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My all-time favourite game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: February 01, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Back when I hadn't even heard of Windows, I visited a friend whose parents had just bought a stunning `new' computer (as a Pentium 233 was called then). I was introduced to one of their games: Civilization II. The game was (and still is!) about building up a great civilization out f a single settler you have in the beginning. You can build cities, roads, have diplomatic meetings with your AI neighbours, wage war and construct Wonders of the World. And this is just a selection of all possibilities! I still remember those great first moments with the game, when I was trying to defend the noble city of Canterbury from the evil Zulus who were doing a massive amphibious attempt to seize my continent! The game got me at my throat immediately and from then on I visited that place very frequently just to play Civ. II! No wonder that, when we finally got a new pc, the first game I obtained was this one. I have had many great hours since then with all aspects of the game. For it's not just some ordinary thing. No, this game really breathes atmosphere and fun!

However, I should say that you really need to get the add-on Scenarios disc to enjoy this game at its max. Take those terrific wonder movies for example! Believe me; it's so enormously enjoyable that, after you have taken much effort building a wonder of the world, these fantastic movies appear! I often built these wonders just so that I could see the cute movies afterwards. No need to say that I was really infuriated when I played this game's successor, Civilization 3, and saw the movies had been left out! Anyway, these things add greatly to the game's superb sphere. Next is the music. This game's soundtrack (again, you need the scenarios disc for this) is perhaps the best I have ever heard in a game, with the possible exception of World Cup 98 (with that terrific Chumbawumba music!). Civ II has some very funny songs, including a humorous take on the Civil War song `John Brown's body'. Furthermore, there is the atmospheric `Harvest of the Nile' and the creepy `Alien invasion'. And for your sheer glorious moments, there is of course... Beethoven's Ninth! I can't say how much fun I had every time when an enemy was destroyed. The game itself changes the music to Beethoven's funeral march from the Eroica symphony then, but I always raced to the music section to change this to the Ode to Joy! Not to mention the really funny unit sounds, the ambassador's animations, the quirky scenarios such as a battle between Zeus and Hades, the way the Napoleon unit speaks out the word `tirez' in his scenario... This game is really full of hilarious moments!

And so, so addictive... This game really belongs in the same category as games like Sim City and The Sims: you create things you don't want to leave behind anymore. It's ultimately challenging to try making your citizens even happier than they already are. And to expand your empire and sweep those nasty AI civs away. The ultimate experience of the game, however, is to complete a star ship to Alpha Centauri. Once your forces have reached the planet, you are congratulated with another stunning movie sequence; and again the programmers showed their great feel of humour by putting a certain very well known theme into this movie (yea, what?). The other way to finish the game is simply destroy all enemies, which may be even more satisfying for the player, especially at the hardest levels. Oh, and it's also such a pleasure to see your own name back in the Civ Hall of Fame, after you've completed the game! Your only competitor is yourself of course (unless there are more players in the house!) but that's something I just try to forget.

The game's graphics (the movie sequences not included!) are archaic, agreed. However, I don't care at all. Just think of what Sid Meier himself once said: "A game is played in the player's head, not at the screen". Actually, I even like the very simple visualisation of things. It gives much more space for your own imagination. And after all, the programmers created such a beautiful atmosphere throughout the game, that the looks of the world map don't really matter.

I could tell a terrible lot more about this game, but that would be of no use at all. This is simply the game of games, and even its fine successor Civ 3 isn't as good as this. If you like the kind of genre, this is a must buy. And if you got tired of it, get Alpha Centauri, the equally astounding successor of this game.

