My memory may be wrong, but weren't the sequence of dance moves in the original manual? I think it was a form of anti-piracy- though playing it enough you could memorise the dance.
> I think it was a form of anti-piracy- though playing it enough you could memorise the dance.
The antipiracy measure in Civilization was possibly the weakest ever devised.
After playing the game for a while (so the player gets a demo), it will bring up a screen that displays the image of a technology and asks you to choose the prerequisites to that technology. You answer by selecting one of four multiple-choice options listing technology names.
So right off the bat you have a 25% chance of passing the check.
The intent is that you consult the manual, which lists the prerequisites for every technology and also displays the images. But you don't have to do that. You can consult the in-game Civilopedia, which does the same thing. (You can't do that while you're being asked to pass the check, but nothing stops you from doing it in advance.) Or, of course, you're likely to have the answer memorized, because this is a fundamental part of the way the game works.
Quizzing you with information from the manual which was also regularly relied on in gameplay, IIRC, was common in MicroProse games of the time (before they started using actual copy protection measures on the disks), not unique to Civ; as I recall, some of their combat simulators did similar things with weapon stats, vehicle silhouettes, etc.
I have fond memories of the "Dial-a-Pirate" [1] and similar copy protection wheels of Lucas Arts Games such as Monkey Island. I think I have them somewhere in a box.
At least in the remake, I think the dance minigame was randomized, but you could pretty easily play it perfectly. The dance partner does a little hand gesture to show you what to do next, and then you just hit he key in time with the music.
The antipiracy measure in Civilization was possibly the weakest ever devised.
After playing the game for a while (so the player gets a demo), it will bring up a screen that displays the image of a technology and asks you to choose the prerequisites to that technology. You answer by selecting one of four multiple-choice options listing technology names.
So right off the bat you have a 25% chance of passing the check.
The intent is that you consult the manual, which lists the prerequisites for every technology and also displays the images. But you don't have to do that. You can consult the in-game Civilopedia, which does the same thing. (You can't do that while you're being asked to pass the check, but nothing stops you from doing it in advance.) Or, of course, you're likely to have the answer memorized, because this is a fundamental part of the way the game works.