
Civ II game a decade old - jchrisa
http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uxpil/ive_been_playing_the_same_game_of_civilization_ii/
======
CharlieA
The 3-way division of the world into "super-continents" and the constant war
keeping the populace in a perpetual state of starvation and poverty, with the
entire world in disrepair is so incredibly reminiscent of Orwell's 1984 it's
scary.

If you haven't read 1984, it's a startlingly bleak view of a potential future
(from a historical perspective, but still applicable today, I think)
particularly through technology and a loss of privacy. It's the origin of
terms like "big brother" and "doublethink" -- worth a read.

One of the most interesting excerpts from this piece IMO: "I wanted to stay a
democracy, but the Senate would always over-rule me when I wanted to declare
war... ...Anyway, I was forced to do away with democracy roughly a thousand
years ago because it was endangering my empire."

Although I don't necessarily think it will be because of war, I can see a
potential future where people/persons decide democracy is a less effective
system because it's holding back the decision making process -- democratic
process being (more or less) committee-based decision making, which proxies
votes through individuals based on what is essentially a popularity contest.
That's particularly true here in Australia at the moment (amidst a minority
government with a lot of political sniping on both sides and seemingly very
little real progress) despite the fact that we have a comparatively strong
economy, low inflation, low unemployment and generally nothing really
significant (again, comparatively) to complain about.

~~~
kristianc
"Although I don't necessarily think it will be because of war, I can see a
potential future where people/persons decide democracy is a less effective
system"

Its probably worth pointing out just how unlikely it is that it would be
because of war. The democratic peace is probably the closest thing to a
universal law of international relations that we have. So if democracy does
have drawbacks in terms of speed of decision making, it has more than its
share of upside too.

~~~
scarmig
Eh. The democratic peace theory really just relies on a perpetual no-true-
Scotsman approach. Either something's not really a democracy or not really a
war.

Native American tribes? Well, they had democratic societies, but they're very
different from the liberal state that has come to predominate in contemporary
times. Franco-Prussian conflict? Prussia's legislatures were dominated by a
rich hereditary landowning class. American Civil War? Well, civil wars don't
count, and the franchise wasn't universal. World War I? Well, Germany might
have had elections and might have had a wider effective franchise than many
parts of the USA, but it was a bad guy, so it doesn't count. Various conflicts
fostered by the Western liberal democracies (Iran, Chile, etc.)? Well, those
were coups and not really wars.

What "democratic peace" really seems to mean is "countries that are under the
umbrella of the United States and have highly developed economies don't go to
war against each other." Give it 20 years time, and when the newly elected
government of China gets into a shooting war with the government of the United
States over some stupid shit (poll driven aggression in the strait?) we'll go
back to arguing that China isn't a real democracy because it had only had one
or two national elections, or the United States isn't a real democracy because
all its state apparatus and elections are controlled by an unelected elite.

~~~
nl
_countries that are under the umbrella of the United States and have highly
developed economies don't go to war against each other_

Except in the case of the Falklands War. And the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi
nuclear reactor (Iraq was a US ally at the time). And the Turkish/Greek air
battles over the Aegean Sea (eg, Turkish & Greek F-16's dogfighting and
crashing into each other in 2006:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek%E2%80%93Turkish_relations...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek%E2%80%93Turkish_relations#Incidents)).

I agree with your general principle though.

------
jonnathanson
Fascinating, and wonderful to see others are out there who are weird like me,
and who will actually attempt to extend Civilization games over extremely long
periods. I have a Civ4 game that I've been playing for about 4 straight years
now, and admittedly the file has gotten so big that it periodically taxes my
system resources to their limits (Unfortunately, Civ4 suffers from poor memory
management and is fairly leaky. Especially w/ mods).

The problem with Civ4 is that the AI is so hyper-aggressive that long-term
stability is all but impossible, unless I become a dominant superpower and
take on the role of "world police," intervening in every war of aggression on
the side of the underdog. But after awhile, there's really no fun in that. So
I have tried to cultivate a game in which a few superpowers are at least my
equals, if not my superiors. Since I'm always going to war to defend whoever's
about to get wiped out, unfortunately, I'm switching sides constantly, and
diplomacy is basically out of the question. (None of the AI players will even
return my calls, so to speak. We've all nuked each other so many times over
that we won't even speak to each other now).

The other problem is that the AI fights total wars by default. It will never
engage in a limited conflict. No, when it declares war, it won't cease until
either it's beaten or it totally annihilates its enemy. It's like a
Terminator. It becomes quickly apparent that the Nash Equilibrium in a game of
Civ4 is one nation standing, while all others have ceased to exist. The game
drives ineluctably toward this conclusion, unless the human player puts aside
his own nation's interests in pursuit of global stability and game longevity.
(And, ironically, being the sole force for stability renders him a political
pariah among all the other nations). It's sort of like trying to play one
sport, when all the other players in the game have been programmed to play
another.

Sometimes I wish the AI were more sophisticated, and/or that it could be
incentivized to prefer economic growth and interests over nonstop warmaking.
Or that one possible victory condition in a game of Civilization would be to
maximize a global human development index of some kind (i.e., "Global
Victory," instead of just one nation's domination of all others by X or Y
measure, or else its complete extirpation of all other peoples on the planet).
I realize that's not the game that 99.99% of Civ players want to play, but
it's refreshing to hear that I'm not the only one.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
>The other problem is that the AI fights total wars by default. It will never
engage in a limited conflict.

This is why I don't play civ. Total war AIs are a bizarre choice in a strategy
game. I dislike it when games are setup in a way where I'm the only one
thinking strategy and the AI opponents are there to give me a sense of action.
Total war in the real world is rare.

>Or that one possibly victory condition in a game of Civilization would be to
maximize a global human development index of some kind

When I was a kid I played a strategy game on the original Mac. I think it was
called Balance of Power. The game punished you when war broke out. It didn't
encourage it. The game ended if you and the Soviets got into a nuclear
conflict. Why can't more games have rational goals instead of just being a
more advanced form of Pacman?

