HiRes ("High Resolution") Mod Pack / Graphics Patch Version 2.4 
(c)Tim F. Smith (yoohootim@hotmail.com), April, 2000 

For use with Civilization II(tm) by Microprose, versions 2.x and Multiplayer 

(This file best viewed in MS NotePad or similar text editor with word-wrap turned ON.)

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   I.  INTRODUCTION
  II.  LIST OF FILES
 III.  INSTALLATION
  IV.  NEW UNITS AND CHANGED UNITS (MOD PACK ONLY)
   V.  "SPECIAL EFFECTS"
  VI.  ALTERNATE GRAPHICS
 VII.  EDITING GRAPHICS
VIII.  LEGAL BLATHER (read if you want to use my graphics) 
  IX.  COMMON QUESTIONS
   X.  IN APPRECIATION

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I.  INTRODUCTION

HiRes was created to replace the original Microprose Civ2 graphics with an entirely new look in a more "photo-realistic" style.  Over the course of two years, many hundreds of hours were spent tracking down source material and creating these graphics.  Hopefully they will allow you to enjoy Civ2 all over again!  

HiRes can be installed as either as a graphics patch OR as a mod pack.  As a graphics patch, HiRes will replace most of the original Microprose graphics without changing any other aspect of the game.  If installed as a mod pack, HiRes makes some modest changes to the unit line up, giving a bit more detail to the development of aircraft and armored warfare.  Optional sound files can be installed either way, including sounds for the new units found in the mod pack as well as replacements for some of the Microprose sound files.

Warning: the HiRes graphics, particularly the units and cities, are often larger and more richly colored than the original Microprose set.  Since a photo-realistic style is the point of these graphics, I have sometimes traded off size for detail.  While the graphics have been optimized for viewing at "standard zoom", until you are accustomed to them you may need to occasionally use the zoom feature when things get a bit crowded.


Finally, this mod pack is dedicated to my dear friend and fellow Civ2-addict, Christine S.


May your civilizations prosper!

Tim Smith, 2000
yoohootim@hotmail.com

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II.  LIST OF FILES

 * units.gif
 * icons.gif
 * cities.gif
 * terrain1.gif
 * terrain2.gif
 * city.gif
 * unitorig.gif
 * newunits.gif
 * rules.txt
 * readme.txt
 * 19 various .wav files (sounds)

These files may be split between one or more ZIP files depending on where you downloaded them.  I urge you to download the sounds, they were tailored for the new units.  At least one place where you can find them is www.apolyton.com in the Civ2 downloads section.

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III.  INSTALLATION
HiRes can be easily installed as a simple graphics patch OR as a mod pack.  If you are reading this, it is assumed you have unZIPped the files somewhere onto your hard drive - hopefully NOT directly into your Civ2 folder!  If this is what you have done, congratulations - you have just completed the mod pack install!

(1) First, BACK UP your existing copies of the files listed in Section II, in case you ever want to return to the original Microprose graphics without re-installing the game.

(2) Depending on whether you wish to install as a mod pack or graphics patch, do one of the following (if you change your mind later you can easily re-install HiRes):

-- Installing as a MOD PACK: copy ALL of the .GIF and .TXT files into your Civ2 folder (it should be the folder containing the file "civ2.exe").

-- Installing as a GRAPHICS PATCH: Copy ONLY the .GIF files (NOT the .txt files!) into your Civ2 folder (it should be the folder containing the file "civ2.exe").  In the Civ2 folder, delete the file "UNITS.GIF" (or rename it to something else).  Now rename the file "UNITORIG.GIF" to "UNITS.GIF".

(3) If you downloaded the .WAV (sound) files, copy them into the folder containing all of the default Civ2 .wav files.  These are probably in a subfolder labeled "SOUND" just beneath your Civ2 folder.

That's it!

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IV.  NEW UNITS AND CHANGED UNITS (MOD PACK ONLY)
In the mod pack version of HiRes, the changes made to the unit lineup expand the development of flight and armored warfare, as summarized below.  New units have names in CAPS.  Unchanged, default units (marked under "Notes" with "*") have been included in the chart for comparison.

