3 ms·

If gog ever manages to get the rights to rerelease civ II, I'd gladly pay $80 for a copy I could just click and run on windows and linux. Yes, there are copies

If gog ever manages to get the rights to rerelease civ II, I'd gladly pay $80 for a copy I could just click and run on windows and linux. Yes, there are copies on abandonware sites, but the sound is almost always jank, the soundtrack is gone and the advisors don't work (they really added a lot of character to the game!). The nostalgia of childhood is broken. I've tried everything, up to and including running win 3.1 with sound blaster drivers on dosbox to no avail. This is my white whale

glimshe 1y ago
Is this an emulation problem or are the online copies corrupted? You can buy an original copy of the game on eBay and run it in Dosbox-X or Dosbox-staging, both well ahead vanilla Dosbox in features. Also, I bet the Internet archive or exoDOS will have a perfect copy. The latter is a one click experience. Check the laws in your country for whether these are legal.
mirashii 1y ago
There's a number of active communities about still playing the game, including /r/alphacentauri on reddit, a discord server at https://discord.gg/7BkcvXUX https://discord.gg/7BkcvXUX , and https://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=community https://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=community I know the last time I picked it up, there were a well respected set of patches from scient (a quick google pointed me to https://github.com/DrazharLn/scient-unofficial-smacx-patch https://github.com/DrazharLn/scient-unofficial-smacx-patch ). Somewhere in here is a pre-done distribution you can just click and run with for modern windows.
piltdownman 1y ago
Run The Macintosh edition CivII Gold using PPC Mac Emulation on Windows (Basilisk or whatever you find easiest) or run it on x64 Windows using the civ2xp64patcher that you can find online. You can get a full image including soundtrack/advisors on a variety of abandonware sites.
toast0 1y ago
I'm sure it's not worth the effort, but I would love to see remakes of these games. The simplicity of early Civs with a modern, fully baked interface. Maybe with hexes instead of squares if that doesn't break the game. FreeCiv exists, but it doesn't feel modern either.
- NooneAtAll3 1y ago
  I honestly don't get the love for hexes
  - RedNifre 1y ago
    It removes the difference between edge neighbors and corner neighbors?
    - NooneAtAll3 1y ago
      yep, it removes another tactical modifier from already simple positioning and you no longer can do nice square grid for your buildings or 90 degree positioning
      - toast0 1y ago
        Civ V and earlier have all the buildings in the city square, so I don't see how that applies? With hexes, I like how you can move in any direction and see the same number of new tiles; with squares, you're compelled to walk in diagonals to see more stuff and it feels icky.

glimshe 1y ago

Is this an emulation problem or are the online copies corrupted? You can buy an original copy of the game on eBay and run it in Dosbox-X or Dosbox-staging, both well ahead vanilla Dosbox in features. Also, I bet the Internet archive or exoDOS will have a perfect copy. The latter is a one click experience. Check the laws in your country for whether these are legal.

mirashii 1y ago

There's a number of active communities about still playing the game, including /r/alphacentauri on reddit, a discord server at https://discord.gg/7BkcvXUX https://discord.gg/7BkcvXUX , and https://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=community https://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?action=community I know the last time I picked it up, there were a well respected set of patches from scient (a quick google pointed me to https://github.com/DrazharLn/scient-unofficial-smacx-patch https://github.com/DrazharLn/scient-unofficial-smacx-patch ). Somewhere in here is a pre-done distribution you can just click and run with for modern windows.

piltdownman 1y ago

Run The Macintosh edition CivII Gold using PPC Mac Emulation on Windows (Basilisk or whatever you find easiest) or run it on x64 Windows using the civ2xp64patcher that you can find online. You can get a full image including soundtrack/advisors on a variety of abandonware sites.

toast0 1y ago

I'm sure it's not worth the effort, but I would love to see remakes of these games. The simplicity of early Civs with a modern, fully baked interface. Maybe with hexes instead of squares if that doesn't break the game. FreeCiv exists, but it doesn't feel modern either.

NooneAtAll3 1y ago
I honestly don't get the love for hexes
- RedNifre 1y ago
  It removes the difference between edge neighbors and corner neighbors?
  - NooneAtAll3 1y ago
    yep, it removes another tactical modifier from already simple positioning and you no longer can do nice square grid for your buildings or 90 degree positioning
    - toast0 1y ago
      Civ V and earlier have all the buildings in the city square, so I don't see how that applies? With hexes, I like how you can move in any direction and see the same number of new tiles; with squares, you're compelled to walk in diagonals to see more stuff and it feels icky.