~~~
throw_away
In the board game Twilight Struggle, a game about the Cold War (& #1 on
boardgamegeek.com), you lose if you escalate matters to defcon 1 and cause a
nuclear war. A big part of the strategy, though, is knowing how to cause your
opponent to inadvertently trigger defcon 1
([http://twilightstrategy.com/2011/12/12/general-strategy-
defc...](http://twilightstrategy.com/2011/12/12/general-strategy-defcon/)).

~~~
uhhyeahdude
That game looks awesome. I'm going to play it with a certain relative who is a
cold war geek. Thanks for informing me of its existence.

------
jcurbo
To be clear, this is a guy that has been playing a single game of Civ II for
10 years. When I first saw this I thought, isn't Civ II older than 10 years?
(came out in 1996)

I love Civ and still go back and play Civ II at times. I spent a lot of time
with Civ III and IV as well (and a little with V), but it's nice to go back to
my first experience with the genre (Civ 1 was before my time, sadly).

~~~
sageikosa
Thanks, I sometimes only read the comments on HN. My first thought was: Civ
III is over 10 years old.

------
Andytizer
For those who are revisiting Civilization II after so many years (or playing
it for the very first time), remember to visit this page of bugs, fixes and
workarounds for getting it working on modern operating systems:
<http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Civilization_II> \- if you discover a new fix,
please add it in (no account required).

------
doktrin
This was interesting as a simulation cum case study, but rather miserable as
far as gaming goes.

There is no way a game of Civ II isn't eminently beatable - militarily or
otherwise.

For one thing, there's no excuse to not operate as a Fundamentalism (0
population unrest) late game. Virtually all other forms of government,
particularly Democracy, are an annoying cavalcade of civil unrest late game.

I enjoyed the read. It really brought me back in time to playing this game
with fervent addiction in middle school.

~~~
creamyhorror
>>> "There is technically no way to tell. The game officially ended years ago
and I've had to transfer the save file from computer to computer over the
years. Computers that don't have the original hall of fame to reference. That
said, I usually played on Prince or King. As I recall, anything beyond that
was virtually unplayable in Civ II."

I think he probably kept it going even after achieving victory, as a sort of
weird experiment that got weirder the longer he went on with it. I can't
really imagine being that singleminded/obsessive with respect to a single
savegame, but I applaud him for it.

\-- edit: confirmation

>>> What happened to the space race? Did you ever get that far?

>>> "Yes. But I didn't participate. When I play civ I usually go for the
Diplomatic victory. I did complete it at some point. Probably before the war.
But the game was already officially won."

------
Paul_S
If you disable the space race as a winning condition the chance of a nuclear
holocaust over time approaches 1.

I'm not saying there are any lessons to be had from it. It's only a game.

