Nostalgia
Michael Emrys
EU2. It's entertaining and almost amazing to read how much excitement
and interest that game aroused. There was a great deal of fun in
sharing the discoveries we all were making in it.
Good times...
Michael
Jamie Kahn Genet
You should try re-reading the posts on Unreal Tournament or Civ II when
they first came out for the Mac :-) Wow - there were some really
entertaining posts about the games people played!
--
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Joseph Nebus
>Michael Emrys <em...@olypen.com> wrote:
>> I've been going back and re-reading the posts from five years ago about
>> EU2. It's entertaining and almost amazing to read how much excitement
>> and interest that game aroused. There was a great deal of fun in
>> sharing the discoveries we all were making in it.
>>
>> Good times...
>You should try re-reading the posts on Unreal Tournament or Civ II when
>they first came out for the Mac :-) Wow - there were some really
>entertaining posts about the games people played!
I'm embarrassed to look. Every now and then I come to a little
paradigm shift about how to play these games, and it's so natural in the
new way and so needlessly difficult in the old that it's awkward to see
what kind of advice I'd toss out in the unenlightened times.
That's not to say I'll stop giving advice, just that I'll stop
reading what it used to be.
Did I ever talk about the Civ game (either I or II) where I
conquered the world without ever building a ship?
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jamie Kahn Genet
I don't recall, but I've read some tales of epic games :-) Reading these
tales is almost more fun that the games themselves! Heh.
BTW - due to the Civ series being neglected on the Mac platform (come on
Aspyr! Update Civ4 and release the second expansion!) and it being a lot
easier to run DOS and Windows software instead of Mac 68k and PPC
software on a new Intel Mac, I just bought the Civilization Chronicles -
Civ I, II MGE, II ToT, III Complete, and IV, as well as the two Civ IV
expansions, and am running them all under VMWARE Fusion.
I tell ya - I'm having the time of my life playing Civ I and II again!
However I'm having to play on easy levels due to being quite some time -
but hopefully I'll recall all the tricks soon enough.
Tell ya one thing though - the classic Mac version of Civ II was more
polished than the Windows version. Remember when you could expect that
an extra effort would be taken with Mac games by the Mac publisher?
Regards,
Jamie Kahn Genet
Michael Emrys
Genet) said:
> Tell ya one thing though - the classic Mac version of Civ II was more
> polished than the Windows version. Remember when you could expect that
> an extra effort would be taken with Mac games by the Mac publisher?
I could almost kick myself for not buying Civ II back when I was in the
mood for it. I was phoning around (or e-mailing, I forget which) and
this one woman I was talking to said that they were out of stock at the
moment and suggested that I wait a little longer and get Civ II Gold
instead when it came out.
As it happened, I got distracted by some other game at the time (it
might have been some incarnation of CM) and never went back to Civ.
BTW, I am having trouble tracking down a copy from an online source for
HoI II for Mac. There seem to be plenty copies of HoI I, which is
puzzling. Anybody want to make a suggestion?
Michael
Joseph Nebus
>BTW, I am having trouble tracking down a copy from an online source for
>HoI II for Mac. There seem to be plenty copies of HoI I, which is
>puzzling. Anybody want to make a suggestion?
Hm. I think the best suggestion is that Amazon.com needs a
good swift kick to the database. But after some fiddling about I was
able to get to where *I* got the game, as part of the Strategy Pack
Six:
This does come in at a relatively prices US$40, but it comes
with Hearts Of Iron II, Hearts Of Iron II: Doomsday (which adds the
Espionage page and extends the closing-date to 1954, so it's very much
worth it), as well as Europa Universalis II, Crusader Kings, Victoria,
and Victoria: Revolutions (which extends Victoria to be a lot more
playable and interesting).
So if you like those and wants the DVD, that's one way to go.
Happily for some people --- I'm not among them --- Virtual
Programming, the Mac porters, have Hearts Of Iron II available as a
digital download, directly from their servers, for US$20:
http://www.vpltd.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=202
and Doomsday available for US$25:
http://www.vpltd.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_66&products_id=204
Meanwhile, I see that Europa Universalis III, EU3: In Nomine,
EU3: Napoleon's Ambition, and EU3: Rome are all out. I mean, *wow*.
(Europa Universalis III: Rome sems to cover just the time of the
classic Roman Republic, and doesn't get close to the Europa Universalis
III main settings of 1399 through 1815-ish.)
