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Microprose is selling an exciting new Civ game, the four-map Test of Time Fantasy world, and the Civ community - at Apolyton and elsewhere - does not seem to be playing it much. This is a shame, because there are many interesting new challenges in the fantasy world. Many of the routine approaches to winning the basic Civ 2 game do not work well here.

Why do I think the game is not much played by the experts who create faqs, hints and tips? Because fantasy ToT deserves its own set of faqs, hints, tips and strategy talks, and I do not see them getting posted. (Please tell me where they are, if I'm wrong.) The strategy advice for the seven tribes in the strategy guide book (Prima's Official Strategy Guide for ToT) is a nice start, but it looks intentionally very incomplete to me, and possibly based on too little play testing.

There is also a suspicious lack of bug reports in the Apolyton forum. Most of the reported bugs and problems deal with difficulties the scenario designers are experiencing. Again, I may be wrong, but I'm expecting the serious stay-up-late-play-an-entire-game-in-a-few-hours exports to be heard from, along these lines: "Gee, the fantasy game takes a lot longer..." "Wow, I found a real easy way for the goblins to win at Deity level..." And so on.

So let's wet your appetite.

First, the graphics -- Obtain lighter colored versions of the terrain bitmaps (all eight files in the fantasy directory), or lighten them yourself. You can download image viewers for this purpose, and fortunately you can apply a lightening function (I used gamma correction) to the entire bitmaps, you don't have to fix selected areas.

When you play the game, you will note the great variation in creatures from tribe to tribe. The barbarian units are mostly not like your own creatures, and neither are those of the other tribes. There is solid variation in capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. And each creature type LOOKS different on the whole -- the stocky goblins, the tall thin Stygians, etc. The visual smorgasbord adds to the fun and helps you to remember what's going on.

Playing each tribe is a somewhat different game, because of the not too subtle differences in the terrain each can use, the advances it can research, and the results it gets from research.

You have to get used to the fact that the city improvements and wonders are essentially the same as in the original game, but renamed. There has been a lot of criticism about this; I'd like to make a few points about the issues:

(1) It would be easier to learn the game if the names had not changed. True, but the new names are consistent with the fantasy world, and better in the long run for remembering their value in the fantasy world. (Well, I'm not sure about "Swine Array".) I gave myself hints by editing the describe.txt and pedia.txt files to note the equivalencies between the original and fantasy games, in wonders and city improvements. This hinting does not work AT ALL for the civilization advances, which I will discuss below. (2) It would be better if the fantasy game really had its own different advances and wonders. I wish it did, but that would have meant an awful lot of work on the AI and game testing. Instead, please note that the city improvements and wonders tend to be subtly different, depending upon what tribe you are playing, and always somewhat different from the original game. The advances seem to have equivalents, but many are really different. For example, Da Vinci's workshop is nearly useless.

Strategically, the game differs enough that I am wondering if it is broken; some very good players may find particularly easy ways to win with some of the tribes at Deity level. I think no one has reported this sort of thing yet. If the game is indeed balanced about as well as the original game, that is quite a tribute to the game testers and developers.

The tree of civilization advances is very different, simply because the tree is a means to the goals of its acquisitions. Changing the structure of the tree, and changing what each tribe can actually get, makes it necessary to learn all over the value of each research in each situation. It's easy to note the major research goals for each tribe (see the strategy manual), but I do not think anyone has yet written a faq on how to work through the maze of intermediate advances like "Swine Array" and "I Viking" for every tribe.

Since the game generates its help data about the tree by analyzing the rules file, there is no easy way to edit useful text about the advances into the game. You need to learn it the hard way, or someone else has to study it for you. The tree poster that comes with the game does not help very much. (See the postscript at the end of this column.)

Now we come to the nitty gritty -- let's look at examples of how strategy and tactics differ, and note some new things you must learn about.

1: The Sorceror. One of the first military units you are capable of constructing is the Sorceror: attack 6, defense 4, one hp, 2 fire power, moves 6 (but has to end its turn in one of your cities, or the equivalent of an airport). As soon as you see the Sorceror, you know the game is not off to the typical slow, careful start of the original Civ II game. The Sorcerors create an interesting way for early cities to support each other, since you can move them from city to city (six moves apart without roads) in response to a threat. And obviously, if you are able to get these units early, there must be appropriately powerful barbarians and enemy units to worry about.

2: Defending on multiple maps. In Civ 2, the well-tested strategies for building a country to keep your attackers out do not work very well. Goblins come up through tunnels into your city lands. Buteos drop out of the sky and pick off your settlers. Many creatures teleport easily to other maps and show up behind your defenses. Ships may just go over or under your defenses (using water in both the surface and undersea worlds) and get wherever you don't want them to go. A number of creatures can make amphibious attacks. Some of the barbarian landings have power that is really alarming.

3: Moving on multiple maps. You get used to thinking in (limited) three dimensions. The game provides some help for this, I wish it did more.) Your settler has finished developing this undersea island. There is no land above this island on the surface, but maybe a nearby porpoise can pick it up quickly. Naval units may switch maps several times to turn a long, circuitous route into a straight one.

4: Invading a map. Tribes vary in their ability to do this. Are you going to try to send a steady stream up through a tunnel, hoping not to be discovered? Can you drop a whole bunch of attackers across maps on a city? It can happen TO you also. Incidentally, multiple maps make democracy somewhat less enjoyable (and possibly less desirable). It just kills me to see a steady stream of goblins come up through tunnels after the senate signs a peace treaty or cease fire; when we were at war, I could bop them on the head as fast as they came out. (I prefer to put a sleeping catapult next to a tunnel entrance, rather than trying to block the entrance off; that way I at least can see what's going on.)

