Has everyone here played Civ2 first?

[sboog]

I am wondering if everyone here first played Civ2. And I am wondering how you would compare the two.

While waiting for EA to send my SMAC manual, I am trying to learn to play Civ2. It is not easy for me. I am having trouble knowing just what to do and getting adjusted to a Turn Based game.

Is SMAC as hard to get into as Civ2? I know both games have depth and hold people a long time.

Please tell me how you rate the two as far as ease of learning and fun.

sboog

[Sikander]

I got CIV2 about a year before SMAC. The games weren't all that hard for me because I played a lot of CIV1 and have been playing turn based games for almost 30 years. They are complex buggers if you are new to the TBS game world, and I think SMAC is a bit more complex than CIV2. It is also a lot more fun in the long run, since there are so many play styles to choose from. If you are having trouble with CIV2, but think that you will eventually master it, and are enjoying yourself, then I would stick with that for a little while longer because:

1) It's a little bit more intuitive due to it's basis in history rather than science fiction.

2) It's a simpler game.

3) There are a lot of similarities between the games, so if you become proficient at CIV2, it will save you half the learning time that SMAC would take.

[RobN]

I played Civ a lot, then recently decided to move on to either Civ2 or SMAC. I chose SMAC primarily because it is a newer game - I reckoned that Civ2 might seem a bit primitive.

[Cybergod]

I have first got interested into turn-based games through Worms 2 . Then I saw a SMAC demo on a CD-games or something's cover disk. I thought: "Hmm... This sounds interesting..." I've heard of Civ games before but never had a chance to play them. I really liked the demo. Then I bought the game , and you know the rest of the story . Of all other civ games I've only played CTP and found it boring. Oh well. I am planning to buy Civ3, when it comes out though.

[cbn]

I played CIV for years before moving to CIV2. I played that for a year before getting SMAC and then a year later SMAX. I like SMAC/X better because there is more game complexity than CIV2. for example

1. The factions all have very different strengths
2. You can custom engineer your military in the design workshop
3. Social engineering of governments is much more complex

I believe that you might be best to play a bit of CIV2 first. Once you have the CIV2 concepts understood, you can move on to SMAC/X at a time when you can better understand and appreciate the complexity.

[The Commodore]

I began with Civ, then CivII, then SMAC.

[mark13]

SMAC was my first encounter with the Civ genre, although I now have Civ2, and play it occasionally.

[Ned]

I've played both CIV and CIV2. I personally consider CIV harder than either CIV2 or SMAC. The it did things create trade routes between cities without using caravans. Also, combat was all or none. This really complicates your life in numerous ways. (BTW, although many on this board are trying to figure out how to make SMAC harder, no one seems to want to use simple combat ala CIV. That really would make the game hard.) But CIV had one major drawback. It had a unit limit of around 115. Since one practically had to ICS to win CIV, this made garrisoning cities very hard if not impossible.

All said, though, there are so many improved features in SMAC that make it more fun to play. Most here would agree. But if you really want a hard game, try CIV.

[sboog]

Ned, no I DON'T want a hard game. I just want a game I can get into and enjoy. Civ2 is hard for me because I just can't get the hang of what the units do yet. Or where to move them and why.

I hope SMAC is easier to get into. My manual should be here next week so I can try it.

I never played Civ1.

I think coming right from AoE I am having a hard time with the different concepts and graphics. You can't just click and have something happen right before your eyes.

sboog

[Alex]

I played Civ2 first, then SMAC. I think SMAC is a superior game, but it is also much more complicated than Civ2. When I first booted SMAC, I kept looking at the screen for a long time, just wondering: "what am I supposed to do now?". But, since I had played Civ2 before, it was not so hard to start applying some basic guidelines.
Anyway, play Civ2 first. You will then be more prepared to handle some of SMAC subtleties.

[Iskandar Reza]

I played civ2 first, then smac, then ctp, then smax, then ctp2, and then back to smac/x.

ctp's just... well i don't like public works.

[Sprayber]

I started with SMAC. I was destroyed many times by mindworms that came from no where and took an unguarded base. I was like what the hell was that? After becomming good at SMAC/X I tried CTP and was bored out of my skull. So I would play a quick game of SMAC to get my spirits up again. I really wanted to like CTP, because I like history so much. But I never got into it though. SMAC/X has that way of pulling me into the story. I catch myself saying, "here comes Yang" and actually be concerned if I'm going to get away. Or If my invasion will be successful, because damnit, Yang took out my colony pod or former and he's going to pay. In CTP, it was like. Here comes the green guy. Oh whoopeee. I haven't tried CIV2. I think that I will get Civ3 just to see what all the fuss is about though.