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph Nebus
>Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>> Did I ever talk about the Civ game (either I or II) where I
>> conquered the world without ever building a ship?
>I don't recall, but I've read some tales of epic games :-) Reading these
>tales is almost more fun that the games themselves! Heh.
They can be, can't they? I just worry about writing long ones
for fear of boring people and also because I don't seem to take the
right sorts of notes for a decent after-action report. You can read
those 48,000-word essays on how someone saved Europe as Czechoslovakia
in Hearts Of Iron II and wonder how they *remembered* all this stuff,
much less kept it straight.
(That'll be the next killer feature on a strategy game
application: the automated yet readable History Of The Yugoslav-
Canadian War. You'd think already they could provide numbers for
stuff like manpower levels, total number of casualties, displaced
persons, weapons deployed, and so on from the already existing
simulated data.)
Anyway, the gimick with my shipless Civilization game is that
I started out playing on Real Earth, which I liked because it had the
good continents. I started out in North America, and there were
either no rivals on the American continents or my normal approach of
extremely-rapid-economic-growth (remember the one-turn trick for
*every* development? Hoo boy did I do that) meant I overran them.
But the effect was that I had the continents to myself, plenty
of room for the time being even for my expansionistic tendencies and I
got to figuring why bother building a navy until I need the space? (I
believe the rankings chart showed I was well ahead in industrial might
and population too, making it easier not to worry about it.)
So I kept at it with my high-research, high-industrialization
routine (remember devoting 80 percent of the economy to the technology
tree?), and raced into the industrial era and turned the hemisphere
into a railroad line. I started to think it might be time for the
first ships to go over to Africa or Europe and start taking over the
world.
Only, then, I get the most wonderful news these games ever
offer: one of the Zulu cities had overthrown the local governor and
decided to join my empire!
I assumed I couldn't possibly get away with having this one
rebellious city, in the middle of Africa, surrounded by the Zulu,
lacking its own garrison, with obviously no way for me to get anyone
there in less than several turns (and they'd have to fight their way
in, possibly setting off a war with the Zulu). But, hey, I'm rich
and bored: let me buy up a couple Armor and see if I can delay the
inevitable.
I *can*.
It's a bit shaky for a few turns, but I can buy-produce
several Armor units, allowing me to keep control over the city, and
switch half the city over to being Elvii so people are happy enough.
Add to that the buy-production of a temple, cathedral, and colosseum,
and before long the city is as healthy as could be expected. Soon
it's even got enough industrialization and surrounding farmland and
railroads to be productive.
So, when the Zulu do decide to take back their lost city,
I set off with diplomats well-stocked with cash and buy up most of
the empire. That was always my favorite method of conquest anyway.
I think there were a couple rounds of war and peace, but the first
war gutted the Zulu empire and what was left was a test of how much
I wanted to buy at once, apart from finally sending the Armor in to
the capital.
After that, with sub-Saharan Africa rapidly industrialized
and spitting out money, diplomats, and a few Armor to back it up, I
had a comfortable base to go up through the Arabian peninsula and
to Asia and Europe. Fortunately, there wasn't anything in Australia
or Britain so I was able to finally conquer the world without ever
getting that notice of Congratulations that I had Built My Empire's
First Naval Unit (although I picked up some from conquest).
It's amazingly implausible, even more so than this bizarre
naval battle in my current Hearts Of Iron II game, but *what* a
thrill it was to live out.
>Tell ya one thing though - the classic Mac version of Civ II was more
>polished than the Windows version. Remember when you could expect that
>an extra effort would be taken with Mac games by the Mac publisher?
Oh, well, yes. The Mac versions were just ... well, they
looked *good* to the eye, while the IBM versions were ugly. Maybe
that just reflects how the Mac early on adopted this idea that
typefaces should not be eye-gougingly ugly except for Athens.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Emrys
> ...it comes with Hearts Of Iron II, Hearts Of Iron II: Doomsday (which adds the
> Espionage page and extends the closing-date to 1954, so it's very much
> worth it), as well as Europa Universalis II, Crusader Kings, Victoria,
> and Victoria: Revolutions (which extends Victoria to be a lot more
> playable and interesting).
Wow! I am going to take a look at that. Sounds like a bargain as long
as it doesn't require an Intel machine.
Michael
Jamie Kahn Genet
> jam...@wizardling.geek.nz (Jamie Kahn Genet) writes:
>
> >Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>
> >> Did I ever talk about the Civ game (either I or II) where I
> >> conquered the world without ever building a ship?
