Civilisation II

Reviewed by Colin Edmondson

Name:         Civilization II
By:           Microprose
Format:       CD/Rom
Available:    Now


Requires:

O/S:          Win 3.1/Win95
Processor:    486/DX-50+
RAM:          8Mb+
Graphics:     SVGA (256 Colour @640x480)
CD-Rom:       X2
Soundcard:    All major cards supported


Tested on:

Processor:    Pentium 166MHz
O/S:          Windows 95
RAM:          32Mb
Graphics:     Stealth 64 4Mb Vram (PCI)
CD-ROM:       Panasonic quad speed
Soundcard:    Soundblaster AWE32
Controls:     Microsoft Mouse

Civilization II

Introduction

Sid Meier's Civilization apparently sold some 850,000 copies - and as is the way of Hollywood movies & computer games alike, most bestsellers these days are followed up with a sequel.

I have to admit here that I wasn't one of those 850,000 - I have absolutely no knowledge or experience of the original game, so if you're looking for a comparison between the original and this version, you won't find it here - sorry!

I had already bought Civilization II when I was asked to write this review but I had only really dabbled with it until about 10 days ago. It all appeared so complex and daunting that I kept putting off the moment when I would really get stuck in. Having the review to write forced me to make the effort so I set a couple of hours aside. A couple of hours? Well actually I've spent something like 50 hours over these past 10 days and not out of any sense of duty but because once you've got into it this is a horribly addictive game!

First Impressions

Strategy games like this really merit a good comprehensive manual. On this score Civilization II doesn't disappoint. Nearly 200 pages provide a good introduction to the game and a useful source of reference.

Civilization II runs under Windows. This is a big plus in my view. To be honest I never really understand why strategy games which demand a point & click GUI ever use DOS. I resent paying the developers to produce a windows look-a-like which still doesn't allow multitasking. My impression so far is that Civilization II is a solid reliable program - I leave my PC running 24 hours a day - and Civilization II has been open for almost 2 weeks with all kinds of other programs running at the same time. Absolutely no crashes. This isn't just a worthless party trick when you're playing a game which typically takes tens of hours of play to complete.

The software itself occupies about 350Mb of CDROM. A lot of this is taken up with video clips which play whenever you complete a Wonder Of The World (more on this later). A nice touch is an on-line reference source (the 'Civlopedia') which provides a very accessible means of weighing up the relative merits of different units & developments.

Also included is a wallchart which supplements the on-line reference material and the manual. Once again it is well designed and genuinely useful rather than just a decorative 'extra'.

The Game

The objective of Civilization II is to develop a sophisticated empire, ahead of the competition. You 'win' the game either by eliminating the rest of the competitors or by being the first to colonize Alpha Centauri by achieving a technological lead over the other competitors.

You start with a small area of map divided into squares and a single unit of Settlers. Pick a good site to build a city and then decide what to use your city resources to develop. More settlers - who can develop & cultivate surrounding land (to increase it's productive capacity) or move on to develop more cities, or soldiers to defend the city & fight off possible invaders or attack a neighbouring community, or city resources such as markets or aqueducts (and eventually recycling centres & nuclear power stations) to enhance the city capabilities. Some city developments - aka Wonders of the World have beneficial effects for your entire civilization - each can only occur once during the game so there's often a race to get there first. Wonders of the World tend to require far more 'turns' to develop (see more on turns later) than other city developments so it's worth assigning your biggest & most efficient cities to building these. On completion, you're 'rewarded' with a video clip of the wonder that's just been built - eye candy for sure, but it's been done quite well.

Every square or combination of neighbouring squares has its own geographical qualities and produces different resources at differing rates. This determines how many turns it takes for your city to produce its chosen resource. City resources or cultivation by settlers can improve or change these capabilities.

You must keep your cities in balance with enough food to feed your citizens, enough resources to fund developments, enough channelled into R&D to keep your civilization advancing and a happy (or at least contented) population to maximize their potential.

There are perhaps 2 things which combine to set this game apart from the competition - the sheer variety of land types, military units (each with its own different attack, defence & movement characteristics), city developments and Wonders of the World, and the extensive range of options in advancing & expanding your Civilization.

This really is a game which you can play in an infinite number of ways;

Take an aggressive military line, and attack neighbouring civilizations to expand your empire. Choose a totalitarian government style and use cities to develop more militia.

Go for science; pump as much into R&D as possible and develop cities to produce Wonders. Avoid conflict wherever possible and concentrate on keeping ahead of the technology race.

Use diplomacy & intrigue; develop a network of diplomats and spies to undermine other civilizations, strike deals (and break them) with your neighbours and steal their inventions.

Money makes the world go round; produce your own economic miracle. A financial advantage provides the option of buying your developments to accelerate your Civilization's advances.

In practice most games demand an element of all of these styles - and the willingness to switch between them as circumstances dictate.

Perhaps unusually for a computer game, Civilization II revolves around 'turns'. Every unit you have developed can be moved each turn - provided it isn't busy developing land or new cities - this gets to be a bit of a pain when you have hundreds of units, so it becomes important to decide which ones aren't going to be doing much for the next turn so that you can disable them or put them in a 'sleep until attacked' mode. One advantage of 'Turns' however is that you can leave Civilization II and nothing will happen whilst your attention is diverted elsewhere.

Once you've mastered all of this at a basic level, there's still plenty of scope to increase and vary the challenge!

Normal games - played from scratch - can be configured in a number of ways; difficulty levels (6), levels of barbarian activity, number of competing civilizations and size of map/play area are all configurable.

Alternatively customize your own World down to the very last detail -including landmass, land form, climate, temperature & geological age.

Finally you have the option of playing a number of preset scenarios; World War II & Rome are included on the disk - and there is a new one each month which can be downloaded from the Civilization II homepage.

This can be found at: http://trek.microprose.com/civ2/

This is a useful site, well worth visiting for more information on the game, patch files & program updates as well as the scenarios mentioned above. Patch files, incidentally, seem to be mostly about tuning the AI of the game rather than overcoming any instability problems. At last count, version 11 (1.11) was available - but I've had no problems without applying any of them yet. It's also worth noting that they appear to be getting released a bit too hastily - I've heard that some of them have been a bit hit and miss - fixing some problems but undoing previous fixes at the same time. Nevertheless it`s good to see so much effort continuing to be applied to the game.

There are other aspects & features I haven't covered here - the extensive cheat mode facilities, for instance - because I haven't had an opportunity to try them. There is a *lot* to this game - many of the facilities, features and extras were apparently added in response to wishlists compiled by devotees of the original game.

My view is that the game itself is superb - although it does demand some time and effort to get into it. How much it adds to the original, I can`t say - but to those who don`t have that game, and have even the faintest interest in strategy simulations, I`d recommend Civilization II wholeheartedly. It has both depth and breadth and perhaps most importantly, that elusive just one more go/game quality. Some of the bells & whistles appear superfluous, but there is plenty to sustain your interest for a long time whether you use all the features or not.

Undoubtedly one of the top releases of 96.

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Rating: 9/10 (Classic - Must Buy!)
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