Just as a note. The AC fiction forum has helped continue my interest in SMAC/X. The SMAC universe contains so many possibilities. I think it is a tribute to all the project team at Firaxis, despite legitmate gripes we may have, that they created a game where we can go along with the story as the game goes on.

[Lefty Scaevola]

I started with smac.

[Garth Vader]

I started with CIV, then Civ2, then SMAC. Civ2 is easier to learn but SMAC is more fun.

[Earwicker]

I started with Civ2 and found it pretty easy to learn and captivating with the historical side of things. Love them both but play only one at a time (until I get bored, then switch to the other, and so on . . .)

[sboog]

Well, Ned, where do you think I could find the original Civ1 (for the PC)? Sounds like a good idea to play it first to get the basic game concept going.

sboog

[DilithiumDad]

I'm probably the only one, but I entered from the SciFi side rather than the Civ side. The previous game that my son and I were playing was Deadlock II by Accolade. This was a game with 7 different factions representing different species, bonus resource locations, more complex resource management (resources were gloabal across your empire, but you paid tranportation costs; resources included iron, steel, endurium, triderium, wood, energy, and food and could be exchanged with human or AI players) complex diplomacy (tech share, map share, commerce, non-aggression and victory pacts --all independent). Plus, instead of static portraits, the leaders had animated lip-synced clips and assortment of choice witticisms (great for on-line mmuliplayer!).
Unfortunate, the game as originally shipped was unplayable because of its weak AI. They fixed the problem in a patch, but the game died because of bad press.
If you do find it in the bargain bin, grab it, but don't bother playing it without the patch!

[Ned]

sboog, Now than is a very good question. The Original Civ was published by Microprose. I went to their cite. Nothing. Firaxis, who publishes SMAC, has no mention of it.

Maybe someone on this board knows where to buy it.

Worse comes to worse, I have a copy. It come on two floppies. I could probably e-mail it to you if we could find out who to pay for the privilege.

[Ned]

sboog, Just for a lark, I just installed CIV on my new Pentium IV. It installed just fine. I played as the Romans at the highest difficulty. It took only 20 turns before a barbarian army landed and took Rome. My empire ended, alas! Ned

[Ned]

Sboog, As you can see, many of us started with earlier version of the "game." The concepts of how one plays among all these CIV games is similar, but each has new "improvements" that make the game more complicated, but at the same time easier to win. If I had a polite suggestion, why don't you see if you can find the original CIV game. It is the least complicated, but teaches you basic strategy. Then you can move up to CIV and finally SMAC and SMACX. Once you have mastered SMACX, though, there is no going back. Ned

[Lefty Scaevola]

I played the original civiliztion (cardboard) back in the 70s & 80s.

[Iskandar Reza]

quote: Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola on 04-16-2001 12:24 PM I played the original civiliztion (cardboard) back in the 70s & 80s.

I played that once, before I had a pc good enough to play anything other than solitaire or minesweeper.

It was intensely slow and difficult to keep track. Getting from bronze to iron age was so slowwwww

[Locus]

I played Civ II regularly for two years before playing SMAC/X. SMAC/X is a lot more complex than Civ II. While you have an intuitive understanding of technology to help you through Civ II, that knowledge is lacking in SMAC/X. I still play SMAC/X a lot and rarely play Civ II. The reason why is that you just have a lot more freedom in SMAC/X than in Civ II. I actually like Civ II better than SMAC/X but don't play it as much because Civ II is so limited compared to SMAC/X. If you are having a hard time with Civ II, I recommend you don't play SMAC/X until you get better at Civ II. The learning curve in SMAC/X is steep!!! Also, in Civ II, you can survive a long time and stay in the game (until your enemies get artillary anyway) but in SMAC/X, you might find yourself conquered in less than 100 turns if you don't know what you're doing. I guess I am trying to tell you to be patient with Civ II (my favorite game of all time). If you find Civ II frustrating, I can GUARANTEE you that SMAC/X will be ten times more frustrating. If Civ III turns out to be little more than Civ II with the expanded diplomacy, etc of SMAC/X, I will still have a new favorite game. (According to Firaxis, Civ III will be a lot more than Civ II with SMAC/X gameplay advancements.) IMO, the historical aspect of Civ III is more exciting than colonizing Chiron. It is just more thrilling to take possession of the "Pyramids" versus the "Pholus Mutagen".

------------------
Brother Locus of the Peacekeepers

[johndmuller]

I started on the Board game version too. It was good IIRC, but took a while to play and I seem to remember that it was easy enough to become an also ran, leading to a lack of enthusiasm among half the players in any particular game. On the other hand, there not being an AI, all your opponents were more interesting and much less predictable and (at least some of the time) followed rational strategies. The face to face aspects of in-person gaming also add something else. I don't really remember the rules much, but I don't think it was very similar to Civ except in general ideas; they do both have that cool sense of (re?)experiencing history in the 1st person that SMAC/X doesn't really give you.

