C&C, Red Alert, Heroes of Might & Magic, Master of Magic Mods for Civilization II

[Blake00]

While I usually post about other peoples mods and indie projects etc that interest me I figured I'd start a thread about the stuff I'm working on these days...

Back in the 90s I used to muck around with Doom 2 and Civilization 2 modding but never finished any of my projects. Well in recent years I've been getting back into it (call it can early midlife crisis lol) and released a GZDoom enhanced version of my old Star Trek Doom level and also a new Quest for Glory IV - 3D Hexen mod too. Much to my surprise both got a lot of media attention with the QFG4-3D one in particular getting coverage on Rock Paper Shotgun and in PC Gamer Magazine which was awesome. The great response inspired me to also get back into my old Civilization 2 editing as well (also 20 years too late lol).




So over the last year or so I've been playing a lot of classic Civilization series and related games (eg Civ1,2,3, Colonization, Master of Magic, Alpha Centauri, Call To Power etc) and I returned to working on my 20 year old Star Wars Civ 2 scenario and also started a bunch of new projects with some other talented Civ2 modders.

Figured I may as well post about my projects in a thread here for passers by to either enjoy or ignore the nostalgia lol. I'll start with my Civilization 2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 scenario I'm working with someone else as this really helped me get back into Civ2 modding as the guy helping me taught me a lot of new tricks! My Star Wars, C&C, Red Alert and Master of Magic scenarios will come later!

This project is a total conversion Heroes of Might & Magic 2 scenario for the Multiplayer Gold Edition (MGE) of Sid Meier's Civilization II created by myself and MetroPolis. It was Inspired by Tom2050's amazing HoMM3 mod for Civ3 the goal is to create the most HoMM2 like experience within the limitations of the old Civ2 engine.

In the first dev diary we look at importing HoMM2 castle/city graphics into Civ2.

HoMM2 Dev Diary 01 - Creating Cities For The Civilization 2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod:
Dev Diary 01 - Creating Cities For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod news


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In this second dev diary we look at ‘HoMMafying’ all those Civ 2 advisor, city and event screens.

HoMM2 Dev Diary 02 - Creating Beautiful Backgrounds For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod:
Dev Diary 02 - Creating Beautiful Backgrounds For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod news



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In the third dev diary we look at changing Civ2’s leader portraits used for diplomacy with HoMM2 heroes and make a bold attempt at replacing Civ2’s original wonder videos.

HoMM2 Dev Diary 03 - Creating Custom Leaders & Wonder Vids For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod:
Dev Diary 03 - Creating Custom Leaders & Wonder Vids For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod news



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[Foxbat]

I’ve been playing a fair bit of Doom and Doom 2 in recent months, along with a ton of user made levels. My preferred platform now is Risen 3D. You should check it out sometime, it might inspire you

Risen3D Home Page

 

[Blake00]

I’ve been playing a fair bit of Doom and Doom 2 in recent months, along with a ton of user made levels. My preferred platform now is Risen 3D. You should check it out sometime, it might inspire you

Risen3D Home Page

Thanks! Let me know if you end up trying mine, but yeah it's still a very healthy scene and there's some amazing stuff out there.
Got confused for a sec as I thought you were talking about the other Risen game by the people who made the Gothic games haha. I think I've seen that custom fan engine before a while back.. looks cool! So you're making mods for it? Or working on the engine itself?

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Anyway to finish catching up here's the next 3 Civilization 2 - Heroes of Might & Magic 2 mod dev diaries made over the last few months...

In the fourth dev diary we look at changing Civ2’s throne room with a HoMM2 castle jigsaw while completely replacing the title screen plus intro, diplomacy herald and wonder videos with cool HoMM2 content.

HoMM2 Dev Diary 04 – New Throne Room, Intro, Dip & Wonder Videos For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/civilization-2-heroes-of-might-and-magic-2-mod/news/new-throne-room-intro-dip-wonder-vids



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In the fifth dev diary we look at adding new HoMM2 themed victory and death sequences plus custom city screen backgrounds.

