A thought

August 2, 2000, 07:17

civ2 was a kewl game. it was fun to play. yay

Seriously, what did you first think of Civilization II when you first played it?

My thoughts were along the lines of "how the heck do you play this game?" Then I discovered the manual, and now (about 3 years later) I'm addicted. What about you?

Oh, and please, no one quote me on the above

[This message has been edited by Antlericus III (edited August 02, 2000).]

SCG · August 2, 2000, 07:43

My first thought was "hey, these wonders don't do what I thouht they did!" Of course I didn't read the civilpedia or the manual right off, so i used my build feeder cities approach and disband everything into the capitol (well, sometimes used settlers to add to city) to rushbuy the pyramids

Bit of a shock when I was still stuck in despotism after it finished

Laertes · August 2, 2000, 07:53

My first thoughts were "Oh God I am going to be tired in the morning". I was introduced to the game by a couple of colleagues while we were working on a project in Belgium. The first night, (they were only pon their 2nd/3rd games) we finally quit at 3am.

My first lessons were:

- stop pounding those city walls with elephants, you fool

- irrigate, irrigate, irrigate!! It's slow and boring but it works.

We just made caravans for fun - those were the days, trying to steer a caravan down a long peninsula while the Aztecs fought the Carthaginians tooth and nail!!

Ming · August 2, 2000, 09:31

The first time I played, a chariot showed up a few turns in the game. He demanded some science... I said no. He destroyed my capital... game over! I decided it was time to read the book

The next game I played, I went out hunting for that civ, and I killed it! I've been addicted ever since

Keep on civin'

SandMonkey · August 2, 2000, 11:44

First time I played was over a friends house, and it was on Supre Nintendo. Then another friend got it for the computer, and we played it everyday after school in seventh grade. That was almost 4 years ago now, and I have been addicted ever since

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Ken Hinds · August 3, 2000, 01:50

Well, being an Information Systems weenie the first thing I did after opening the package was read the manual to see how to play the game. Then I ran the tutorial following the instructions in the manual.

Ken

kcbob · August 3, 2000, 07:24

I can't even remember why I bought the game. I have no ideer who turned me on to it but I will for ever be grateful.

I had a similar experience to Ming's. I think I got waxed by the AI in the first two or three games. Then I tried reading the manual. Still no luck. Tried the tutorial. A little better. Bought a "help" book. Aaaahh! I was able to move up to Prince level.

Finally, after about four months of struggling, I discovered Apolyton and voila! The light went on!

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Oldman · August 3, 2000, 07:53

All i rememeber from when i bought it was, "They've changed the screen around, and why is the grid at a funny angle?" See i hadn't done isometric tech drawing at that time!!! then i was puzzled why the bloody pyramids didn't do what they used to, although i can't for the life of me remember What they used to do?!!?!?

But i was instantly hooked, it was kind of like the progression from drinking at the weekends when you turn 16, to the full time alcoholism you mature to at 18!!! seamless but deadly!!!

Strategist · August 3, 2000, 10:22

quote:

Originally posted by Ming on 08-02-2000 09:31 AM
The first time I played, a chariot showed up a few turns in the game. He demanded some science... I said no. He destroyed my capital... game over! I decided it was time to read the book

The next game I played, I went out hunting for that civ, and I killed it! I've been addicted ever since

Keep on civin'

...and then you became forum moderator and started banning innocent teenage posters...

Mao · August 3, 2000, 11:51

Evil Ming!

Well, I played a bit of Civ1, so I wasn't completely in the dark about Civ2, but there are new things.

CornMaster · August 3, 2000, 13:00

Well the first time I played Civ 2 was at a friends house. He said,"You know Civ 1, well this is civ 2." At the time I was playing Civ 1 on my 4.77MHz 8088. Took 30 minutes to make the world map. Ahh those were the days. Anyway.

I said,"What the heck is that?"
"That's the settler." He said
"Where is the wagon? And what's with the terrian...it's so different. Man I hate this game."
So now your saying,"Well what the heck are you doing here?"
Well times change. He was the only friend I really had and I spent almost every day at his house so I eventually got used to the different graphics, and gameplay.
The first few times I lost bad because I couldn't figure out the grid and movements. Then I turned the grid on and BAM a whole new game.
Now I can't stand the grid and movement is like second nature.
In MP I make all the moves real fast. Then because of lag the unit looks like he does it all by himself. Anyway, got to be going.

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SCG · August 3, 2000, 14:38

quote:

Originally posted by CornMaster on 08-03-2000 01:00 PM
At the time I was playing Civ 1 on my 4.77MHz 8088. Took 30 minutes to make the world map. Ahh those were the days. Anyway.

wow, and I thought it was bad playing Civ I with a 12MHz 80286 and 3-5 minutes for a world map

Learned the keyboard commands for so i could reboot without the mouse in memory (probably didn't help all that much) - and i still don't like using the mouse more than I have to in Civ II. anyway, back to first impressions of Civ II, not lasting impressions of Civ I

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April Cantor: Sire, in order to expand further we must first gain favor of the King

SCG: darn, I've never really got the hang of that tribute thing, guess it will be a long time until i make prince

*goes off and starts gifting gold and techs*

Mao · August 3, 2000, 15:30

Hey, does anyone here play freeciv? ...or do we all have windows?

cavebear · August 3, 2000, 18:08

I started with CivII, based on a magazine recommendation. I tried reading the manual first, and went through the tutorial, but it was all new and seemed terribly complicated. I didn't understand happiness at all, didn't realize the value of irrigation, and trade seemed too complicated (and paid back so little when I traded among my own nearby cities).

Because I had come from Sim games, I thought the point of the game was the building part, so I left out improvements I had no personal interest in (temples and cathedrals).