5: Caravans have less value, I think. Or maybe they have just as much value but are harder to use. First of all, they are more likely to be picked off en route (see above). Second, they only travel to the surface and underworld maps (I think). Okay, I admit it, undersea cities demand certain trade goods but I don't know how to get goods to them.

6: No more easy Da Vinci's Workshop upgrades. I love this wonder, but it is very unbalancing to get it, so I do not mind losing its usefulness. The very complex rules for generating upgrades (see the Apolyton Test of Time forum for a discussion) result in very few (or perhaps none at all?).

7. Naval traffic is different. Tribes vary a lot in what naval units they can build. The Merfolk get a porpoise early in the game that moves three spaces. "Oh, a trireme," I said to myself. But it only carries one unit, and it does not get "lost at sea" like a trireme. And it switches between the surface and undersea maps (zero movement cost) as long as there is sea on the two corresponding squares. When I got my Merfolk Hero early in the game (9 7 1 2 2 creature, much more powerful than anything else around at the time), I assigned a personal porpoise to the hero, to help it get to trouble spots quickly. Another "porpoise without a purpose" wandered about exploring, diving under surface continents to find the other side, or the sea-lakes within. (A unit's health bar "key" changes color slightly when it is on a square that allows it to transport at once to another map.) Later on, Krakens (similar to battleships) with Sorcerors on their backs are rather nasty attack weapons, and they slip between the surface and undersea also.

8. Managing your hero. Consider the challenge of managing a single unit that is 9 7 (attack and defense) or 8 8, at a time when virtually all the other units in the game are around 5 5. You can do anything, right? Well you can only do one thing at a time. You could easily lose your hero to a concerted attack, and then you won't get another one. How do you hang loose on defense, making sure you can get your hero to the next trouble spot quickly? Where are those pesky enemies or barbs going to strike? After your hero single-handedly captures a city (sure, you can do it), it's stuck there until you can grow or build defenses to release him to other tasks. Maybe slaughtering cities with your hero is not such a good idea...

9. Bribing and stealing is very, very important. You won't be able to build many of the desirable units. Even early in the game, you want cash on hand to bribe for them. You may not be allowed to develop some of the advances. You've just got to steal them. Ditto some of the advances.

10. There are 93 terrain types. Now I realize this is just a matter of technique, and they're not all unique either. Nonetheless, the ability to judge whether a specific location will ultimately yield a successful city site has gotten more complex. A "lava vent" undersea is 0 5 1 (no food, five shields, 1 trade). It's "unimprovable", but with Ley Lines (this game's equivalent of railroad, but much prettier to look at) you get seven shields. Put that near a Sea Garden bed (5 1 2) and you've really got something. On some of the maps, unusual resources are also more frequent than you are used to. But if your city with a lava vent and a sea garden is otherwise all ocean and sea bed, your city may not develop very well.

11. Multiplayer games must address the specialties of each tribe. I don't play multiplayer, but I can see diplomacy guided by the strengths and weaknesses of each tribe. Balancing these matches against near/far neighbor considerations could be tricky.

12. Then there's the Midgard scenario. It's an additional fantasy challenge. Although I haven't played it yet, please note that this scenario makes much of the surface world (usually the most valuable real estate), rather undesirable in the long run; a difficulty that is likely to affect standard strategies even more.

Finally, please note that a few bugs have been fixed in ToT, and Microprose claims they have improved the AI. (In any case, they have changed it, so it will not behave quite the way you were used to.) One of the bug fixes: I think you can't buy an expensive item cheap by first buying a warrior and then changing to, say, a Colosseum and buying that instead. I'm sure some really interesting bugs have been added as well, and are just waiting to be discovered.

I'd like to admit what sort of player I am. I've only played a little Civ 1, about ten games of regular Test of Time Civ, and I'm in about the year 1300 (second age) of my first real fantasy game. When I get more experienced, I expect to have a lot more to say in favor of ToT, not less. And my motivations for writing this column are entirely selfish -- I want to benefit from other, better players playing the fantasy game and writing advice about it.

I do think Microprose ought to have an upgrade price for people who (unlike me) already own a version of Civ 2. The interesting question is whether Test of Time will stand the test of much game play time. Why don't we find out?

P.S., here's one way to deal with the technology tree. What follows is a list of ALL of the prerequisites for the Goblin Spider:

G Spider
Weirding Call
The Niebelungenlied
Astrology
Wood Lore
Ritual Burial
Mathematics
Sagas
Masonry
Theurgy (Mathematics) (Sagas) (Masonry)
Natural Philosophy (Wood Lore) (Ritual Burial)
Runes
Ideograms (Sagas)
King's Code (Sagas)
Metaphysics
Astrolabe
Shipbuilding
Celestial Navigation (Sagas)
Dagda's Gift (Astrology) (Wood Lore) (Ritual Burial) (Mathematics) (Sagas) (Masonry) (Runes) (Ideograms) (Sagas) (King's Code) (Sagas)

Indentation shows what is a prerequisite of what. If a prerequisite has been mentioned before, it is subsequently shown in parentheses. I can't be sure that my PERL script (which analyzed rules.txt to build this list) is accurate, so unfortunately there may be mistakes. And this tree is not tribe-specific, so it does not warn you that your tribe may not be able to build the spider.

Here's the tree for catacombs (the equivalent of Sewer):

Catacombs
Architecture
Chivalry
Natural Philosophy
Wood Lore
Ritual Burial
Runes
Ideograms
Sagas
King's Code (Sagas)
Trade
Coinage
Ironsmithy (King's Code) (Sagas)
Engineering
Beast Dominion
Horse Breeding
Warcraft
Megalithic Tombs
Masonry (Coinage) (Ironsmithy)


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About the author: Software consultant and game developer... recent CivII: ToT addict.

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