Download Civilization II: Test of Time (Windows)

History 101

One of the inevitable facts of today's computer gaming industry is that success breeds clones...lots of them! It's also true that most of these efforts result in poor knock-offs of the original, rarely risking making attempts at offering anything that resembles originality or inventiveness. Fortunately these rip-offs are usually easily identifiable as they rarely carry the name of the original success but often go through great pains to tout just how much they are like the game they are attempting to clone.

It's also fairly common knowledge that Civilization and Civilization 2 have managed to break most of the conventional rules that the industry held so dear when those games were released. Anxious to ride on the coattails of success, other companies launched their own adaptations, which ranged from the majestic to the disastrous. Most though, fell somewhere in-between. By most people, the Civilization name was highly revered and some even thought it held some magical properties with the fans. This could explain the epic conflicts that broke out about the ownership of the name. Companies like Activision, Microprose, and even Avalon Hill fell into ugly legal battles that risked ruin for the combatants, all in an effort to lay claim to the name and the rights of future Civilization titles. Strangely, the ultimate victor to this heated license war was the massive financial power of the toy giant, Hasbro, who in the end purchased both the Avalon Hill and Microprose companies.

For the fans though, the fallout of this conflict would continue to be a muddled affair where finding the true offspring of the Civilization name was at best, hit or miss. Microprose did release several expansion type titles to Civilization 2, of varying quality. These releases offered a range of enhancements which included (some very well designed) custom scenarios, an editor, and even multiplayer capability. Activision even nudged its way into the fray with a release that had authorized use of the name. Activision's Civilization Call to Power valiantly attempted its own unique spin on the popular series, which ended with a somewhat muddled mess of highs and lows. Even the original Civilization creators themselves came out with their own spiritual successor, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Oddly, up to this point, this game came closest to being the heir, with a design that captured the spiritual feel of the original, while embracing a creative evolution to the series vision. Sadly though, even this tile was hampered by its own best intentions and abstract interpretation.

The Test of your time...

So this brings us to the present and the release of Civilization 2 Test of Time, a title which intends to update the original Civilization 2 with updated graphics, interface tweaks and the best of the best Civilization 2 variations, including multiplayer capability. The result, while largely on target, somehow still manages to flounder for a number of reasons. Still, there is a lot to commend in this newest Civilization namesake title.

Test of Time actually offers many interesting refinements over Civilization 2. The most blatantly obvious of the enhancements is the update to the graphics. The graphics are now improved and more animated. Units now each have their own movement and attack animations (for instance, ship sails ruffle in the wind as they travel) and the even the map characteristics themselves come alive. Deer prance back and forth and rivers flow. Players also have great latitude in zooming in or out on the primary map screens, to fit their personal tastes and viewing preferences. Of course, this type of change is purely cosmetic but it does tend to add a fresh feel to an old favorite.

The more meaningful additions are the updates to the interface that make the micro-management aspect of Civilization more manageable. The interface as a whole has been updated to a much stronger game ambiance feel versus the dated Window 3.1 application design that Civilization 2 had. For the most part, this is a positive change, though sometimes navigation or action options can now require a little hunting to find. In particular, updates include the ability to scroll through your cities in the city view screen and a new mini-map that can be changed from flat to a more practical 3-D rotating globe. These updates only nominally improve play control, but are still a welcome addition.

The AI in some cases seems to have been improved. In several games, allies have been more vehement about protecting alliances. In several instances, this included substantial allied troop movement through my empire to reach hostile civilizations on the far side, this new level of protectiveness from allied AI players was pretty impressive. The odd downside to this is that too often an allied army would finish capturing a hostile city right after my forces had softened it up! Not really a flaw, but something players will likely have to adjust their strategies for.

The game also sports some of the better offerings of the post Civilization 2 releases. It includes multiplayer capabilities (hotseat, network, Internet, and dial up; note, no play-by-email though), allows*** Civilization 2*** editor created maps to be used, and offers 5 unique game environments. Another distinctive feature of Test of Time is the ability to play games where Civilization is played across four separate maps. This unique feature is handled somewhat like play in Masters of Magic where traveling from map to map is usually restricted by some sort of in game particularity. The concepts are certainly compelling, and depending on the game chosen, adds a lot to the feel of play.

Worlds, and worlds within worlds...

Test of Time actually includes five distinct campaigns to choose from. Like the recently released Civ 2 Fantastic Worlds, each campaign has it own unique range of units, technologies, wonders, and map terrain schemes. While Test of Time clearly uses just the core Civilization ruleset, each of the campaigns does a good job of offering its own individual ambiance. The addition of multi-map features allows players to explore a range of locales in a single game, from underground caverns, deep sea floor beds, worlds of magic to even the distant binary system, Alpha Centauri. Admittedly, the quality of each campaign varies slightly but the overall value is definitely enhanced by the range of playable experiences.

Original game- This campaign offers players the chance to enjoy a traditional Civilization game with the enhanced graphic animations and interface tweaks. Several units in this game have been modified for better play balance. For instance, the attack strength of the cruise missile has been reduced to 18 while the strength of most aircraft has been increased slightly.

Science Fiction game- This game is actually the weakest offering of the bunch. To its credit, the scenario is well balanced and enjoyable, and offers a completely redefined environment to explore. The multi-map aspect is represented by three planets and an orbital environment.

