For last year's Anniversary, my CivII piece was titled, "It was the worst of times… It was the best of times". CivIII was on a roll, and it was thought that CivIII PTW might be the deathblow for Civ II MP. How mistaken could I have been. The last year has brought some changes to the CivII Forums, but not as many as I might have guessed.
In the CivII General/Help Forum, Scouse Gits and Old n Slow are running their Succession games. Things seem even livelier than last year as people are still posting their questions and asking for help. It's interesting to read new threads that start off with "I just bought the game, and I need some help". In the CivII Democracy Game, they are currently discussing if Explosives or Railroad should be their next science… They are a very active bunch, with many discussions and decisions still to be made. Jrabbit, HighTower, Obwian18, MrWhereItsAt, Shade, to just name a few, are showing that even in SP mode, the game still has life. Then there is the other CivII Democracy Game, Red Front. It's WWII all over again as the Russians and Germans go at it. Posters like Xenozod, conmcb25, Bossy20000 and ANZAC are among a group of players dedicated to blowing Nazi Germany away. I'm sure the Russians will win this one as they did in real life.
CivII: Test of Time has unfortunately seen better days. But, you can still find some of the hard cores, like Mercator, Techumseh, and Eyn answering questions and providing guidance to new people, and pointing the way to scenarios. The CivII Strategy forum is still simply amazing. As in any game, strategies evolve over time, but even after so many years, the discussions and arguments continue. New blood is still popping up, which brings a fresh perspective on many discussions. But what is really unbelievable is that after so many years, new information about this old game is still being figured out and discussed. Led by Slow Thinker and Scouse Gits, the Great Library continues to expand with new information. This forum is a cross roads for both the SP and MP players as any new idea either gets trashed or supported, sometimes with very extensive research to support it. The CivII PBEM Forum is a real hot bed of activity. Some have implied that there are better Civ sites if you are into PBEM games, but that would be hard to see from just looking at the number of active games in the forum. I've never been a PBEM player, so I really don't know the community that well. St. Leo runs the show there, and I'm sure he could confirm what a good community it is. But as I look through the active posters, I see a lot of them. Further proof that CivII still has some life left in it.
The CivII MP Forum is still the classic spam fest that it always was. The different groups have their own threads, and their own continuing arguments and jokes. It's great to see the closeness of the groups. Many of the groups even meet in person to party. There are the Aussies, the Rah Group, the Germans, the Zoners… many different groups who still spend many, many, many, hours playing a truly classic game. The MP forum is a true community, with friendships based solely on playing CivII MP together.
So another year has passed at Apolyton. I came to the Apolyton to discuss CivII. And who would have guessed that 5 years later, many of us would still be doing just that.
Keep on Civin' and Happy Anniversary Apolyton, may you have many more.
/Ming