>
> >I don't recall, but I've read some tales of epic games :-) Reading these
> >tales is almost more fun that the games themselves! Heh.
>
> They can be, can't they? I just worry about writing long ones
> for fear of boring people and also because I don't seem to take the
> right sorts of notes for a decent after-action report. You can read
> those 48,000-word essays on how someone saved Europe as Czechoslovakia
> in Hearts Of Iron II and wonder how they *remembered* all this stuff,
> much less kept it straight.
>
> (That'll be the next killer feature on a strategy game
> application: the automated yet readable History Of The Yugoslav-
> Canadian War. You'd think already they could provide numbers for
> stuff like manpower levels, total number of casualties, displaced
> persons, weapons deployed, and so on from the already existing
> simulated data.)
Some sort of readable log would be VERY cool, though I suppose only of
interest to TBS nuts like us :-)
> Anyway, the gimick with my shipless Civilization game is that
> I started out playing on Real Earth, which I liked because it had the
> good continents. I started out in North America, and there were
> either no rivals on the American continents or my normal approach of
> extremely-rapid-economic-growth (remember the one-turn trick for
> *every* development? Hoo boy did I do that) meant I overran them.
[snip]
> It's amazingly implausible, even more so than this bizarre
> naval battle in my current Hearts Of Iron II game, but *what* a
> thrill it was to live out.
I've had a similar thing occur in SMACX, but of course it's easier there
when you can raise terrain. I recall a game with essentially three main
landmasses and getting to one the way you did in Civ, but having to use
formers to create a land bridge to the second. Navies constantly
harassed my shoreline cities, but airpower took care of them.
> >Tell ya one thing though - the classic Mac version of Civ II was more
> >polished than the Windows version. Remember when you could expect that
> >an extra effort would be taken with Mac games by the Mac publisher?
>
> Oh, well, yes. The Mac versions were just ... well, they
> looked *good* to the eye, while the IBM versions were ugly. Maybe
> that just reflects how the Mac early on adopted this idea that
> typefaces should not be eye-gougingly ugly except for Athens.
Heh. I loaded up the DOS version of Civ I the other day - WOW! Talk
about ugly type!!! I mean plenty other DOS games have reasonably
readable, if not actually attractive type. What was Sid thinking in Civ
I?
Joseph Nebus
No Intel required, which is good as I (rather deliberately)
got the last model G4 PowerBook when it came out.
Really, the Europa Universalis line of games has to be commended
for amazingly low system requirements given the enormous number of
opposing powers one faces and the depth of the details the games offer.
That's probably the upside of its not particularly fancy graphics.
(On the other hand, how much would the game be improved past
a little grin if we had visible waves washing ashore from the oceans
or other frills like that?)
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Emrys
> (On the other hand, how much would the game be improved past
> a little grin if we had visible waves washing ashore from the oceans
> or other frills like that?)
If you want my opinion, in this kind of game not at all. If this were
some kind of medieval tactical game where we see the sailors & soldiers
actually rowing onto the beach, then yes. Not only as eye candy but
showing various surf conditions and challenging the player to contend
with them.
:-)
Michael
Joseph Nebus
>Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>> (That'll be the next killer feature on a strategy game
>> application: the automated yet readable History Of The Yugoslav-
>> Canadian War. You'd think already they could provide numbers for
>> stuff like manpower levels, total number of casualties, displaced
>> persons, weapons deployed, and so on from the already existing
>> simulated data.)
>Some sort of readable log would be VERY cool, though I suppose only of
>interest to TBS nuts like us :-)
It would be. The game log in Europa Universalis-class games is
a fine start at least, although for now it's not easily exportable (or
searchable) and there's obviously no threading of the various Events in
the game. Worse, the game doesn't provide context for events. I think
my favorite game-log event was from a Victoria: Revolutions game. In
the midst of February 1856, it reported that Hawaii had declined the
diplomatic deal proposed by Montenegro.
What on earth could Hawaii and Montenegro have to talk about in
1856? And I'll never know what that was all about.
It would take some real genius programming to be able to pin
together threads what what are the campaign drives in a particular
war, much less to pin down what the developments were which lead up
to the Sino-Brazilian War. I suppose --- particularly for Victoria
where there's these fine demographic and industrialization data which
are so essential to the game --- they could pick out things like the
changes in class structure or major periods of industrial growth or
so, but ...
Well, it'd be awfully hard and might be satisfying only to
people who want to lovingly blather on about their completed games.
But how wonderful that would be anyway.
