3850 B.C.

One of the aspects of Civ2 that have made it so enduring is the insanely addictive “one more turn” effect it seems to have on people. Once you get into a good game or scenario it can easily eat up days or weeks of your spare time. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing, but if your happy then what the hell!

Another reason for the game’s popularity is that it is accessible for new players but has hidden depths for experienced ones to explore. Getting started is easy, even my seven year old daughter has had a go. I encouraged her to have a go as it is a good way to learn how mankind developed some of the base technologies like the Alphabet and Pottery and how this allowed them to develop up to the modern age. I have been playing for over a decade and I am still finding out new things about how the game works and coming up with new techniques.  There are players who’s goal is to ‘ace’ the game by squeezing as much out of it as they can to build space ships by the middle ages. Others prefer to play historical scenarios with set victory objectives.

My favourite mode of play is multiplayer. I love to pit my wits against human opponents, forge alliances and hatch plans. The most intense form of multiplayer game is the two player head-to-head game which really gets the brain working. I liken it to a colourful game of chess. I play my multiplayer games at the German website Civilization Forum or Civ Webring as I know it. These games are played in turn with each player save being posted in the scenario’s thread in the forum for the next player to download and play and so on… It is also possible to play simultaneously via a network, though I have not had very much experience of this yet.

3900 B.C.

Looking back at it now my first scenario, WWII Europa, had a lot of flaws. But the feedback I started receiving when I posted the files at the Civilization Fanatics Centre (CivFanatics or CFC) was really exciting. I thought the Civ2 scene had died out way before, but I found there was still some activity on the forums there and the feedback I got made me think about fixing some of the bugs in the game and also encouraged me to start work on a new project.

Around this time I was directed to a site called Apolyton Civilization Site and more specifically one of its forums called the Scenario League. Here I found a small but very experienced and dedicated group of Civ2 scenario designers and enthusiasts. Over the past few years they have become like my online family and I check in on a daily basis to see what developments there are. The community is relatively small but there seems to be a steady trickle of new members which balances out the numbers when older members are forced to move on due to work or ‘real life’ (what’s that?)

I have become very passionate about trying to keep the community strong by attracting new members. This is one of the reasons for this blog, to spread the message as widely as possible that Civ2 lives on. This may seem like sending out analogue TV signals into space and hoping that passing Alien spaceships pick it up and come to visit, but the number of people I hope to reach are in the double figure range. I’m not deluded enough to expect a major revival in a fourteen year old 2-D game from the last century.

3950 B.C.

If you don’t know about Civilization 2 but are interested in finding out a little more I would recommend this Wikipedia article.

I first played Civ2 around about 1997. My friend had a copy and I used to love to go round and play two player games long into the night on his PC. It was just so insanely addictive. You could always find a reason for one more turn! At one point I had a copy for the Playstation 1 and I developed a seriously unhealthy addiction to the game when I probably should have been studying for collage. Over the years life moved on and I forgot about Civ2. Then about 5 or 6 years ago I got a new PC (my first one) and soon found a copy of Civ2. The wife and child probably didn’t see me of several weeks as I gazed at the monitor, totally absorbed in my little Civ2 worlds.

Then I got an internet connection and whilst browsing I stumbled across a website called Civilization Fanatics Center and its huge database of Civ2 scenarios created by fans. These covered everything from Ancient Egypt to the Cold War and even Science Fiction. I had months of fun trawling through hundreds of scenarios, uncovering some real gems in the process. This led me to create my own scenario about World War 2 in Europe. I had mostly created it for my own enjoyment as I thought, erroneously, that the Civ2 scene was dead and there would be nobody out there still playing to try my work. How wrong I was!

4000 B.C.

Hello and welcome to the Civilization 2 web log.

I plan to use this space to share one of my passions, the computer game Civilization 2. If this blog has caught your eye there is a good chance you are familiar with the  game. Here is a quick description for those of you who have not heard of it:

Civilization 2 was originally released in 1996 and was the sequel to Sid Meier’s Civilization. It is a turn based strategy game which begins in the year 4000 B.C. You start out with a single Settler unit and must create a civilization that will develop through the different stages of mankind’s history. It is an insanely addictive game and has endured for well over a decade. This is due in no small part to the hordes of fans who have used the games very flexible game mechanics to customize their own scenarios.

In this blog I will be detailing many of the online communities and describing many of the games features and possibilities. My aim it to generate interest in my hobby and hopefully attract new members to the fan sites. I make no financial gain from my hobby, its just for fun