The news archive only dates back to 2000, unfortunately. I didn't save the news items from before that, and in the beginning there weren't any news items altogether. Only hyperlinks have been updated or removed, the rest of the news items has been left unchanged so some of it might not make any sense anymore. I'll leave you to it...

It's Alive!

29 January 2004 - Mercator - I thought an update was in order. I've had some computer problems in the past few months, but the problems have been solved and nothing was lost (except money).

As for the site, I moved the older news to a separate news archive page to reduce the clutter (and somewhat faster load times). I updated the links, most notably adding Catfish's Resources. I haven't done much else really, but there should be a "new" utility coming soon-ish, not to mention my damn map collection.

Links Update

8 October 2003 - Mercator - I removed, rearranged and added some more links. To be precise, I removed the Official Sites and Graphics sections, since I wasn't particularly fond of them, and the official sites were only about Civilization III anyway.

I created a Test of Time section, and a link to Kestrel's ToT site with it. I also added links to Geography World and the UN Cartographic Section.

More Useful Links

21 September 2003 - Mercator - The first addition to the new design is small, but very interesting nonetheless. I added a link to the home of CivMapGen, a powerful Civilization II map generator.

Apart from the links page update, my utility site has been busy too. I've added CivMapGen there as well and my sprite utilities have been updated.

My Eyes! *Gasp*

12 September 2003 - Mercator - In the past few years I have been hinting at a new site design. Here it is. While I had been working on a design since 2000, I pretty much started again from scratch about a month ago... If only I had worked so hard 3 years ago.

This site is best viewed with a latest generation browser (i.e. Opera 7, or if you must, Internet Explorer 6, Mozilla 1.4 and Netscape 7, or more recent versions) and a decent screen resolution (800 x 600 and higher, but I also tested at 640 x 480).

It should degrade gracefully, so even at lower screen resolutions and with older browsers (notably Netscape 4.x) the site is navigable. You might want to turn off (cascading) style sheets, if your browser even supports that, for a bare-bones version of this website. It might not look as pretty, but it gets you around.

So far, there isn't any new content, just a new design. In fact, only the reference (renamed from guides) and links sections have been "ported" to the new design so far (not to mention the news, awards and civilization2). The utilities and maps link back to the separate sections of the old site. The other downloads are available under legacy, which is the remainder of the old site, including all the downloads that were available.

In the coming weeks, or months, I will phase out the remaining parts of the old site (only the separate utility site will remain) and add my complete map collection of over 700 Civilization II maps. As you can imagine, that might take some time.

I'm still undecided as to what to do with the graphics, scenarios and patches, but I'll figure something out. The patches will definitely stay, and as for the rest, that might just become a miscellaneous section as part of the map collection.

Happy Birthday!

20 July 2003 - Mercator - The summer of 1998 was a good time for Civilization II. At least three websites saw their first light. The First Greek Civilization II Site merged with The Ultimate Civilization II Site to form the Apolyton Civilization Site. A site that grew to become possibly the single largest website dedicated to the Civilization game genre. Another new site was the Spanish Civilization II Site. Many happy returns to both of you!

Last but not least, this site also celebrates it's 5th anniversary. It arrived on the Internet on July 20th 1998. That makes this site one of the oldest still active Civilization II websites!

Anyway, to celebrate this anniversary I have... um... well, done nothing but post this lousy news item really. Better luck next time.

A Sign of Life

26 May 2003 - Mercator - A little late for news, but I'm proud to say that I received the Silver Fleece Medal from the Spanish Civilization II Site. You can admire it further below along with the other awards I've received.

With the new look of my host the Civilization Gaming Network (its new logo was designed by me, might I add), I also adjusted my own CGN "banners". While I was at it, I also updated a couple of other things that needed updating.

Utility Additions

14 December 2002 - Mercator - Three utilities have been added to my utility site. One of them is the long-awaited first Civilization II: Test of Time sprite editor! For more info about this go to my utility site.

And in case I don't see you anymore this year... Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Finally, some action!

27 November 2002 - Mercator - I thought it was about time for another update. And this time it's just a little more than the usual stuff. First of all, there's a new version of MapEdit, version 2.1 to be precise. The most important addition is the ability to export maps as C-Evo maps, an open-source Civilization-type game resembling Civ2. Go to my utility site for more info, and the latest downloads, obviously.

That brings me to the second part of the update. I moved all Civ2 utilities to the former MapEdit Mini Site, now called Mercator's Civilization2 Utility Site. I adjusted the site navigation to reflect the change.

Thirdly, I now have a more recent version of Leon Marrick's excellent Advanced Scenario Design document available! I'm afraid it's not quite the original anymore though. I found a copy with some extra sections on a site called CivMania. I added all of those sections. Most interestingly a section about adding rivers in a scenario!

Together with these changes, I finally got my site's title straight: Mercator's Civilization2 Site it is!

Hmmm, yes... I have to remind myself. I'm also working on an online HTML version of Allard's hex editing document. I believe some new details have been discovered too, so I might add those as well. Who knows, maybe once we'll actually find out all of the savegame structure... Goody!