>[snip]
>> It's amazingly implausible, even more so than this bizarre
>> naval battle in my current Hearts Of Iron II game, but *what* a
>> thrill it was to live out.
>I've had a similar thing occur in SMACX, but of course it's easier there
>when you can raise terrain.
Oh, yes, when you can build your continents to order it's a
lot easier to make do without a navy. Although --- maybe this shows
more of how I play --- I really liked building the oceanic cities for
that game. (Does Alpha Centauri/X still work on 10.5?)
> I recall a game with essentially three main
>landmasses and getting to one the way you did in Civ, but having to use
>formers to create a land bridge to the second. Navies constantly
>harassed my shoreline cities, but airpower took care of them.
Now, airpower was a lot of fun in the original Civ. Later
games kept you from being able to quite finish off the opponents, and
in Hearts Of Iron it's sometims not clear that it's doing what you
want it to do, but the original Civ, just wonderful: bomb them, and
keep it up until the city is empty and you can just slide in your
Armor. So very satisfying watching the colors change.
>Heh. I loaded up the DOS version of Civ I the other day - WOW! Talk
>about ugly type!!! I mean plenty other DOS games have reasonably
>readable, if not actually attractive type. What was Sid thinking in Civ
>I?
I'm amused to see that the Wikipedia page about Civ I gives as
examples for the game two from the Mac version:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Civ01.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Civ02.png
... which even with the System 7 title bars are still readable, while
they have one from the Amiga
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CivilizationAmigaAGA.png
about which the most charitable thing we can say is maybe the screen
capture gets the picture at an awkward resolution.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jamie Kahn Genet
It's always a source of joy when I discover an obviously geeky labour of
love feature by a programmer. So maybe we'll be lucky and the right
person will work on our next favourite TBS, heh. One can hope...
> >[snip]
> >> It's amazingly implausible, even more so than this bizarre
> >> naval battle in my current Hearts Of Iron II game, but *what* a
> >> thrill it was to live out.
>
> >I've had a similar thing occur in SMACX, but of course it's easier there
> >when you can raise terrain.
>
> Oh, yes, when you can build your continents to order it's a
> lot easier to make do without a navy. Although --- maybe this shows
> more of how I play --- I really liked building the oceanic cities for
> that game. (Does Alpha Centauri/X still work on 10.5?)
It does using the beta carbon patch (feel free to email me if you need a
copy), however manual saving causes the game to crash for me (so if I
want to keep a game for later I just copy the last auto-save after
quitting SMAC/X). I also find it more stable if I disable resolution
switching when videos play (hold option when launching the game to
access hidden options).
Amazing it's still highly playable after all these years, and even on my
Intel Mac with 10.5.5.
As for oceanic cities - you ever play a SMACX game going ocean only?
It's my favourite non-standard way to play SMACX.
> > I recall a game with essentially three main
> >landmasses and getting to one the way you did in Civ, but having to use
> >formers to create a land bridge to the second. Navies constantly
> >harassed my shoreline cities, but airpower took care of them.
>
> Now, airpower was a lot of fun in the original Civ. Later
> games kept you from being able to quite finish off the opponents, and
> in Hearts Of Iron it's sometims not clear that it's doing what you
> want it to do, but the original Civ, just wonderful: bomb them, and
> keep it up until the city is empty and you can just slide in your
> Armor. So very satisfying watching the colors change.
>
>
> >Heh. I loaded up the DOS version of Civ I the other day - WOW! Talk
> >about ugly type!!! I mean plenty other DOS games have reasonably
> >readable, if not actually attractive type. What was Sid thinking in Civ
> >I?
>
> I'm amused to see that the Wikipedia page about Civ I gives as
> examples for the game two from the Mac version:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Civ01.png
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Civ02.png
> ... which even with the System 7 title bars are still readable, while
> they have one from the Amiga
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CivilizationAmigaAGA.png
> about which the most charitable thing we can say is maybe the screen
> capture gets the picture at an awkward resolution.
I wish I could get Civ I for Mac to run ok on my G3 running 8.6. I have
font issues when interacting with certain civs which ruins diplomacy -
their conversations are a bunch of garbled nonsense characters. But only
in that situation :-( Any thoughts? In the meantime I've still got Civ I
for DOS under DOSBox and better yet Windows under Fusion (more of a pain
to run, but the UI and type is SO much nicer) :-)
Joseph Nebus
>Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>> Oh, yes, when you can build your continents to order it's a
>> lot easier to make do without a navy. Although --- maybe this shows
>> more of how I play --- I really liked building the oceanic cities for
>> that game. (Does Alpha Centauri/X still work on 10.5?)