Ned, good point about how difficult original Civ1 was. I got fixated on playing England and I don't think I ever won at a difficult level what with the slow start in particular as well as some of the AI's seeming advantages like building spaceships quicker faster better at the end. I just played a bit recently and it looked like was headed for 2nd place again, being stuck in a Central American standoff while the Mongols conquor all the Old World. Still entertaining though, but I found myself missing some of the enhancements (forgot some of the Civ1 fine points too).

All that being said, I think I would have enjoyed SMAC/X just as much if I had never played Civ; probably more even, because it would have all been totally new - the places where the Civ engine shows through as a little forced take a teeny bit away from the SMAC/X experience.

[Googlie]

I was a latecomer to the Civ genre in that I never played Civ, but started with CivII.

And I'll never forget that first game (sure, it was settler, but we all have to start somewhere)

The sense of accomplishment from nursing that first loinclothed settler through to a railway ribboned empire defended by carriers and aegis cruisers...the clumsy attempts to placate disgruntled citizens...the rush to beat the other civs to the wonders...and then the space race ... every base involved in building part of it - picking up the manual when a civ launched a partially built ship that had 17 years to go, then turning up production full blast to get the 39/16/3 that could make the trip in 5.7 years, and overtaking the competitor, and then seeing the end movie just as dawn was breaking.

And it just got better (in spite of the frustrations - waiting the five minutes while the Syrians nudged their 109 cruisers and destroyers around my boxed-in submarine - every turn for ten turns until I wriggled free) - and harder as I gravitated to Emperor difficulty and OCC games.

But always the sense of hating to hit the save button - just one more turn - oh, it's dawn again.

Never had that with smac or smax.

Rush to Ascent - heck, in MP if you can't do Voice and Ascent in two turns you've lost. Never a problem in hitting the savegame button. Great stretches of boredom at times, and never the satisfaction you get as in Civ if you save your starting map and then compare it to the finished one, to see what industrial development can do to scrubland and marshes.

Sure, the AI is better, the workshop is neat, as is the buiuldqueue feature (but forget the Base Governors and autoformers), and I am a science fiction fan, but I don't play much smac/x singleplay anymore. But I do crank up CivII about once every couple of weeks and have a marathon.

Here's waiting (and hoping0 for Civ III

Googlie

[DilithiumDad]

In an earlier post here I mentioned Deadlock (1996)and Deadlock II (1998). The original Deadlock had a more playable demo, which you can download from this link:
http://gamespot.com/gamespot/filters...197068,00.html

Do yourselves a favor. Download the free demo and play the game. Now tell me if you think SMAC would be improved if they grafted on the military model and resource management from this game series.

There are 7 species which correspond with eerie similarity to the original 7 SMAC factions. Here is a key for the SMAC player:

Green faction = Gaians = Uva Mosk
Insectoid faction = Hive = Ch'Chit
Research faction = University = Maug
Money and commerce faction = Morgan = Humans
Military faction = Spartans = Tarth
Mind control faction = Believers = Relu
High morale (easy drone control) faction easy for beginners = PK's = Cyth

There is an 8th faction (The Skirineen) that runs the Black Market, but you can't play as them.

[monolith94]

It would be great if Firaxis would offer up the original Civ 1 for free download, its a game that deserves to be played! And since I see no method for procuring it. . .

Damn, I wonder were I put those floppy disks it was on! I've got the urge to reinstall it!

[Alinestra Covelia]

I first played Civ in 1993, and it was to be the beginning of an obsession. I played and played until I could beat the game on Emperor without changing governments from Despotism.

Civ2 then arrived in 1996, and the game itself was everything that you'd need an update to be. However, the real killer that Civ2's makers put in was a scenario editor, so that you could alter the game in ways to recreate history... or rewrite one of your own. I'd say it's purely because of this little feature that Civ2 is still a worldwide hobby today.

SMAC takes Civ2 and makes it deeper and more complex in every single feature, with the exception of trade (which is heavily simplified). I would seriously recommend playing Civ2 and getting to know it before trying to play SMAC. The two games are a natural progression and starting on SMAC before Civ2 means that Civ2 will seem hopelessly simple when you finally get round to playing it - a real shame!

[Ned]

MarkG, Since Civ1 seems to be no longer available for purchase, could you inquire of Microprose or Firaxis whether they would allow a Civilization site such as this one to post the game for download? Ned

[Misotu]

Civ was a great game. Many, many happy days spent on that obsession. I agree with Allie though that CivII was everything you'd want an update to be, I was very satisfied with the improvements. They weren't dramatic, but they were very pleasing. I haven't played Civ at all since CivII came out.

Mind you, haven't played CivII since SMAC arrived ...