One of The Best Games Ever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: May 20, 2001
Author: Amazon User

If you don't know, Civilization 2 is one of the best, if not the best game ever. You Start A Civilization in about 4000bc, with just a simple settler unit. You build a city, than you explore, than after you make first contact with another civilization, you can either ally with them, conquer them, or leave them alone. If you start a war, and win, your civilization will be a lot more powerful. But alling has advantages, too. you can get units, money, and cities from your allies if your lucky. And, you can try to conquer them later, after you build up your forces. You research stuff from The Wheel to Neaclear Power. These advances let you build stuff, like buildings, which give the particular city thier in some advantages, military units, which defend your cities and conquer other Civ's cities. There are also wonders of the world, which give your entire Civilization advantages. The location of your city is the biggest factor in how fast you build these things, because different tiles have different values. forest tiles have more production than, say water tiles. there are also things like food and money you get from different tiles. There are also different types of units, like missile units that explode after attacking, air units that can't get attacked by ground units, water units that go on water, and settler units that terraform and build cities. There are also Caravan units, which make money for your civilization. Than you have to balance science, luxuries, and money. It may seem complicated, but it has a extremely simple interface. If you want to build something, just click on the city you want it to come from. The game takes all the elements listed above, and puts them into one simple platform. You barely need the tutorial. I'd recomend the Gold Edition, though; the 2 expansion packs and the huge manual really make a difference.

A Great and Addictive Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 15
Date: August 30, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Civ2 is one of the best stragety games that I've ever had the pleasure of playing. The controls are simple and easy to understand, but play is complex enough to keep me rapt for hours. Your objective is simple: conquer the world, or be the first civilization to put a colony on alpha centuri. There are minor problems, as with any game, such as balance skewing wonders (such as Leonardo's workshop(not as much a problem when you build it, though.)) but the worst of this game is better than some other's best.

Addicting

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: October 06, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Now that I'm away at school I've been deprived of my Civilization. However, during the summers, it is basically all I do. I know that I should be doing something active or even reading. But being that I'm a student, reading is something with which I am altogether unfamiliar so let's get real here. Civilization is addicting and it is an extraordinary waste of time. Again, being a college student, wasting time is a good thing. If you are trying to kill a couple days, or even weeks, I recommend this game. If you actually have a life and, say, enjoy contact with people, do not buy this game. I used to have friends, but then Sid Meier came into my life and it's been downhill since then.

An oldie better than a newbie

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: July 18, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Civ 2 is in most aspects better than Civ 3.

First of all it's faster, second it's easier to learn (thus you get fun faster) and third it's more similar to the original.
It lacks the culture aspect that Civ3 has, but you can still win by building temples, libraries and Wonders which will boost at max your citizens productivity and allow you to make diplomats who could subvert enemies cities without falling into Civil War.

True that graphics are not that awesome, but they do their function very well.

Plus it's really affordable for most pockets, especially if you haven't tried any strategy game before and are not sure about spending [money] in one.

If you haven't played either Civ2 nor 3 I'd rather recommend you start with Civ2 and afterwards move on to 3...

The Civs: the most addictive game series in history

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: February 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I got Civ 2 for Christmas '02. The beauty of these games is that if something goes wrong (for example, you lose a city to barbarians or an enemy civ), you can go back in time (by loading a game) & do things differently. Real life is not like that; you get only one shot. Another amazing thing is that in these games, you can learn astronomy & monotheism, or build King Richard's Crusade & Michelangelo's Chapel before it's even AD 1--advance a LOT faster than real-life civilization did. LOL, I was able to colonize outer space as early as 1918!

The downside is that governing worlds & rewriting history can drastically affect a person's real life. I've literally lost sleep playing this game--I'd stay up till 3 even on weeknights! Nothing else I have ever done in my whole life, on or off the computer, has proven so addictive.

Enjoy, but be careful!