HoMM2 Dev Diary 05 – Creating Victory/Death & City Backgrounds For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/civilization-2-heroes-of-might-and-magic-2-mod/news/creating-victory-death-city-backgrounds



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In the sixth dev diary we answer fan demands to show units while also showing off all city buildings and some small touch-ups to the city sky view.

HoMM2 Dev Diary 06 – Heroes, Units & City Buildings In The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/civilization-2-heroes-of-might-and-magic-2-mod/news/heroes-units-city-buildings



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[Foxbat]

looks cool! So you're making mods for it? Or working on the engine itself?

No. Just playing....but I’ll look out for your Star Trek level

 

[Blake00]

No. Just playing....but I’ll look out for your Star Trek level

Thanks! Although that one is going to be a while haha.

After months working on the huge Heroes of Might & Magic 2 Civ2 scenario I decided to turn my attention over to one of my other favourite franchises for some more fun Civ2 scenarios, the Command & Conquer and Red Alert universe! I started coming up with some pretty crazy ideas for huge Red Alert 2 Siege of New York scenario where you’ll be battling it out in city streets between huge sky scrapers however despite learning a lot from working on the HoMM2 scenario I wasn’t quite game enough to start that just yet. I’d also been thinking about a dark and moody scenario set in the C&C Tiberium universe and noticed that a fellow named Wonx2150 had already made a scenario in that universe but just hadn’t really done any proper graphics for it so I decided to take the easier route and remaster his scenario first to build up more experience before taking on the big Red Alert 2 scenario.

I created a ModDB page for the C&C project and have made a few dev diaries covering stages of development similar to the HoMM2 mod ones. Stay tuned for dev diaries for the Red Alert 2 scenario here in the future too!

In this first dev diary I look at changing Civ2’s terrain and cities to look like C&C2 as well as importing some cool new units.

C&C Dev Diary 01 - New terrain & units for the Civilization 2 - Command & Conquer Scenario
Dev Diary 01 - New terrain & units for the Civilization 2 - Command & Conquer Scenario news


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In the second dev diary I ask for some fan input and finish off importing all the new C&C unit graphics.

C&C Dev Diary 02 – Finishing all terrain & units for the Civilization 2 – Command & Conquer Scenario:
Dev Diary 02 - Finishing all terrain & units for the Civilization 2 - Command & Conquer Scenario news


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[M. Robert Gibson]

@Blake00 have you ever done any modding for the open source projects based on Civilisation? Or maybe could your mods be used in those games?

Here are my particular favourites

FreeCiv

Freeciv.org - open source empire-building strategy game.

Freeciv is a Free and Open Source empire-building strategy game inspired by the history of human civilization. The game commences in prehistory and your mission is to lead your tribe from the Stone Age to the Space Age.

freeciv.org

FreeCol

Home

FreeCol - a turn based strategy game

www.freecol.org

Unknown Horizons

Welcome to Unknown Horizons! — UnknownHorizons

unknown-horizons.org

 

[Blake00]

@M. Robert Gibson I'm not a programmer but yeah I'm involved in the FreeCol project and help those guys out with a few things. I actually run their ModDB page for them and you'll see my name all over their sourceforge forum posting about stuff (trying to improve their public image a bit as everything thinks they're dead lol!). I recently audited, approved and added Mazim's map pack into the game allowing for games on heaps of different maps now. I've talked about the possibility of doing a retro classic Colonization tileset mod for FreeCol there too but the programmers don't seem too enthusiastic about adding multi tileset support like FreeCiv has sadly.

And yeah as for FreeCiv I'm just a fellow fan that follows their work and plays every few years. Sadly there's very few total conversion mods for FreeCiv as its just so darn hard to mod. Nothing I've made for Civ2 could be easily converted due to the completely different engines.

Ahh thanks I didn't know about Unknown Horizons! I actually have a separate project going on at the moment looking for games similar to Colonization so this is going on the list with all the others I've found!