~~~
mertd
After completing "Future Technology #532", spamming nukes is the only
interesting thing left to do in the game.

------
radical_cut
Well that gave me goosebumps. Bleak future indeed, I immediately thought of
the Doomsday Clock.

I like the idea of a new subreddit spawned by this:
<http://www.reddit.com/r/theeternalwar>. It could be interresting to see if
anybody finds a way to save the world from hell.

Maybe it's time to relive good old memories of times spend with old Civ games.
:)

~~~
pavel_lishin
It would be interesting if he exported the game state, so other people could
try resolving the conflict.

~~~
mynameishere
The game is easy and boring in the end. He's purposely letting it go on and
on.

~~~
zem
read through the thread; it's anything but easy. he's hit the point where the
ai civs have decided nuclear war is the way to go, and he's reaping the global
penalties for it (radioactive wastelands, global warming) while simultaneously
having to divert all his resources to maintaining the red queen race of
building tanks and having them destroyed rather than cleaning up his farmlands
to grow food.

~~~
mynameishere
I blew away an unfortunately portion of my youth playing this game. When
everyone has all the techs, the human wins, very easily.

~~~
zem
so did i, but i pretty much always eliminated everyone else early on, or went
for the alpha centauri victory. never tried playing out the total war scenario
with balanced empires and nuclear weapons. but from the op, the problem is not
winning from a clean state, it's that he's gotten himself into a bad situation
and needs to get out.

------
Tycho
I can remember my Civ II campaigns in more detail than I can recall about
actual historic events.

------
Tichy
Is it possible to run a completely automated Civ game (all players computer
players)? Should be a quicker way to simulate the future. Perhaps the AI could
learn "War Games" style that nuclear war is not the way to go...

Or maybe it would be a depressing result if the AIs would not nuke around
without a human in the mix?

~~~
martey
I remember trying this when I was younger (with the Cheat menu). The primary
issue is that while it is quicker, it is difficult to figure out the details
of what is happening in the game when there is no pause at the beginning of
your turn. Since the AI "personalities" of the different computer players
cause some of them to be more aggressive than others, all of the games I tried
to simulate in this way ended up with one military aggressive AI player
dominating enough of the world that they did not need nuclear weapons.

There was a significant amount of variance among AI personalities and winning
strategies in the various versions of Civilization I played, so I suspect that
your success would vary depending on which version you were using. For
example, if you were using CivNet, the multiplayer version of the original
game, the anemic AI in that game might very well lock into some sort of
peaceful stalemate, but the contentious resource model in Civilization III
would probably produce different results.

------
Toenex
I'm not suggesting that civ is anyway up to the task but in all seriousness
does any government systematically simulate policy decisions? I can't even
remember a UK policy decision that even acknowledge the possibility it might
not be a complete success let alone suggested criteria by which it should be
ultimately evaluated.

~~~
kijin
I like the idea that a piece of legislation should come with concrete criteria
for its own evaluation. That would be like falsifying scientific theories:
"This theory will be falsified if such-and-such a phenomenon is observed."
"This law will be repealed in X years if it turns out to have such-and-such an
effect on the economy."

Unfortunately, laws can rarely be evaluated in isolation, but only against a
wide range of other laws and actual circumstances that constantly shift. It's
hard enough to come up with definite criteria for falsifying an advanced
scientific theory. It will be nearly impossible to do that with laws, not to
mention it's too easy to dispute whether the criteria have been met.

------
danso
I love Civ 2, but how is it that the OP can't win against two AIs? They
weren't geniuses, AFAIK. And though the AI was vicious early on, it never
seemed competent at the end. And even if it were, it's hard to imagine that
the AI could adapt to a focused, determined attack by a human player (taking
one city at a time).

~~~
damon_c
On the higher levels, specifically Deity, it seems that there are some
variables set in the AI's favor that go beyond normal game play
manipulations... Or maybe I am just misdiagnosing my own failures :(

~~~
Quarrelsome
Yes.

Civ games have never been known for their stellar AI. The way they keep the AI
competitive at higher levels is to brutally cheat by getting free techs and
units at the start and a beneficial modifier to their production and research.

Considering how quick the AI needs to run (you don't want "end turn" taking
forever) and how complex the game is I can appreciate its simplicity, it is
disappointing though.

I have examined the sources for the Civ IV AI and must say that it isn't very
pretty (hardly any comments too!). One thing it doesn't seem to do that often
though is cheat by examining what other players are doing (such as not
building wonders it wont get) which is something at least.

But still.... can anyone point me towards a game where the devs actually spent
a significant amount of time (relatively speaking) on the AI? It always seems
like such an afterthought. Mods seem to always be a better bet. Although
perhaps that's because the most efficient ways to play a game are always
developed long after the game is actually released.