                   Available/     Move/  Attack/  Hit Pts/
Unit               Extinct        Range  Defense  Firepwr  Cost  Notes
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fighter            Flight/Stealth  10/1   4a/3d    2h/2f   60    *(1,2)
Bomber             Flight/Stealth   8/2   8a/2d    2h/2f  100     (1)
ZEPPELIN           Flight/Stealth   4/8   0a/1d    1h/1f   60     (1,3)
JET FIGHTER        Adv Flight/ na  12/1   6a/3d    2h/2f   70     (1,2)
JET BOMBER         Adv Flight/ na  10/2  12a/3d    2h/2f  140     (1)
Stealth Fighter    Stealth/ na     14/1   8a/4d    2h/2f   80    *(1,2)
Stealth Bomber     Stealth/ na     12/2  14a/5d    2h/2f  160    *(1)

Cavalry            Tactics/Mobile   2/0   7a/3d    2h/1f   60    *
Marines            Amphibious/ na   1/0   8a/5d    2h/1f   60    *
ARMOR              Combustn/Mobile  2/0   8a/4d    2h/1f   60     (4)
HEAVY Armor        Mobile/ na       3/0  10a/5d    3h/1f   80    *(5)

--- NOTES ----------------
 *  No change from original (included only for comparison)
(1) Can see two spaces
(2) Can attack air units
(3) Can spot submarines
(4) Doubled defense ("Pikeman bonus") against SOME mounted attackers (Horsemen, Knights, Crusaders)  The Pikeman defensive bonus does not apply to Dragoons or Cavalry (this is not mentioned in the Civ2 manual).
(5) Heavy Armor is the original Armor unit, the only change is the name.

About the Zeppelin Unit
The Zeppelin-type airship becomes available with the advent of Flight.  Although it has no attacking capabilities and minimal defense, it can see two spaces and spot submarines, so it is well suited for long-range reconnaissance and anti-submarine patrol. It can fly 4 spaces per turn and remain aloft for eight consecutive turns.  Like the Bomber, the Zeppelin must begin and (eventually) end its journey at a city or airbase - keep an eye on the status window to see how much movement is left. It becomes obsolete when Stealth technology is discovered.  By editing "rules.txt", you could easily give the Zeppelin bombing capabilities, but keep in mind that it will be able to attack EVERY turn while it is aloft (eight turns!) which might be a bit unrealistic or may make the unit far too powerful.  In this case, I would suggest increasing the cost of production, or perhaps limiting its movement and/or range.

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V.  "SPECIAL EFFECTS"
Combat Animation 
The "combat" animation has been replaced with a fiery explosion (Cam Hills' excellent "Gangster" mod pack was the inspiration).  Hopefully you will agree that what a fireball lacks in appropriateness for ancient combat, it makes up for in fun!

New Road / New Railroad Icon
When you create a single, unconnected section of road or railway, a special icon appears (a steamroller or a train).  Once that section of road or railway is connected to a neighboring one, the icon is replaced by the normal graphic.  These icons have no special purpose other than serving as "eye candy".  Note that starting a road or railroad adjacent to a city will cause it to be instantly connected, so - no eye candy.  The computer civs seem to like starting roads or railways on coasts, and this is where you may most frequently spot the special icons.  This is mentioned only to prevent confusion before you come to recognize them.  If you don't like these icons, standard single Road and Railroad symbols have been included and can be easily copied over the "eye candy" icons.  You will find the standard replacements in the upper right corner of the terrain1.gif file, they are clearly labeled.

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VI.  ALTERNATE GRAPHICS
Traditional Unit Graphics
For those using the mod pack graphics but preferring a more traditional approach, an Explorer and more conventional Barbarian Leader unit have been provided on units.gif.  Simply copy them into the appropriate unit slot if you wish (don't forget to change the rules.txt file if needed).

Alternate Unit Graphics - "NewUnits.gif"
HiRes includes the file "newunits.gif" which contains over 150 alternate unit graphics, mostly from the 20th century.  These are included so that you can make changes to the units lineup consistent with the HiRes visual style, as well as for use in your own mod packs and scenarios (please see section VIII - Legal Blather).  The quality of these units vary, and some may not work well against all terrain backgrounds.  The fact that many modern military units are painted for the express purpose of blending into the terrain presents a challenge when creating unit graphics!

