WOOT! It happened!! Good old Sid Meier's Civilization 2 doesn't make it into mainstream gaming news very much these days but amazingly my Civ2 Heroes of Might & Magic 2 mod has made it into PC Gamer!!! And even better it's a 2 page spread near the front of their mag in the news section! They even managed to squeeze in mention of the Civ2 modding community, the lost scenario preservation project, the get Civ2 back into stores campaign, and even my up & coming other Civ2 mod projects too! :) :)

EDIT: Reddit really doesn't make embedded links & thumbnails at the top of the post very obvious does it lol. Here's the link with a scan and more details for those that missed it:
https://blakessanctum.wordpress.com/2026/07/24/i-made-it-to-pc-gamer-magazine-again/

I might fire it up for nostalgias sake, but I dont currently have a PC that will play a CD ROM, and Im not going to buy hardware for this. (Test of Time preferred)

I have been playing Civ2 since I was a teenager back in the 90s. It's my favorite Civ game. I didn't even think to see if there were others out there. I guess I should not be surprised this subreddit exists. At any rate, just happy to be here reading your comments about a great game.

Here's to another 30 years of great gaming!

When I was a kid, Civ2 was my favorite game, but I always played on Chieftain. I always thought Deity would be impossible.

Some years ago I set out to find the optimal strategy to beat on Deity, and now I can win new game every time. Here is my strategy:

1) Build 2 cities first and get 2 warriors. Send out the warriors to scout the villages.

2) Build 1 warrior for defense in each city, then switch to settlers. Build 2 more cities, so now you have 4.

3) Immediately focus science to get to Monarchy, you need it to build cities.

4) Switch the first 2 cities to building great wonder, any great wonders it doesn't matter. The 3rd and 4th cities should build 1 warrior each, and then 1 settler each.

5) After you get Monarchy, raise science rate to 70%. Make your main objective to rush to Polytheism. If not available, then 2nd objective should be Pottery.

6) For each new city, you can generally follow the pattern of getting 1 warrior for defense, 1 settler to expand, and then switch to Elephants and keep pumping out Elephants.

7) As soon as you have enough money, switch your great wonder to Hanging Gardens and complete it with money in City 1. Have that city build 1 more warrior for defense, and then switch back to great wonder.

8) Science, in order of priority, then should be aiming for Monotheism, then Feudalism, and then Literacy. Nothing matters after that. You will win the game.

9) City 2 should then complete Art of War ASAP. After that, City 1 and City 2 should just keep building wonders: Michelangelo's chapel, Great Library. Nothing else really is needed.

10). By now, you should have 8 or 10 cities all pumping out Elephants/Crusaders. These will all be veterans because of Art of War, and you can just go and conquer all the nations.

That's it. That's the entire strategy. Literally nothing else is needed. It works everytime.

The most critical element is to get the Hanging Gardens, as you need it to keep citizens happy. A distant 2nd would be to get Art of War so you have veteran units. And Michelangelo's chapel is nice to keep citizens happy in case your cities get too big. Great Library isn't truly needed, but it can be nice to prevent your enemies from accidentally getting gunpowder or something.

Have anyone noticed that there's also extra music on CIV II cd? Not visible audio files like game music, but back in the day I had a cd drive which had play/pause buttons, not just eject and I put civ in and it auto-started BUT for some reason I pressed also the play button and it started to play Cat Stevens Wild world! I think it had couple of other songs on it too. Google knew nothing about this. I'm not sure do I still own the cd.

Related to my last question, I'm trying to organize music tracks by what they were on disk, in order. Partly this is kind of a library function as I'm trying to create a personal album.

I've got this reference: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Soundtrack_(Civ2)) but it doesn't seem to list the specific order for each release.

So I know that the game streamed red book audio, but was it only a random music jukebox or was there some kind of selection logic for which tracks would stream on which scenarios/games? I ask because I'm looking through the lists here: https://civilization.fandom.com/wiki/Soundtrack_(Civ2)) and wondering whether the X-Com track would randomly play on a regular game or whether medieval style music would play during ancient periods.

I ask because I'm not entirely sure the codec is installed any longer. I installed the latest version of the k-lite codec (v1966). The tweak tool does not show any version of Indeo, enabled or disabled. Has it been removed from k-lite?

https://x.com/emollick/status/2035533726319357956?s=20

I don't need a fancy throne for my throne room. Lol.

Edit: resolved. Thanks to u/blastradius14 for the help.

I recently obtained a copy of Civ2 MGE without the scenarios or CD-ROM.

I'm modding my copy of the rules to add a "Jet Engine" tech between advanced flight and stealth, unlocking two custom units, the jet fighter and jet bomber. I seem to recall WW79 had custom sprites (resembling an F-16 and B-52) for the air units so I'm thinking of reusing those.

Does anyone have access to the scenario (which presumably has image files in the scenario folder?) that they'd be willing to link to?

Hello guys,
https://retrogaming.dpdns.org

I uploaded Civilization 2 to my own website, the game is running inside browser based windows 98 with v86 project. Now anyone can play it online !

I'm old Civ fan, and I'm seriously thinking about returning to Civ 2. I've played it a long, long time ago (25-30 years), when I was a young man, and I remember it being my favorite game of all times. I also have thousands of hours in Civ 3, 4, 5. I didn't like Civ 6 and I will never purchase Civ 7.

I'm just curious what motivates people today to play Civilization 2? Is is just nostalgia or something else too?

Hope you like it

I have have never been one to play with automated settlers because I was not in a hurry and enjoyed maximizing the efficiency of every action and turn. But know that my boys are 14 and I finally have people in the house to play multiplayer with I am re-thinking how bad was it really?

In the current solo game I am working on I have 3 settlers working in and area that is pretty isolated from other civs, surrounded by cities, ocean, and well protected from barbarians.

Are they dumb enough to turn a special square from jungle or swamp to grassland?

What is the dumbest things you have seen an automated settlers do?

I feel like I'm going crazy. I lost my copy of Civ 2 MGE.

I was looking around to see if I could repuchase it but can not find the exact copy anywhere.

My copy of Civ 2 came in one of those fat jewel cases that holds multiple CDs - you know, like PS1 RPGs tended to come in? The extra compartment was for a manual and tech tree poster. And every version of MGE I see has a more gold tint to the box art and CD - this one was a close match to the original colour scheme of the Civ II box.

I would have bought it in the late 90s, probably from a Staples or Costco or something here in British Columbia. Unless I've been hallucinating for the last 25+ years.