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[Blake00]

I guess it's time to finally show my Red Alert project I've been mentioning! All the skills I've learned making the Heroes of Might & Magic and Command & Conquer scenarios above is now being put into the hardest scenario I have ever attempted! A Red Alert 2 Siege of New York scenario where you'll be battling it out in city streets between huge sky scrapers.. and yes I know I'm crazy as that's totally something the Civ2 engine wasn't built for hahaha!

No new HoMM2 scenario dev diaries atm but there will be one soon as I'm about to do final testing.

Here are the first 3 dev diaries on the Red Alert 2 Siege of New York scenario. Disclaimer - Hopefully the final product will be waaaaay better than all these WIP test shots but I gotta start somewhere haha.

In this first dev diary we look at experimenting with Civ2's terrain limits & using some sneaky tricks to begin creating a Red Alert 2 style city map with Liberty island, bridges and buildings.

RA2 Dev Diary 01 - Liberty Island, Bridges & Buildings in the Civilization 2 - Red Alert 2 Scenario
Dev Diary 01 - Liberty Island, Bridges & Buildings in the Civilization 2 - C&C Red Alert 2 Scenario news

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In the second dev diary we look at adding bigger buildings, Command centers with walls, and lots of other nice decoration trying to push Civ2's terrain limits.

RA2 Dev Diary 02 - Bigger Buildings & More Decoration in the Civilization 2 - Red Alert 2 Scenario
Dev Diary 02 - Bigger Buildings & More Decoration in the Civilization 2 - C&C Red Alert 2 Scenario news

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In the third dev diary we look at adding special fun buildings like the McBurger Kong and Petrol Station, while overhauling all previously made small buildings to much better quality.

RA2 Dev Diary 03 - McBurger Kong & Better Quality Buildings in the Civilization 2 - Red Alert 2 Scenario
Dev Diary 03 - McBurger Kong & Better Quality Buildings in the Civ2 - C&C Red Alert 2 Scenario news

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[Blake00]

Here's another 2 new dev diaries from my big Civilization 2 Red Alert 2 scenario.

In this fourth dev diary we hit our stride and finish off all building types - big ones, little ones, and the biiiig difficult 3x3 super skyscrapers!

RA2 Dev Diary 04 - Final Super Buildings in the Civilization 2 - Red Alert 2 Scenario
Dev Diary 04 - Final Super Buildings in the Civilization 2 - C&C Red Alert 2 Scenario news

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In the fifth dev diary we finally finished all city buildings and base buildings allowing us to finalise the design of the map.

RA2 Dev Diary 05 – Finishing Bases & the Map for the Civilization 2 – Red Alert 2 Scenario
Dev Diary 05 - Finishing Bases & the Map for the Civilization 2 - C&C Red Alert 2 Scenario news

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[scholar-in-distress]

WOW! The CIV/HoMM crossover is great! It makes me wish I had not uninstalled the H2. Drat!
Do you happen to know if there are, by any chance, any mods for Civ5 or HoMM3?

 

[Blake00]

WOW! The CIV/HoMM crossover is great! It makes me wish I had not uninstalled the H2. Drat!
Do you happen to know if there are, by any chance, any mods for Civ5 or HoMM3?

Thanks yeah there's just something magical about combining those 2 great franchises!

Yeah I've been hunting for other HoMM mods for Civ games in this thread here:

Civilization Series Favourite Scifi/Fantasy TC Scenarios & Mods Hunt

Hey guys :) I’m on the Hunt for big Civilization game series total conversion mods & scenarios with a particular focus on Civ2 & Civ3 (but still looking at other Civ games too for future work) relating to a whole bunch of my favourite fantasy & scifi movie/TV/gaming franchises. Been posting in...

www.sffchronicles.com

However so far I've only managed to find Tom's amazing HoMM3 for Civ3 mod:

Conquests of Might & Magic 3 – HoMM3 Mod For Civilization 3

Woah!!! I’m a huge Civ and HoMM series fan so how the hell did I not know about this lol!!! Conquests of Might & Magic 3 – Civilization 3 Mod I’ll have to add this to my HoMM …

blakessanctum.wordpress.com

And of course there's the HoMM2 for Civ2 mod I'm working on in this thread.. but sadly I haven't found any HoMM mods for newer Civ games yet.