Alternate City Graphics
The "city.gif" file contains a number of extra modern city graphics, as well as various architectural bits and pieces which I ended up not using.  Feel free to use as you wish (See Section VIII - Legal Blather).

Alternate Dialog Box Textures (Diplomacy Screen Problem)
The new colored, textured background and frame for dialog boxes causes a minor problem in the diplomacy screen (where the animated heralds appear).  In the diplomacy screen, the text colors of the dialog boxes are wrong.  On the computers I tested, the problem was little more than a nuisance, the dialog boxes were still readable - again, the problem is confined to the diplomacy room.  If this presents a problem, you can fix it by switching the dialog box textures to grayscale (non-colored) ones.  These are found on the file ICONS.GIF, and are clearly labeled.  Simply copy-and-paste the grayscale versions over the neighboring colored textures, and the diplomacy screen problem will be no more.

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 VII.  EDITING GRAPHICS
Be careful if you edit the graphics in "units.gif" or "cities.gif".  In these files, the top and left borders of each graphic contain special pixels.  Units have blue pixels that are used to mark the placement of the units' shields.  Cities have two pairs of special pixels: orange to mark the location of the population box, and blue to mark the location of the flag.  When moving or copying a unit or city, be sure to bring along its top and left borders.  Be careful not to overwrite the top or left borders of its neighbors.

If you add any of your own graphics to these files, be aware of the need to maintain the .gif file's color palette.  This topic is too complex to go into here, however you can find a very detailed document by Allard Hofelt in the Design Tips section of the CivII Scenario League web site, located at:  http://sleague.apolyton.net/.  As of this writing, the specific document can be found at: http://sleague.apolyton.net/Guides/sldt_palette.shtml.

If you are in need of a graphics tool, I recommend Paint Shop Pro from JASC.  It's extremely powerful - and it's shareware!  It can also handle .gif file color palettes.  You can find it all over the web, including www.jasc.com.

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VIII.  LEGAL BLATHER
I invested a colossal amount of time in the creation of HiRes in the hopes that I could extend the life and enjoyment of Civ2 for all of its enthusiasts.  You may distribute, use and modify my work as you wish, but please do so within the following common sense and courtesy guidelines:

(1)  The HiRes mod pack is FREEWARE.  You may distribute these files freely as long as their contents are not altered and you do not request payment of any kind in return.  You may of course alter these files freely for your own personal use.

(2)  Feel free to use my graphics in your own mod packs or scenarios!  If you do so, I ask only that you somewhere give credit to HiRes, preferably in your README file.  I ask this so that anyone interested can find the entire mod pack.  You may not, without my express permission, include my work in any files, media or format for which you accept payment.

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IX.  COMMON QUESTIONS

??? How did you create your graphics?

I started out with photographic images (scanned photos, images from the web, etc).  Using Adobe Photoshop, I altered or customized the images as needed, then scaled them down, enhancing them further for clarity.


??? How long did it take?

Creating HiRes version 1 and version 2 together probably consumed somewhere around 2,000 hours.  Perhaps a quarter of that was spent tracking down source images.  As I progressed, my increasing Photoshop skills allowed me to work much faster.  Also, the curse of being a perfectionist "required" me to revise some graphics repeatedly as I found better images, improved my skills, received feedback, etc.


??? Hey, those cities look vaguely familiar, which ones are they?

Early Industrial Cities (1 - 4, 1 is the smallest)
1 - Shanghai
2 - Shanghai
3 - Shanghai, London, Chicago
4 - Chicago, New York

Modern Cities
1 - Shanghai
2 - Toronto, Los Angeles
3 - New York
4 - New York


??? Some of the resource icons are a little mysterious - what are they?

