FAQ

Yes, the latest version of the game is 1.1. The patch can be downloaded from the following locations:

• Civilization Fanatics' Center (Hosts the English and German versions.)

• The Cradle of Civilization (Hosts the English, French and German versions.)

• Mercator's Civilization 2 Site (Hosts the English, French and German versions.)

For those people who hate CD-swapping, like me, there are a number of no-CD options available. The Test of Time Patch Project includes one for ToT version 1.1. There are also discrete patchers, one for version 1.1 (3 kB) and another for versions 1.0 and 1.1 (16 kB).

Test of Time videos are encoded with the antiquated Indeo 5 codec. If you don't have it installed and registered on your system, the game can't play videos correctly. Here are three solutions in the order of my preference:

1. Solution 1: Install the Test of Time Patch Project. It contains a DirectShow video patch that allows Indeo playback with more modern filters. If this patch doesn't immediately fix the problem, then you probably need to grab some DirectShow filters. Try any of the following codec/filter packs:

   • ffdshow Last updated 17/07/2014. (VideoHelp page)

   • The Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP) Last updated 13/07/2014. (VideoHelp page)

   • K-Lite Codec Pack Regularly updated. (As you work through the installation wizard, be watchful for bundled crapware and Decline any offers. Under Additional Tasks and Options, scroll to the bottom of the list and deselect Visit a website with codec news.) (VideoHelp page)

   • DirectShow FilterPack Last updated 04/03/2012.

   You may need to right-click the installer files and select Run as administrator.

2. Solution 2: The Indeo 5 codec may already be installed on the system, but not registered. If you have a 32-bit version of Windows, look in your Windows\System32 folder for a file called ir50_32.dll. For 64-bit versions of Windows, check your Windows\SysWOW64 folder. If it's not there, try one of the other solutions.

   If it is there, you can register it to enable it. This is typically not required for Windows XP, but from Windows Vista onwards, Microsoft ceased support for the Indeo codecs, and they were disabled for security reasons. Use at own risk, I suppose. Run the Command Prompt as an administrator by typing CMD in the Search box (Start button), and then holding Ctrl+Shift and hitting Enter. For 32-bit operating systems, type the following and hit Enter:

   regsvr32 ir50_32.dll

   For 64-bit operating systems, type the following and hit Enter:

   regsvr32 C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ir50_32.dll

   assuming that the operating system is installed on C: drive.

3. Solution 3: Install the Ligos Indeo Codec v5.11. The pack includes versions 3.2, 4.1 (required for earlier versions of Civilization 2) and 5.1 of the codec. The installer is ancient (27/05/2004); it spends an age searching your machine for Netscape Navigator. See security note in Solution 2.

   You may need to right-click the installer file and select Run as administrator.

Test of Time (32-bit) is not fully compatible with 64-bit operating systems. Use of the edit control (eg, enter leader name, Build New City) will cause the game to crash. There are two 64-bit compatibility patches available for download:

• TheNamelessOne's Test of Time Patch Project

• MastermindX's 64-bit Windows Compatibility Patcher

Yes. The Civ2 executable typically uses 100% of the available CPU core 100% of the time. Remember, the original version of the game was released back in 1996 when this type of thing wasn't a concern. These days that's a lot of electricity and system fan activity for naught. There are two CPU usage patches available for download:

• TheNamelessOne's Test of Time Patch Project

• Till's CPU-Throttle

It's happening simply because the author of the scenario failed to disable them. You need to do two things:

1. Disable the unit sprites: Open the rules.txt file in your scenario folder and go to the @UNITS_ADVANCED section. Change the 8th bit in column G (reverse programmer notation) to 1 for every entry in the table (see below, highlighted red).

   @UNITS_ADVANCED
   11111111, 00000000, 0, 0000000000000000,0000000000000000,0000000000000000, 10000000

2. Disable the terrain resource sprites: Download this dummy resource sprite file (369 bytes unzipped) and place it in your scenario folder.

If the scenario is running, quit back to the main menu and reload the game. That will refresh the graphics and the offending sprites will be history. For more information on sprite management, see this guide.

These batch files use the obsolete Choice command for menu selection. To function, this command requires the file, choice.com. Choice.com shipped with Windows 9x systems, but is not supported on NT-based systems, eg, XP, Vista and 7. When choice.com is missing, the batch process terminates. To run these batch files successfully, download Choice.com (3 kB) and place it in your scenario folder, or better still, in your Windows\System32 folder.

A more conventional method for creating batch file menus on modern operating systems is to use SET /P instead, as explained by Mercator in this post. This is especially relevant as 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows are becoming standard and Choice.com is incompatible with these systems. For more information on creating 64-bit-compatible batch files for Civilization 2 scenarios, see this thread.

No, it doesn't. The readme file states the following:

With regret, we must announce that we can no longer support a map editor with this product. Test of Time will accept maps made by a map editor included in any of the other Civ II products, however.

This isn't a problem because Mercator adapted the official map editor that shipped with earlier versions of Civilization 2 for use with Test of Time. It is available on his site. Unlike the original, this one also supports gigamaps, ie, maps larger than 10 922 tiles (to a maximum of 32 767). If you have a 64-bit version of Windows, run MastermindX's 64-bit Windows Compatibility Patcher on the Civ2map.exe file to prevent edit control crashes.