Shall keep looking!

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[scholar-in-distress]

Never played Civ3, from the 2nd part I went straight to 5, but perhaps now the time has come to try it out, if only for the Heroes of Might and Magic mod!

 

[Blake00]

Never played Civ3, from the 2nd part I went straight to 5, but perhaps now the time has come to try it out, if only for the Heroes of Might and Magic mod!

Yeah Civ3 was a disappointment to so many however modders have done great things with it over the decades since and Tom's HoMM3 mod is certainly a great example of that!

Btw sorry it's been so long since my last projects update everyone. I took a bit of a break from all my Civilization 2 modding projects to work on preserving other peoples Civ2 scenarios & mods across multiple sites (CivFanatics, ModDB & Internet Archive) as it became pretty apparent that so much great work had been lost over the last 20+ years and someone needed to do something to stop the rot. It's taken me most of 2021 but I've rescued collections containing thousands of old scenarios so hopefully most of what was lost is safe now! There's still plenty more out there I'm trying to find and rescue though.

Because it was recently the 30th anniversary celebration of Sid Meier's Civilization 1 I also took some time to release my Civilization 1 mods to the world along with some videos that show people how they can play Civ1 in HD with mods & scenarios on modern machines using a VM. These Civ1 videos kick off a huge video series I've been working on for years that will show fans how they can play all the classic Civ1-2-3etc/Col/MoM/CtP/AlphaC games in HD with some of the best mods and scenarios out there.

I didn't create dev diaries for these mods as they're pretty simple compared to my big Civ2 ones I've been posting about in this thread but I have done some info & release articles on ModDB. I very much look forward to the day this year I do my final release posts for all the Civ2 stuff in this thread haha.

Civilization 1 For Windows - Soundtrack Overhaul Mod Release!
Civilization 1 For Windows - Soundtrack Overhaul Mod Release! news

Civilization 1 – Play As Barbarians Scenario release!
Civilization 1 – Play As Barbarians Scenario release! news

 

[Blake00]

Well after so long since the last project update I guess it's time to post some new ones! Yes I'm finally back working on my mod projects again.

RA2 Dev Diary 06 – Units & Other Final Graphics for the Civilization 2 – Red Alert 2 Scenario
In this sixth dev diary for the Civ2 Red Alert 2 scenario we’re in the home stretch as the title loading screen plus all units, technologies, & base improvements are completed.
Dev Diary 06 - Units & Other Final Graphics for the Civilization 2 - C&C Red Alert 2 Scenario news

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HoMM2 Dev Diary 07 - New Diplomacy, Dragon Launch & Animating High Council For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod:
In this seventh dev diary for the Civ2 HoMM2 mod we take on the 3 final frontiers of Civ2 editing and change the diplomacy screen background, spaceship construction sequence, and grand council video advisors with cool HoMM2 content. In the case of the council I had to create animating versions of HoMM2 hero portraits!
Dev Diary 07 - New Diplomacy, Dragon Launch & High Council In The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod news

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[Blake00]

Finally got some more dev diaries done. Not long now till the release of the Civ2 HoMM2 mod below and then the others after it!

HoMM2 Dev Diary 08 - Custom Font Colours & Better Backgrounds For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod:
In this eighth dev diary we add custom font colours into Civ2 and completely overhaul all the ugly old GUI backgrounds.
Dev Diary 08 - Custom Font Colours & Better Backgrounds For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod news



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HoMM2 Dev Diary 09 - New Azure Dragon, Neutral City & H1 Addon For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod:
In this ninth dev diary we replace Matt's dragon with a mighty HoMM3 Azure dragon, add a 7th neutral faction city, and do some preliminary work on a future HoMM1 addon.
Dev Diary 09 - New Azure Dragon, Neutral City & H1 Addon For The Civ2 Heroes Of Might & Magic 2 Mod news