>It does using the beta carbon patch (feel free to email me if you need a
>copy), however manual saving causes the game to crash for me (so if I
>want to keep a game for later I just copy the last auto-save after
>quitting SMAC/X). I also find it more stable if I disable resolution
>switching when videos play (hold option when launching the game to
>access hidden options).
You know, I think I remember the manual saving crash from back
when I did play it under X, although at this remove I'm not sure. I do
remember the auto-save trick on something. Maybe it was for Master Of
Orion II when played under X's simulation of Classic?
>Amazing it's still highly playable after all these years, and even on my
>Intel Mac with 10.5.5.
>As for oceanic cities - you ever play a SMACX game going ocean only?
>It's my favourite non-standard way to play SMACX.
I don't remember playing Alpha Centauri in an ocean-only world,
but I can't rule it out. It does seem like something that'd appeal to
my sensibilities.
>I wish I could get Civ I for Mac to run ok on my G3 running 8.6. I have
>font issues when interacting with certain civs which ruins diplomacy -
>their conversations are a bunch of garbled nonsense characters. But only
>in that situation :-( Any thoughts? In the meantime I've still got Civ I
>for DOS under DOSBox and better yet Windows under Fusion (more of a pain
>to run, but the UI and type is SO much nicer) :-)
I don't remember whether Civ I installed any new fonts, which
would be the obvious fix. I wonder if it's possible to remember the
diplomacy option that's least threatening (or most threatening, if you
prefer that sort of play) ... which is a silly way to play, but better
than we poor Imperialism II folks can do in a single turn.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jamie Kahn Genet
> jam...@wizardling.geek.nz (Jamie Kahn Genet) writes:
>
> >Joseph Nebus <nebusj-@-rpi-.edu> wrote:
>
> >> Oh, yes, when you can build your continents to order it's a
> >> lot easier to make do without a navy. Although --- maybe this shows
> >> more of how I play --- I really liked building the oceanic cities for
> >> that game. (Does Alpha Centauri/X still work on 10.5?)
>
> >It does using the beta carbon patch (feel free to email me if you need a
> >copy), however manual saving causes the game to crash for me (so if I
> >want to keep a game for later I just copy the last auto-save after
> >quitting SMAC/X). I also find it more stable if I disable resolution
> >switching when videos play (hold option when launching the game to
> >access hidden options).
>
> You know, I think I remember the manual saving crash from back
> when I did play it under X, although at this remove I'm not sure. I do
> remember the auto-save trick on something. Maybe it was for Master Of
> Orion II when played under X's simulation of Classic?
Never tried it after a couple nasty crashes trying to just get the app
running. I stuck to playing on my old G3 iMac under 8.6.
> >Amazing it's still highly playable after all these years, and even on my
> >Intel Mac with 10.5.5.
>
> >As for oceanic cities - you ever play a SMACX game going ocean only?
> >It's my favourite non-standard way to play SMACX.
>
> I don't remember playing Alpha Centauri in an ocean-only world,
> but I can't rule it out. It does seem like something that'd appeal to
> my sensibilities.
You should give it a go - SMACX is great fun on a new Mac cause it plays
so fast. I remember waiting several minutes between late game turns on
old G3. Likewise MOO2 under DOSBox on my Intel iMac - BLAZING fast
turns. Almost TOO fast - like instant (which was initially amazing to me
given MOO2's extreme slowness on my G3, let alone 68K Macs!)! I like
having SOME downtime to plot future moves and strategy.
> >I wish I could get Civ I for Mac to run ok on my G3 running 8.6. I have
> >font issues when interacting with certain civs which ruins diplomacy -
> >their conversations are a bunch of garbled nonsense characters. But only
> >in that situation :-( Any thoughts? In the meantime I've still got Civ I
> >for DOS under DOSBox and better yet Windows under Fusion (more of a pain
> >to run, but the UI and type is SO much nicer) :-)
>
> I don't remember whether Civ I installed any new fonts, which
> would be the obvious fix. I wonder if it's possible to remember the
> diplomacy option that's least threatening (or most threatening, if you
> prefer that sort of play) ... which is a silly way to play, but better
> than we poor Imperialism II folks can do in a single turn.
What's the story (morning glory) with Imperialism II? I own it, but
haven't touched it in AGES :-(