Scenario (Civ2)

Note - pages for individual scenarios should be standardised and game-specific; see Thread:23682 discussion.

Civilization II scenarios present the player with a pre-made worldmap and several cities with units and improvements and a set group of advances. The main file name ends with ".scn".

Structure

An introductory screen may set the scene. You should also read accompanying "txt" files, some of which go into great detail.

Time may run in years or months, and you may get only five turns' warning of the end of the scenario. Scoring may be based on possession of "Objective" cities, not on the traditional factors. Regular six difficulty levels - Chieftain, Warlord, Prince, King, Emperor, Deity - have the number of initially content citizens ranging from six down to one (and, also as in the standard game, not so obvious is that the opponents get an easier time with increasing "difficulty level" by having to find fewer resources and sheaves for each building work or population upgrade).

Default scenarios

Vanilla Civilization II came with two scenarios:

• The Rise of Rome

278 BC from the Bay of Biscay to the Persian Gulf; four Greek factions (arising from the break-up of Alexander's empire) vie with Romans (the little upstart nation confined - at present - to the middle of Italy), Carthaginians (the people who captured Gades and took elephants across the French and Italian Alps), and the primitive Celts (who have a capital near Geneva and have somehow captured Sparta and Galatia and have vast areas in which to expand); pollution possible but has no effect, no new Wonders possible, and only 250 years to win lots of "Objective" cities.

• World War II

Europe plus a slice of North Africa, North America, Greenland, and east just past the Caspian Sea; not everyone knows the secret of Advanced Flight yet, but research is faster than it looks. With one turn representing 2 months, only 7 years to win lots of "Objective" cities for a result such as "Marginal Axis defeat". The Atlantic seems peppered with submarines, so the American cities (two huge existing ones and a couple of other potential cities) would be wise to produce only air units and send them by way of Greenland.

Expansion packs

There were three expansion packs that slowly added more features to the game.

Conflicts in Civilization

The first expansion pack was Conflicts in Civilization, which included 20 new scenarios, 12 created by the makers of the game and 8 produced by fans. It also added an enhanced macro language for scenario scripting.

The twelve scenarios created by MPS:

• After the Apocalypse
• Age of Discovery
• The Age of Napoleon
• Alexander the Great
• Alien Invasion
• American Civil War
• The Crusades
• The Great War
• Jihad: The Rise of Islam
• The Mongol Horde
• The War for Independence
• World War: 1979

The "Best of the Net," pack 1:

• Atolon
• The Cholera of Zeus
• The Conquest of Britain
• Cross and Crescent
• The Fall of the Great Kesh
• East Wind, Rain
• Persian Gulf War
• Native Rebellion

Fantastic Worlds

Conflicts in Civilization was followed by Fantastic Worlds, which added 19 new scenarios as well as a variety of editors for the game.

The eleven scenarios created by MPS:

• The Age of Reptiles
• Atlantis
• Ice Planet
• Mars Now!
• Master of Magic, Jr.
• Master of Orion, Jr.
• The Mythic History of Midgard
• The New World
• Samurai
• The World of Jules Verne
• X-COM: Assault

The "Best of the Net," pack 2:

• Battle of the Sexes
• Bears at Play
• Civ-Life!
• Hidden
• Mammoth
• Paradise
• Santa is Coming
• USA 2010

Test of Time

Test of Time expanded the original campaign to involve contact with the aliens of the Alpha Centauri system. It also included multimap scenarios by MPS:

• Lalande 21185
• Midgard

Fan-made scenarios

Fans have made and published others. You generally need Fantastic Worlds (FW) add-on for Civilization II or the Multiplayer Gold Edition (MGE).

Notable could be those produced by Carl Fritz (whose email address was cfritz@angelfire.com):

• Battle of Algiers - "the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962)"
• Brown Man's Burden II - "the Scramble for Africa (1889-1914)"
• Justinian the Great - "the Fall of Rome and the Conquests of Justinian (401-567)"
• Pitt's War at Sea - "the Seven Years' War in the Caribbean (1759-1763)", one turn per month
• Struggle for Empire - "the French and Indian War (1755-1763)"

In July 2013 that last one failed to download ("The requested URL /~harden/downloads/empire21.zip was not found on this server.") but the other four were fine.

Notable for quantity but perhaps of varying quality are those available from CivFanatics, including:

• Pharaoh: the Golden Age of the 18th Dynasty
• Eternal War - A post endless war in set in 4991 AD. While technically not a "scenario" the save file has been generated enough press, and has been downloaded by enough people to be played as one.

External links

• Civilization II Scenarios at CivFanatics
• Civilization II Scenario League at CivFanatics
• Four or five Civ2 scenarios by Carl Fritz (listed above)
• Patrick Williams's "Civ2 Scenario Design FAQ", hosted at Apolyton