By default, only the first 62 units listed in your rules.txt file will appear in the Civilopedia. To make additional units (63-80) appear, you will need to include a describe.txt file with your scenario. You will more than likely also need to edit the @@UNIT_INDEX section of this file. For a scenario that uses the full compliment of 80 units, the list requires 80 entries. If you don't want to write a description for each unit, simply enter index values of -1 (this disables the item's description button). Remember, unit numbering begins at zero and the list must be terminated with a value of -2. To make things easier I'll provide a describe.txt template for download. The principle is the same for the other sections of the Civilopedia, eg, additional terrain types for a multi-map scenario will only appear if extra indices are added to the @@TERRAIN_INDEX list.

Your scenario may also contain unbuildable units, ie, 'no' prerequisites. If you want them to appear in the Civilopedia, the procedure is simple (none of that once-removed-tech nonsense of earlier versions of Civ2). Give these units a prerequisite of 'nil' or in fact, any technology you deem appropriate. Once a unit has been defined as unbuildable in column A of the @UNITS_ADVANCED section (rules.txt), its prerequisite technology becomes redundant. Only units with a 'no' prerequisite will fail to appear in the Civilopedia.

This is pretty straightforward, with most of the confusion stemming from the game's use of reverse programmer notation and tribe order. All of the masks in the @UNITS_ADVANCED table (rules.txt) use reverse programmer notation. This means that the bit values in each mask are read from right to left. In the 'Tribe May Build' mask (column A) there are 8 bits, one for each tribe slot, starting with tribe 0 (Barbarians). A value of 1 indicates the tribe can build the unit; a value of 0 indicates the tribe can't build the unit. In the example below, only tribes 0, 6 and 7 would be able to build that unit, even if all tribes possessed its prerequisite technology.

;   A
@UNITS_ADVANCED
11000001, ...

If the human player can't build a particular unit you will see a red 'You cannot build this unit' displayed in the Civilopedia entry. Look in the Original game rules and you can see that everyone can build everything, as you'd expect.

So just to be clear, we have: tribe 0 (rightmost, barbarians), tribe 1 (2nd from the right, Romans/Russians/Celts),... tribe 7 (leftmost, Indians/Mongols/Sioux).

Column B in the @UNITS_ADVANCED table (rules.txt) has two effects. Firstly, it prevents a unit from being built on the specified map/s. Secondly, it is supposed to prevent a unit from accessing such maps via the native transport ability (column F). The second function is buggy, as explained by TheNamelessOne here. The bug was fixed in version 0.7 of his Test of Time Patch Project. Column B does not prevent a unit from using a transporter to enter the specified map/s (column E handles that). As with all bitmasks, it uses reverse programmer notation, so values are read from right to left. Each bit represents one of the 4 possible maps (numbered 0-3); the last 4 bits in the mask are not used. In the example below, you would not be allowed to build the specified unit on maps 0 and 2; the unit would also be unable to enter either of these maps using its native transport ability (if it possessed one).

;   A         B
@UNITS_ADVANCED
11111111, 00000101, ...

Tribe colours are determined by two pixels above each flag icon in cities.bmp, as illustrated below. The in-game effect is shown on the right.

1. The colour of the city name text.

2. The colour of the city size box, diplomacy screen trim, unit key (shield) and team colour masks for sprites. In the game, the colour on the unit key is a darker version of this pixel (approximately half the RGB value). Note that the Test of Time Patch Project allows you to control the brightness of the unit key with a setting (UnitShieldColor) in rules.txt.

You might think that the 72 x 40 pixel icons in improvements.bmp are used by the game's Civilopedia screens, where you can find both 72 x 40 and 54 x 30 pixel icons for wonders and city improvements. Not so. The Civilopedia uses the smaller 36 x 20 pixel icons from the icons.bmp file, resulting in a somewhat clunky, pixellated appearance. Don't ask me why. Anyway, the larger icons from improvements.bmp are used in the city screen (the standard one for Test of Time, not the classic one - toggled via City Layout in the View menu) and in various message boxes from game.txt, eg, @HOCKTHIS, @NOTRANSPORTER and @BATTERY (shown below).

You've just gone and pasted an image into one of your XXimp.bmp files and then loaded up the game to see how it checks out in the Civilopedia. You find that the picture is marred by dark lines or that large patches are missing. This is because the colour of the pixel in the top left corner of the image defines a transparency mask. All like pixels will become transparent, revealing boarder1.bmp behind. This phenomenon only occurs in the wonder graphics (40imp.bmp - 67imp.bmp), not the city improvement graphics (01imp.bmp - 39imp.bmp). It seems that Microprose's own art team was unaware of the fact, as a number of the official wonder graphics have been corrupted in this manner (see below).

Solution: make sure that the pixel in the top left corner is of a different colour to the remainder in the image. Magenta (#FF00FF) is a good choice, as it's rarely found in graphics and stands out like a sore thumb. If you don't like the effect of one missing pixel in the top left corner, you could create a one-pixel wide border down the left hand side or across the top of the image.

Transparent colour markers like these can be found all over the place in Test of Time: cities.bmp, units.bmp, people.bmp, terrainX.bmp, icons.bmp, city.bmp and dialog.bmp.

This happens once the scenario flag is set, ie, in SCN files, or SAV files derived from them. If a tribe's plural name (column 6 in the @LEADERS table) matches the one stored in the SAV/SCN file, then the game only reads leader titles from the @GOVERNMENTS table and ignores those from @LEADERS.

Solution: after saving a game as a scenario, change the plural names in @LEADERS to something different. You should find that the game now reads the custom titles at the end of each leader entry. This workaround isn't perfect. To work for the human player it requires the game to be saved and reloaded. Tribe-specific titles for the AI tribes will be loaded correctly when the scenario is begun.