It was very challenging to come up with icons that were easily-recognized, but not overly distracting or historically inappropriate.  In case you really can't figure them out, the somewhat more abstract ones are:

Gold - gold bar
Iron - Iron Age spearhead
Peat - parallel trenches, as are dug for harvesting peat
Mining - mining car
Silk - why, that's a silkworm of course! 
Spice - leaf, seed and pod
Game - musk ox
Grassland Resource - this one appears in such profusion that any prominent icon is very disruptive to the landscape, so I chose a very subtle approach.  It does not represent anything in particular (what IS the grassland resource, anyway?).  You can think of it as shrubs and boulders if that helps.


???  Some of the units seem to be out of scale with each other, e.g. Musketeer and Pikeman.

The theme of HiRes is maximum detail, and larger units mean more detail.  Some units have shapes that are difficult to work with, either short and wide (e.g. Carrier) or tall and narrow (e.g. Nuclear Missile) which may require using a smaller scale to squeeze them into their "slot".  The Pikeman, for instance, really needs to have a tall vertical pike.  However, in order to fit him into his slot, he needs to be at a smaller scale to include the pike.  If I reduced all of the other "human-type" units (e.g. Musketeer) to the Pikeman's scale, I would have to reduce their size and sacrifice much of their detail.  Compromising was required.  Besides, the units are really abstract icons to begin with.  Remember that most units appear to tower over cities and mountains, and usually do not represent a single person or vehicle anyway.


??? How come you didn't change the Wonder icons?

The Wonder icons are, in my opinion, the most difficult of all of the Civ2 graphics to create.  Like the city improvements, they are impossibly tiny.  With so few pixels it is very challenging to capture something's essence and yet have it remain identifiable.  Worse, finding photographic source material would pose quite a challenge for some of the Wonders.  The Statue of Liberty would be easy, but how about the Hanging Gardens?  Marco Polo?  There are already a number of excellent Wonder sets available, far better than anything I could create, so I decided not to tackle them.


??? The text colors of the dialog boxes in the Diplomacy Screen are messed up!

See Section VI (Alternate Graphics) for a description of this annoyance and how you can remedy it if it's a problem for you.


??? Why are the alternate WWII-era ground units missing national markings?

I went back and forth on this one.  If the units are used for historical scenarios in which they are limited to one side, the historical markings (American stars, etc) look great.  But if you use any of these units as substitutes in the standard unit set, the markings look inappropriate, e.g. Aztec, Mongolian and Roman tanks all bearing German crosses.  I ended up compromising, removing the markings on ground units but leaving them on air units.  For historical situations, I recommend following the lead of "Captain Nemo's" excellent Red Front scenario: adding small national insignia similar to the shield graphic.


??? Isn't the steamroller inappropriate for roadbuilding before the 19th century?

Yeah, but that's too bad because I LOVE steamrollers! :-)  If you do, too, there's a better (but larger) one on the "newunits.gif" file.  Outside of some kind of abstract shovel symbol, no graphic would be appropriate for every historical context.  If it's annoying, you can swap in the standard graphic (it's on the terrain1.gif file).


??? Do you do this for a living?

No, computer graphics are one of my hobbies.

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X.  IN APPRECIATION

A number of people took the time to give me detailed feedback during development, and HiRes is a much better piece of work for their assistance.  To these notable worthies I express my appreciation: John Ellis, Henry Mar, Jon Martin, Brian Mason, Jason Prushka, Shay Yates Roberts, S. Roy ("Smash"), Terry Smith, and Christine Sulewski.  A special thanks goes to Steve Clark for his extensive and valuable insights.

I am grateful to Craig Ferrante for his Meanrabbit free WAV file website (www.meanrabbit.com), which was the source for most of my sounds.

Thanks to Apolyton.com for giving HiRes some "free press" as well as for maintaining a superb repository of all things Civ-related.  If you are not familiar with the premier Civilization site, visit them at www.apolyton.com.

A tip of the hat to Alex Mor for originally hosting HiRes at his website (www.aha.ru/~mor/).  At Alex's site you will not only find his amazing Civ2 art and groundbreaking scenarios, but a wealth of design tips as well.

Finally, I would like to thank everyone who tossed me an email with their thanks or comments.  It was in part their kind words which encouraged me to press on with the Herculean task of completing the HiRes graphics patch.

 - Tim Smith 
   yoohootim@hotmail.com
   April, 2000
