http://www.epinions.com/pr-Sid_Meier_S_Civilization_II


Sid Meier's Civilization II may, perhaps, go down in history as the late and much lamented MicroProse's most popular and best computer game. (MicroProse, which also produced the F-15 Strike Eagle series of flight sims and the World War II submarine simulation, Silent Service II, changed hands several times, having been bought out by Activision, then Hasbro, then Atari before disappearing altogether.)

Sid Meier himself went on to design other, equally admirable games such as "Sid Meier's Gettysburg," but Civilization (and its sequels) will be remembered by gamers for decades. The first version of Civ (in 3.5 in. diskettes) was released over 12 years ago; this was the first version I ever played and drew me into its addictive web of military strategy, cultural development and technological advances.

Civilization II, released on the more versatile and multi-faceted CD-ROM format in 1996, is a vast improvement over the original Sid Meier-Bruce Shelley Civilization 1.0. The concept for this turn-based game is the same: you are the long-lived leader of a major civilization (Rome, Greece, Egypt, just to name a few), equipped with one, sometimes two settler units, a few civilization advances (usually Irrigation, Road Building, and a randomly chosen one such as Alphabet or Bronze Working). Using terrain and resources on the mapboard (and usually the map is a sea of black except for the spaces your units are on), you find a suitable place to found your first city, then you start a 6,000 year process to create an empire that will either attempt to conquer the world or, for more points and a tougher challenge, win the game by gaining technological advances through research, building up a huge treasury via trade and taxation, and racing the other civilizations to be the first to reach Alpha Centauri before the scoring period ends in 2010 AD.

The 1996 version (since supplanted by Civilization II: The Test of Time and Civilization III) is a single-player edition, but even without multiplayer options it is still quite a challenge even in the basic Chieftain level. It still has those pesky barbarian tribes that old hands at Civ grew to hate in the first edition, but the graphics are way better -- even 8 years later they still hold up. New (at least in '96) features include one additional civilization per color group (Spanish, Sioux, Celts, Cartaginian, etc.), your choice of gender during leader selection (women like to play sims, too, and Civ 1 only had male leaders and titles), 3-D heralds to announce communications from the AI civilizations, multimedia presentations of Wonders of the World (with new Wonders added and new or revised Wonder-benefits), and new military units (Helicopter, Paratrooper).

MicroProse games were always designed to be intuitive, so commanding your civilization is relatively easy. Want a Settler or Engineer to Build a city? Easy peasy...just hit the "b" key or use the Orders pull-down menu and select "Build City." Hit "i", and the Settler/Engineer will start creating irrigation to help improve your cities' food production. Moving units around is equally simple; use your cursor keys or trusty mouse to move your army, navy, and air force units to attack or defend.

Improving cities is also a snap. Simply place your cursor on a city (Madrid, say) and hit ENTER: you'll see a new window showing you Madrid's layout and existing City Improvements (Barracks, Granaries, Temples, and so on) and a menu of available unbuilt Improvements. Click on one and within a variable number of turns, you will get an Improvement Built message from the program.

To get the most out of Civilization II's features, particularly a stunning title sequence (by '96 standards) and multimedia presentations, it's best to play the game with the CD-ROM in the appropriate drive. You don't need to play the basic game with the disc, but you'll miss listening to music cues or seeing and hearing the film clips that pop up when you build a Wonder or, if you are lucky, reach Alpha Centauri before the AI civilizations.

This is a quick and dirty entry for sleeper54's Lean-n-Mean III

Recommended: Yes