If you are too young to have seen Civ 2 or Alpha Centauri, resist your revulsion with their obsolete graphics and get some patience to dig thru the rules which sadly aren't well explained by today's standards. After Alpha Centauri polished the model to almost complete perfection, the later sequels were just money grabs done by random people trying to squeeze yet even more from the fans and adding questionable changes for changes' sake.
I've played all the games in Civ series and must say that apart from Alpha Centauri, Civ 2 still remains the best in the series. Or you can edit the rules of the game by opening the txt file in the game's installation folder - it's that easy. Or play with 1 city only (the OCC challenge which was later added as game feature in Civ 4 or 5). Or restart the game until you get a map where you appear on the North or South pole. If you find Diety too easy (which it is), try playing it extra-hard by making your starting settlers sleep for 100 turns. Democracy is also a seriously overpowered government due to huge population boosts while you have >50% happy citizens (and all others content) in cities, making it best even for war-time. Compared to later sequels Civ 2 feels a pretty hard game on Deity level, mostly due to very powerful barbarians appearing in the beginning of the game, and a somewhat too random outcomes of battles. I've played hundreds of campaigns in it for maybe 10 years. Civ 2 system was then even further improved by the same development team in Alpha Centauri, yet even Civ 2 by itself offers great experience and huge replay value. Compared to later sequels Civ 2 feels a pretty hard game on Deity level, mostly due to very An excellent 4x strategy game which improved everything Civilization 1 had. … ExpandĪn excellent 4x strategy game which improved everything Civilization 1 had. For example when you are in the city mode, you cannot see amount of maintenance cost. City management interface could be better.
And unhappy people in the cities at the endgame are too annoying and again not so logical too. Also when your civilization is big enough there are too many unnecessary clicks at the endgame dealing with cities micromanagement. Despite so addictive gameplay, graphics could be better (at least more user friendly, more readable). I am fan of Civilization series, played a lot even Civilization I (which, in my opinion is slightly better than this). Also when your civilization is big enough there are too many unnecessary clicks at the This is definitely good game. Note: There are several versions available, such as "Civ II Gold edition" with multiplayer abilities and two official add-on packs or "Civ II - Test of Time" with improved graphics and gameplay, also multiplayer, but no editor and a lack of compatibility to original Civ II scenarios. There are countless user maps/mods available, and there are still coming new ones - often with a historically educational or compelling fantasy plots. "Civ II" will bring hours, days, weeks, months and - believe me - years of fine entertainment to you. Even today this game is addictive! If you don't have it and don't have the money for its successor "Civ III" buy it.