hasbro was smart, they could do an EA Sports, give you guys a royalty and release a new set of scenarios every year.

[Xin Yu]

Captain Nemo: I have no opinion now. After playing RF1.4 I'll know whether I want a more difficult scenario. Gee, your scenario is more addictive than the game itself!

[Archangel]

I have ToT building experience. I'm almost finished with a rather large WW2 scenario. ToT is much better for scenarios. There is so much more you can do with events such as flags and avi files. One of my favorites is that with ToT, you can specify how many units to create with a single event. If you wanted to create 20 of the same units with FW, you'd have to write out the same event 20 times, taking up a huge amount of space. Also, the events file is much larger for ToT. There are more units allowed in ToT, and the unit boxes are larger which allows for a greater amount of detail. Another great feature is the ability to include up to four maps in a scenario. Nemo, imagine if you could have used four maps in your 2194 days of war scenario. You could have a detailed map of europe and northern africa, a map of asia, a map of the pacific, and a map of america. Now that would be an intense scenario!

The extra work required for ToT would be to manually editing the rules and events text files. Carrying stuff over? You mean like you already started a scenario in FW and want to finish it in ToT? You can convert FW and MGE scenarios to ToT with a converter Angelo Scotto made. Michael Daumen converted his Great Game scenario to ToT and upgraded it.

ToT offers a lot more for scenario creation, and once some ToT scenarios start flowing out FW will be left in the dust. Its really sad that there are people like Mao who are too lazy to buy the game and they will try to hold back the progress of the civ community.

[Allard HS]

quote: Designed for MGE hotseat play with the Human player controlling the "Allies" and "Allied Air Force" (Two separate civs to prevent the planes from landing in captured villages in Normandy)

I wouldn't use MGE if I were you. FW offers all MGE has to offer but is much more widely used. Same for ToT. And if you want many people to play it, use FW!
You can also use Hotseat in Fantastic Worlds, which works fine (even better than the hotseat in MGE). One hint: go to hex offset 2F and change the number to FF or to anything you want.

For the rest it sounds great, but wouldn't it be time for... something different? The Bayeux idea you had in another thread seems great..

[Hendrik the Great]

How is it possible to play FW Hotseat? I would realy like to know that!

[Allard HS]

I just told. Go to hex offset 2F of any saved game, then change it to the player you want to play (FF for all).

[Hendrik the Great]

Sorry. Wasn't paying attention.

Where can I get a hex editor?
[This message has been edited by Hendrik the Great (edited February 19, 2000).]

[Panda]

Hendrick, the best hex editing program I've yet seen is Hex Wizard, which you can find at: http://members.xoom.com/Hexwizard/index.htm

It has the advantage of being as powerful as commercial programs yet absolutely free

[Hendrik the Great]

Nice site. Downloading...

Thanks a lot!

[Captain Nemo]

Allard:
Thanks for the tip about MGE versus FW... If I decide not to try ToT, I will definitely use FW rather than MGE since the Hotseat play is possible.
Regarding "time to try something else", I agree with you in principle, however the work involved with doing something completely new would be massive compared to making another WWII scenario. My thoughts were that I have 60-70% of the units needed for another WWII scenario, as well as the historical knowledge needed to do it. With a modest time investment I could add a good entry to the WWII scenario collection. The Bayeux idea is so massive that it would probably die in process (I am realistic about the time needed to get something like that going). I'm not going to announce 10 different scenarios and not complete them like so many Civ2 creators do and I would rather do something modest that will go ahead than throw 100's of hours at an unrealistically complex venture.

BTW, Allard did you get my E-mail about posting Red Front 1.4 on CSC? I didn't get an answer.

Archangel:

Some additional ToT questions:
Can Civ2 units be reused in ToT? Can terrains/cities/improvement icons be reused in ToT? Are there any new graphics required?
Can the events drop units at variable locations? (Fx where a previous unit has been killed?) How many unit slots are available? Are there any extra terrain slots? Any special terrain specifications like making additional water terrains or impenetrable terrain? What is required to make animated units? How big is the max event file?
How are the 4 maps tied together (Can units move from one map to the next?)
I have many more but enough for this time.
[This message has been edited by Captain Nemo (edited February 19, 2000).]