Turn length

Unrealistic turn length

Civilisation II turn length is as follows:

• 4000 BC - 1000 AD: 20 years per turn (total of 250 turns)

• 1000 AD - 1500 AD: 10 years per turn (total of 50 turns)

• 1500 AD - 1750 AD: 5 years per turn (total of 50 turns)

• 1750 AD - 1850 AD: 2 years per turn (total of 50 turns)

• 1850 AD - End of game: 1 year per turn (total of 170 to 250 turns depending on difficulty level)

The maximum map size is 10,000 tiles.

The surface area of the Earth is 510,100,000 km².

So each tile is 51,010 km².

So (assuming square tiles), the tile dimensions are 226 km, so a move between tiles is a distance of 226 km.

A legion in Civ II can move one tile per turn. At a conservative estimate that such a unit could move 5 km per day, and be on the move for 100 days per year, such a unit should be able to cover 10,000 km in 20 years, a distance that 44 times that of Civ II.

Realistic turn length

Is it possible to do realistic turn length without breaking the game? Probably not.

The time period covered by the game is:

• 6000 Years

• 72000 Months

• 312000 Weeks

• 2190000 Days

By contrast, the number of turns in Civ II was:

• Chieftan - 2100 AD (total of 650 turns)

• Warlord - 2080 AD (total of 630 turns)

• Prince - 2060 AD (total of 610 turns)

• King - 2040 AD (total of 590 turns)

• Emperor - 2020 AD (total of 570 turns)

So, even doing years evenly would be 10x the game length. And doing months would be 120x the game length.

There is a minimum amount of time for a player (and the AI) to complete a turn, so the actual playing time would be huge, and not fun.

Call turns turns

My preference then, given the impossibility of being realistic, would be to call turns turns, and not try and match them to years.