A Classic

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: November 21, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I got Civilisation 2 for Xmas a few years back, and it provided me with entertainment for the entirety of my five week break. Whilst mine was the Civilisation 2: Gold edition, this release is very similar, so I have no qualms with rating it.
Civilisation was the grandpappy of strategy, and Civilisation 2 creates a game which is both enthralling and challenging. The prospect of building an empire from a lowly tribe of settlers may not appeal to everyone, but once you get into it, it's almost impossible to get out. You govern every facet of the empire. What each city constructs, what technology you employ and even what form of government you want to operate under. Conquer the world through destroying rival civilisations or by being the first off of Earth.
The game is not just limited to the real world, and the inclusion of the World of Midgard adds for a whole new gaming experience. It doesn't come much better than sending flights of Dragons to conquer Elven citadels or creating a rampaging horde of Goblins to swarm the coastal cities of the merfolk. OK, there's always the rush of launching a Nuke into enemy territory....
The multiplayer experience of Civilisation is great. Compete with up to eight friends over a LAN, or play a Hotseat game, as each of you vies for control of the world.
All in all, Civilisation 2 has everything a strategy fan loves. Combat, resource management, diplomacy and a basis in fact, which always makes things that much more interesting. Arguably the greatest strategy game out there, and definately one of the most challenging.

Worth the bucks.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: May 14, 2001
Author: Amazon User

When I played Civilization I, it started to wreck havok on my system stability, especially when running other programs -- even after a full reboot. I used this version of Civ II on my same computer, and I don't have any of those problems. If I play it straight for two or three hours, I have to do a reboot due to a need to refresh memory. In that sense, we need a revision on the programming level -- memory is not automatically refreshed.

As far as the game is concerned, it is worth the money. The computer proves to be a challenging opponent (to me anyway, which is all that counts since I am the paying customer).

The game gets 5 stars as far as playing the game goes, and it gets 4 stars in regards to the needs for programming streamlining. (Any company programmers reading this?)

One of the best simulations of all time

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: June 19, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Civilization II offers the ultimate simulation promise: you play god. It does a good job of living up to this promise: you control an entire civilization, able to adjust almost every aspect of everything. One suggestion though: get some friends, its much more fun to have a LAN party and play this than to always be opposing the computer players (although they are suprisingly good and hard to beat). Also, I wouldn't suggest buying simply this "jewel case" version of the game, because unless you are already familiar with the controls and units, the manuals and posters will prove to be extremely helpful. Definitely worth the price: if you like simulations, this is for you.

Still #1 on my list

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: February 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

After playing this game for (yikes!) 9 years, I can say without a doubt that this is still the best turned-based strategy/empire building game ever. How can I say that? Simple. First, this game is not real-time strategy (RTS) in nature, so I clearly distinguish it from RTS games like Age of Empires (and others). Secondly, it never relied on graphics to sell itself. Way too many games today eat up RAM and require expen$ive video cards to do far less than this game does.

I had played the original Civilization (and loved it), but Civ II was a gigantic leap forward in game concept and design. The graphics were an improvement, yes, but I'm a child of the 70's, raised on Atari games. So I know that great games can have meager graphics. I also have learned that lousy games can have awesome graphics. Graphics get me to look at the game, but the game's overall concept and implementation keep me going long after the graphics have worn themselves out. Civ II is a game that long outlasted its graphics. Here's why:

1) Replayability: No two games are ever the same. That's even true of the scenarios. The choices for startup (world settings, civilization choices, game options, etc.) alone give you a fantastic variety that will allow you to keep trying the game from entirely new starting conditions. Even choosing the same options every time still leads to wildly different games each time, simply because the game is quite adaptable.

2) Strategy: Play the WWII scenario from nearly any of the 3 major sides (Axis, Allies, Russians) and you will find yourself learning-often times the hard way-that the European theater was not a forgone conclusion. The normal game mode is no less exciting for those who love exploring, building, expanding, and (of course) conquering.

3) Two different approaches to victory: This game is very good about not punishing the player for seeking a non-combative victory. The space race, while competitive, does not require direct aggression against the other civs. This can be a refreshing change for those who prefer to let their infrastructures do their fighting for them. I have tried both paths multiple times, and I can testify that both are equally challenging. I can also tell you that you get more points for winning the space race than for conquering everyone.

4) Scenarios: Whether building them or playing them, this feature of Civ II, along with a map builder utility, has provided me with countless hours of entertainment and challenge. It only gets better if you get the expansion packs.

Really, I can go on...and on. But these are the main reasons I will always keep a copy of Civ II on my computer. Even Civ III has not replaced it.

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