I got killed over and over again! I finally started cheating (to see what the AI civs were doing that made their cities grow so fast) and so began to irrigate and build roads. Then I caught on to temples, too. Every time I discovered something the AI was doing to advantage, I would study it in the manual and practice at it.

I think it took me a month to win at Chieftain, and another couple months to win at Warlord! My preferred style of play is tailor-made for the AI giving me fits (and it still does)... It also took me a while to learn to ignore the conflicting advice from the Advisors and the High Council.

I think I found Apolyton about the time I was trying to beat the Prince level, and I didn't try the MP program until I had finally won at Deity.

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Gatekeeper · August 4, 2000, 01:10

Everyone:

I began playing Civ I when it was ported to the Super Nintendo. Suffice to say, I broke many a cartridge while trying to master the game ... and that AI didn't even compare to later versions I played! So Nintendo and its subsidiaries probably pocketed around $200 in cartridges because of my temper at the time.

I was stuck with the SNES version until acquiring a Macintosh in 1995. When the Mac port for Civ II game over in 1997 ... I snapped it up. Same with Civ II Gold (crash bug plus evil AI makes that version no fun, though) and C:CTP. I usually play SP games on the standard Civ II game with a variety of Earth maps (some from Apolyton, others pre-stocked, et al.).

No more broken cartridges, though

. Becoming more mature plus the wicked price of replacing a computer played a role in that.

CYBERAmazon

tonic · August 4, 2000, 02:33

Started on Civ I as well, my first ever computer strategy game. First thoughts: Where to start? Felt like being in a cockpit of an aeroplane staring at all those meaningless controls. It took me months before I could even survive a few centuries. A steep learning curve - but with hindsight definitely worth its weight in gold!

Empress · August 5, 2000, 01:02

I remember being amazed at the graphics and wondering [i]where are all the covered wagons for the settlers???{/i]

Mark von Wagner · August 6, 2000, 00:50

First game of CivII: Played at prince, got a decent score (150% or so)
Second game: Played at Deity, got my ass kicked
Third game: Played at prince, got a good score (200% or so)
Fourth game: Played at king, never finished because....
Fifth game: My brother had just gotten on top of the high score list by playing a scenario, so I decided to kick him off. Played on the same map as my third game, against the same civs, at the same level (prince). Got a score of 576% (9607 points)(the game is in the Hall of Fame on this site). Decided that I'd beated Civ II, so I took a break for a few weeks.
[This message has been edited by Mark von Wagner (edited August 06, 2000).]

KhanMan · August 6, 2000, 01:09

First time I played civ2 I had already been a civ-er (civ1) for many years, and I was all into the idiocy of the ai (back when you could attack, make peace for money, steal tech, make peace, attack, make peace with the same ai civ, and then end your turn

So I made an alliance with the russians, and sent my horde of elephants against them, planning on betraying them...then my friend explained alliances, and it took me about 10 turns to force a war...

-KhanMan the LLSS

Scouse Gits · August 7, 2000, 04:25

At least my 8088 was souped up to 8 MHz - although it felt like 8 Hz while it was constructing the map ... probably the different culture, but I kept wondering what was the connection between cattle horns and settlers ?? Conestoga wagons only occurred to me after I had seen the Hi-Res graphics for Civ 2 a goodly few years later ...
First impressions of Civ2 ... Wow what fantastic graphics! Early strategy - survive and expand until the first Non-city arrived - then smash the rotten AI - yes in pre v2.42 days any cities after (about) 128 were None cities and you could rehome everything to them without cost.
Those were the days...

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Novi Nomad · August 7, 2000, 10:12

The first time I saw Civ II was at work. There was a guy in the office who would play it about 7 hours a day (he managed to take some time for lunch). At first I thought the graphics looked pretty lame. At the time I was playing Sim City, and thought this game didn't look as good. He convinced me to give it a try though. I bought the game the next day. I didn't read the manual, and the guy that was familiar with the game gave me pretty minimal guidance. One of my first moves was building palaces in all of my cities. I had no idea that that moved my capital. D'oh! I spent many hours playing that night.... Just one more turn and then I'll crash... Yeah, right. This game is absolutely addicting. Civ II owes me many hours of missed sleep.
[This message has been edited by Novi Nomad (edited August 07, 2000).]

jcarkey · August 7, 2000, 13:08

My first thoughts made me think "Why did I spend money on this?" I thought it was absolutely hideous. I wasn't used to the hexes at all. I thought whta type of unit is this? What command is used to sentry? etc...

Fortunatley I stuck with it. Tried the tutorial a couple of times. Then I fell into the trap of cheat mode. I finally beat a full game without cheat mode. Yoo-hoo!!

I was able to beat chieftain and warlord. Then I tried the OCC. I nearly did it, but I ended up using two settlers I started with to start new cities. Darn. At least I beat Deity!
Thats what I thougt of CIV2.

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Dr.Oogkloot · August 9, 2000, 03:11

My first thought was: "This game is uglier than Civ 1".

Father Beast · August 18, 2000, 01:51

as an old player of civ1, my first thought of civ2 was, "Where's my settler, and why do I have a warrior standing there?" to this day, I still think that the settler looks like a warrior (militia) should look, and I wonder where I can get a mod to change it.
I spent a lot of time moving the wrong way because of the map, and huts always gave me new units, which I had to support. I built a number of wonders in my capital, many of which didn't do any good because of, for example, the lighthouse when I had no port cities.
I had to wean myself off the settler cheat and do tile improvements the new fashioned wa - with time.
I had to deal with my neighbors threatening me when I was just exploring next to their city. at least they didn't fortify right next to one of my cities after declaring peace.
"What are all these weird units anyway?"

But I made the transition and I'm hooked.