Sadly, the sci-fi theme has some holes in its theme presentation if you examine the campaign too closely. For a futuristic setting, units oddly start out armed with only swords, and require further research just to acquire even the basest of technologies like Woodworking. As the game progresses, civilization advances quickly rocket ahead into speculative theoretical knowledge. Occasionally, the scenario wanders into some disturbing 'Barney the dinosaur ' romper room motifs that really make immersive play a challenge. Terminology phrases like 'Blue Willie', 'Feephi', and 'Collapsatron Q' and a few others definitely seem out of place in a self proclaimed sci-fi world. Still, this campaign can be an enjoyable romp, if not scrutinized too closely.

Midgard game- This game is a lot like the fantasy game but includes a lot more subtleties. Midgard is actually a carry-over of a scenario on the*** Civ 2 Fantastic Worlds*** title. However, the design has been enhanced and includes some very interesting events, quests, and plot devices. There's no question that this is hands-down, the best variation of the Civilization design to surface. Clearly, the best offering Test of Time provides..

Extended original game- In theory, this is a merging of the classic Civilization design with a pseudo*** Sid Meier Alpha Centauri*** variation. The game follows the original game's path until the players ship reaches the new Alpha Centauri system. Here the game breaks as the player explores the New World (all the while managing his cities back on earth simultaneously). Interestingly enough, many of the technology types are quite similar to Sid Meier's offering, including the ability to discover Transcendence, which ends the game when the player evolves to the higher evolution form.

While the idea is compelling, the result is sometimes less than stellar. The game has an alien race that will be encountered once your colonies have reached the new world. Oddly enough, when you finally engage the aliens in diplomacy, their ambassador looks strikingly like an American Indian ambassador you may have encountered back on earth. Another lackluster aspect is that it's all too easy to bypass nearly any direct interaction with the new planet once you've reached it. Certainly an interesting theme to explore the first time through, but it also lacks the staying power for repeated visits.

Fantasy game- This game offers the closest approximation to a Master of Magic theme, without having to resorting to fiddling with old DOS configurations. The world is spread across four maps with magical and fantasy elements. The entire campaign is steeped very heavily in a fantasy feel, where each of the races that can be played has a very unique and diverse feel (the Merfolk Civ was a personal favorite for me).

A wrong turn on the mega-hit express

This brings us head on to the hiccups of this title. Hiccups that come perilously close to making the Exxon Valdez accident look like a half empty glass of spilt milk! The deadly iceberg of disaster first comes into view when you start up the game for the first time. The system requirements state that a minimum of Pentium 166 is required, and recommends a P200 for optimum performance. On the three test systems we ran it on, only one ran it with acceptable performance. Our P166 with 32 Meg of RAM wouldn't even run the game...period! The P233 with 64 megs of Ram did run it but the delays were pronounced and the starting "loading game" warning would often take five minutes or more processing before beginning the actual game. Even our P300 with 128 Megs of RAM sometimes took almost a minute to load before beginning. On all of the systems the movie animations (what few of them there were) either didn't run or were very choppy (in case you're thinking the video card was to blame, one was a 16 Meg Banshee and the other a 32 Meg Riva TNT). For a game whose predecessor used to run on a 486 machine, the performance drop is catastrophic, especially considering the improved graphics, while good, are not as dramatic as the resource drain.

A festering complication of ***Test of Time ***being such as a system hog is the problem of the late game pauses, as the computer processes the opponent's turn. This is exacerbated sometimes to a level where you could take naps or go for a dine-out meal while waiting for turns to process (particularly on slower systems, the P300 handled them in a semi-reasonably 6 minute time frame, even under the worst intentionally induced conditions). So while the concept of exploring up to four maps is compelling, memories of late game turn processing in Civilization 2 should remind you what a headache this added feature could become.

Test of Time also disappointingly chops out some of the enhanced immersion elements. Gone are the movie styled advisors that were a kick in the original Civilization 2. Gone are the Wonder mini-movies, eyecandy city view screens and the animated ambassadors. Sure, these were only frills that added to the feel, and which over time more often than not got ignored, but they also represented an integral part of the immersive feel of the original title. Enhancing animation graphics while ripping frills that helped to make Civilization 2 popular was not the kind of trade up I imagine many gamers had in mind.

Another disappointment was that other than hotseat play we were unable to get any multiplayer games going reliably. More snafus occurred when we tried to move a premade earth world map from the Test of Time original scenario to the extended game (the extended game doesn't have a world map available). The game not only crashed but also managed to corrupt files so that Test of Time actually had to be removed and then reinstalled from scratch!

The game also still suffers from a lot of the problems that plagued the original (to Microprose's credit though, these have been greatly reduced). For instance, automated Settlers still wander back and forth with no rhyme or reason. 'Go to' commands still result in erratic path choices that can result in a unit looping back and forth in some bizarre continent dance.

Despite the foibles, new and old, Test of Time is largely an enjoyable product, though its worth will be largely determined by your fanaticism for the series. After all, Test of Time combines the best of the scenario add-ons with multiplayer and tops it with a new multi-map feature and a facelift that includes improved game graphics and interface tweaks. Sadly the stripping of so many frills like the wonder mini-movies makes improvements descend into a trade off instead of a grand show piece, as it should have been. Test of Time feels like it should be the culmination of what made Civilization a mega-hit stuffed to the gills with all the frills and goodies that could be packed into a single CD. Instead the whole package feels a little like a fancy Gold edition of Civ 2: Fantastic Worlds without the editor.

Review By GamesDomain