MapEdit 2.0 Released

4 July 2002 - Mercator - Yep... MapEdit 2.0 is available now, and I created a special MapEdit Mini Site for it too, go there for downloads and more information. In case you're wondering, MapEdit is a map editing tool for Civilization II. It allows you to convert maps to bitmaps and vice versa, load maps from Civ2 savegames and scenarios, replace or swap terrain types, change starting locations, resize and reposition maps and much more...

Sire, we have discovered Map Making

13 June 2002 - Mercator - Another update again. I added a link to Favoured Flight's website and updated his scenario Moria to the latest version. Furthermore, I added a "new" utility, my Civilization II: Test of Time Map Editor. This is basically the MapEditor from the CivII Multiplayer Gold Edition, especially adapted to work with Test of Time. You can all finally edit your maps!

The last part of this update: I'm very close to finishing an update to MapEdit, so you can expect some bug fixes and plenty of new fancy features soon (e.g. a terrain replacer, a MapEdit palette editor and the ability to import maps from Civ2 savegames and scenarios)!

Community Fever

20 May 2002 - Mercator - It's almost scary how many updates there are these days. I must be ill... I added a few links on the links page, and made a little update to my Orbis scenario. The update's nothing special though. I just updated the e-mail address and site URL mentioned in the readme.

A Journey in the Dark

11 May 2002 - Mercator - As I promised, a new scenario is available. Favoured Flight's Moria: A Journey in the Dark is not your average Civilization 2 scenario. It's an adventure game set in Moria, one of the deepest, darkest places of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. Enjoy!

As a side note, the old location of this site now only links to here. All I have left to do now is get all the other Civ2 fan sites to update their links too.

Double Trouble

1 May 2002 - Mercator - The site is up again at the old location (my server quota have been reset)... That gave me the opportunity to copy some of the files and links that had been missing from the new location. Tomorrow I will take the old location down for good (but I'll leave a notice for a while).

While there were some files missing, there are also several new files already. There's a new scenario, a new guide, some new graphics, links and the Test of Time patches.

That reminds me, I'll be adding a new scenario too! (well I never, he's doing something after all).

A New Home!

27 April 2002 - Mercator - This site has been plagued with downtime for some time now, so it was time for another host. I'm now a proud member of the Civilization Gaming Network.

For the occasion I also finally updated some of the more outdated pieces of text, mainly on this front page. Apart from that though, there's not much new to discover. I'm mainly keeping this site up for the map database, so enjoy.

I'm also still working on an entirely new site, but I won't even dare give any promises about the appearance date of that one. I've been "working" on it since the summer of 2000, so only God knows when that will finally get done.

Wanted: Website/Database Helpers

16 March 16 2001 - Mercator - I'm looking for enthusiastic civers to help me improve this website! Are you a (dedicated) player of Civ2, interested in maps, map making and perhaps cartography in general? Do you have enough spare time? Then you might be interested in helping me expand and update my website and, in particular, my map database. Some knowledge of HTML and JavaScript would be helpful, but not necessary. Please contact me if you're interested.

This Site Has Moved!

8 March 2001 - Mercator - As a solution to the horrific SidGames.Com server I moved the site to my University webspace, which fortunately increased my maximum account size to 95MB. Not only does this get rid of the unreliable SidGames management and servers, it also means no more banners! Let's hope the university server doesn't crash...

The new URL is http://gene.wins.uva.nl/~jvermeir/civ2.

MapEdit Released

7 October 2000 - Mercator - And here it is, the moment you've all been waiting for: MapEdit, the map editing tool I've been working on since March 2000 is available now! Here are listed some of its capabilities:

Included with MapEdit is Harlan Thompson's European Map Maker, a giant bitmap with detailed terrain information. With this bitmap making Civ2 maps of any part of Europe becomes a piece of cake.

Surprise!

8 July 2000 - Mercator - Yes indeed, an update! This site hasn't been touched for the last year or so, and during this period I have considered many times to remove it. Due to the fact that this site is still being visited every day by numerous people (or so the statistics tell me), and the negative response I got from my suggestion of shutting it down, this site will prevail.

It is very unlikely there will be another update anytime soon (or any update at all), but I hope the current contents of the site will keep you busy for a while. Here's what I changed:

Since this site won't receive any updates, the upload section has been disabled. That means that no new files will be accepted, unfortunately.

A side note: I will finally be releasing my MapEdit application shortly. It's a Civilization 2 map editing tool, as the title might imply. This application might just appear on this site, if it doesn't, you can find it at Apolyton.

Orbis Terrae

18 January 2000 - Mercator - The first scenario of my hand, Orbis Terrae. The Circle of Lands is released! Download it now at the scenarios sub-section.

Apart from this, I'm afraid there's only sad news. You have all noticed that I haven't made any updates recently, and people who sent some of their material to me are probably disappointed it didn't appear yet. Due to the size of this site, the time it took me to complete the new look, and the fact that I have a study to take care of, I'm seriously considering to cut down on this site. Although this site will probably remain well after Civilization III has been released, I'm thinking of restricting it to become a maps only website (together with my own material). This way I'll have less to worry about, and I can focus on improving my map collection.

Any thoughts about this from your side are highly appreciated.