~~~
honestcoyote
GalCiv2, with the expansions, has a very good AI and one which isn't entirely
focused on total war. There are options to dedicate more CPU time to the AI to
increase the difficulty. It's possibly the best AI I've seen for 4x games.

~~~
maayank
Was about to mention GalCiv2 as well. Stellar AI. I once read a blog post by
Brad Wardell (of Stardock) where he mentioned he only added gameplay features
once he thought through how the AI can use them properly.

Also, if you're tired of the more mainstream turn based strategy games, I'd
recommend something like Hearts of Iron 3 or Europa Universalis 3.

------
orbitingpluto
This post illustrates why turn based games rule for richness and complexity.
There is nothing so satisfying as finding stable points in gameplay.

This one Reddit post will probably waste thousands of what could be productive
hours... I am sorely tempted to play Civ3 or GalCivII:TotA today.

~~~
shriphani
I have sunk several hours of my life into Civ5 (and played very few
multiplayer games).

The thing about the series is that I can sit, build a large empire and take my
time. In every non-turn based game (AOE) etc, everyone rushkills and shoots
for metrics like FC (fastest castle) etc. without building a lasting empire.
The civ series allows me to truly enjoy this aspect of the game.

OTOH, in Civ5 I have found the battles sorely lacking (the AI is not clever
and artillery can do some very solid damage) so I feel cheated a bit. I still
haven't found a game that combines the elements of Civ5 I like and also
demands a good battle strategy.

------
renegadedev
We look ahead at 3991 AD and find it to be depressing. I've always wondered
how past civilizations (Greeks, Egyptians, etc) would find our modern day
civilization.

~~~
cpeterso
And looking forward, I wonder what future civilizations think about _their_
future. What kind of science fiction do people on Star Trek read? It's a
convenient cop-out that everyone on the Enterprise is a fan of mid-20th
century pop culture or Shakespeare.

------
radical_cut
In case anybody else is interested, here's a post with link to the save file:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/theeternalwar/comments/uyswv/here_it...](http://www.reddit.com/r/theeternalwar/comments/uyswv/here_it_is/)

Time to fire up Civ II and try to save the world!

------
rangibaby
I really enjoyed Civ2; even once you've figured out how to game the AI (it's
_predictable_ hostility and cheating are actually it's biggest weaknesses),
there are still challenges, such as limiting yourself to one city (!) or
finishing before a certain year.

Just one thing set off my pedant alarm: Civ2 didn't come out until 1996. I
still remember getting the collector's box with the huge strategy guide ;-)

------
sid05
I'm not familiar with Civilization resources so how would it be possible to
perpetually build Nukes ? Wouldn't there be an energy cap or is there some
sort of tech to cotinually generate the needed resources.

~~~
stusmall
In the game each tile gives some type of resource. If I remember right, you
had food, shields (productivity) and trade (money). A farm land would produce
a lot of food but little trade but a mine would produce lots of gold but no
food. You gather this amount of resource each turn but it doesn't tax the land
at all. Nukes just cost a certain amount of productivity so as long as you
hold land you can keep building them. The game isn't really meant to last much
past modern times so the model kind of breaks down in a game like OPs. Its
worth noting that in later games special resources were added to help make it
a little more realistic. Like you had to have a uranium mind somewhere to
produce nukes. It lead to really cool strategies, like wars for oil or iron.

The reason why he had world resources dwindling at all is because its possible
for global warming to cause sea levels to rise and take away bits of land and
in the parts of land that don't sink their type can change (plains can become
deserts, jungles to forests).

------
vog
I'd love to see a similar report about a long-played FreeCiv game.
(<http://freeciv.org>)

------
fts89
My plan to defeat the other armies is: 1\. Get the game:
[http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-II-
Pc/dp/B0000...](http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-II-
Pc/dp/B00002S8AV/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339556977&sr=8-1) 2\. Defeat the
other armies

