Was Civ 2 Ever Finished?

[Sparky]

Someone in the CGW thread asked, "Have you ever been dissapointed by civ?" This was rhetorical ... but I must say actually I have.

Civ 2 was never finished.

I got the game immediatly after it came out in 1996. It was fantastic, but the original Civ 2 has always appeared to be 95% done. Here's why:

1) Fundamentalism was obviously never playtested. Sid admitted it was a mistake government when he decided to leave it out of Civ 3.

2) The map editor is very strange. It looks like they meant for it to place irrigation, etc., but it doesn't.

3) The scenario editor is terrible and has no paintbrush modes. The tool interface and menus are extremely confusing. (I think all the work that went into the MGE and SMAC editors shows they realized this, too).

4) There's no multiplayer, even though Civnet had already come out. (again, MGE recognizes this was a mistake)

5) There are five of the same unit, paratroopers, riflemen, fanatics, alpine troops, and partisans. Each just has a tweaked special ability, but they pretty much fulfill the same role: medium-powered inexpensive single-move cannon fodder. (I think that with more playtesting they would have made riflemen obsolete with labor union, and replaced fanatics with partisans in late game).

6) Only two scenarios. (Yes, I know MGE added on, but games customarily ship with more than just two).

7) Unfinished maps. Go to the "load premade world" in the original. Sure looks like they meant to have a WW2 pacific scenario, doesn't it? Alexander the Great, too, if that map had been finished instead of leaving only a grassland outline of the Medeterranian.

There are other issues too, like bugs. But the truth is that the above "features" were unfinished.

[Sparky]

8) Real Earth. Look at Civ 1. It's very obvious someone sat down with an atlas while making the Real Earth map. You can tell because the longidudes correspond to their correct positions. Civ 2, however, had three haphazard earths, that were merely an educated guess. And they're still not finished. Take the largest for example, world.mp. Look in Siberia. Several of the rivers don't connect. The programmer was just messing with the paintbrush.

[Adm.Naismith]

Well, but your point related to Civ III is...?

Civ III can and should be a lot more enhanced. We worked hard to help (and confuse ) Firaxis as possible. Now cross your finger and hope

BTW, why don't you keep ready to redraw a proper World map, if Firaxis missed it?

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Sparky]

Why don't I draw a world map? Well, I did do the first map ever for SMAC, which was... earth

Actually, I went back to Civ 2 and made my own earth map, much more realistic. Some day I'll get around to posting it here.

[Adm.Naismith]

quote: Originally posted by Sparky on 04-05-2001 04:46 PM Why don't I draw a world map? Well, I did do the first map ever for SMAC, which was... earth Actually, I went back to Civ 2 and made my own earth map, much more realistic. Some day I'll get around to posting it here.

Good! But sadly I'm eretic here: I needed free space on my old HD, so I uninstalled CIV II (SMAC is still around, for a last game I've won plenty of turns before game AI is ready to admit )

So I'll be very happy to thank you for the very first CIV III realistic Earth map, if Firaxis missed one good enough.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant