OpenCiv1 – open-source rewrite of Civ1
github.com115 points by caminanteblanco 10 hours ago
115 points by caminanteblanco 10 hours ago
> The game is still very popular and easy to play. But the obsoletness of DOS
Nothing obsolete about DOS when it comes to playing 2D games. Thanks to DOSBox and other emulators (FreeDOS is also not bad though) it is a fantastic OS (or virtual machine). DOS as a platform for (2D) games has never been better than it is today, on modern hardware running DOSBox.
This is a great idea. I do play Civ1 on my XT class machine (NEC V20 @ 10MHz, 1MB RAM, 64MB IDE, 256K Trident VGA, NE2000, Adlib) but the turn times are horrendous as this is a 1991 game being run on a 1982 CPU. Realistically, most people would have been playing on either a 286 or 386. Having the game available on modern hardware, I imagine it’d be far more enjoyable. I’ll give it a go.
While not exactly the same, there is also https://www.freeciv.org/
There are also some folks working on a similar project for Civilization 2. https://github.com/axx0/Civ2-clone
> The game logic is Based on original DOS Civilization 1 game version 475.05 disassembly.
Love more details on how this was done and the translation to human-readable code.
This is a cool project, but the author should note that they _are_ likely creating a derivative version of Civ1 here. It might look somewhat different, but that's clearly just 16-bit (?) intel opcodes in a slightly spicier form.
It's very unlikely this sort of approach will end up with a copyright-free codebase, though it might be useful as a source for a cleanroom approach. The author shouldn't be discouraged -- lots of other recompilation efforts work this was as well, but it's a muddy place to be.
It is very likely that no one cares if anyone cares about copyright.
If someone do in fact care, I'm sure someone else can organize an online donation for them tissues those who care can cry into.
Otherwise please accept that Civ I is effectively public domain.
Is there anything similar for Civ IV? So many top tier mods break after a while due to the same memory issues.
Since this requires some files from the original Civilization how do people obtain legal copies of the game? It's not available on Steam or GOG
(Or am I being hopelessly naïve by asking such a question?)
You go on eBay or similar site and you pay for a used copy on floppy or CD-ROM. Then using the appropriate tool you back those files up and use them for OpenCiv 1. Cheap, no. Convenient, no. But legal.
If you're lucky you stumble across it in a thrift store that wasn't paying particular attention and assumed it was a puzzle or a board game.
I still have the floppies and manual in a box in the attic. Bit of a hoarder in that way I’m afraid.
Question then is do I need to find a floppy drive to obtain the files or can I get them elsewhere.
Of course who knows if the floppy’s still work. I remember having problems with my Star Trek 25th anniversary floppies around 1996ish, and today it’s 30 years later.
I mean from a legal perspective, original media is the only recourse. But if we expand the options we're willing to avail ourselves of, there's a lot of high quality backups online.
So far as I know, Take-Two Interactive is extremely lenient, especially since they don't offer any way to purchase Civ1 or 2
Owning the original game does not automatically grant you right to make or use in derivative works.
I love how obsessed HN is with civilization. I put over 1000 hours into Civ 5 alone and was proud to beat diety (and then consistently beat diety). It's funny how many founders are big on civ. Zuck and Elon both apparently spent a lot of time during college on the series.
Is there a similar project for Masters of Orion?
There's another recommendation that I haven't tried, but I've played a bunch of https://rayfowler.itch.io/remnants-of-the-precursors and can recommend it.
I wish there were one for MOO2, though. With some modern rebalancing...
Can anyone give some hints on what made Civ 1 special compared to other classic entries in the franchise? Despite the nostalgia factor, of course.
In my opinion, Civ1 was fundamentally simpler than any other Civ game. It is like the difference between playing DOOM and Halo. Civ 1 has very few units, very few civ types, very few anything really. That means that it is easy to keep the whole game in your head at once. For me, its a totally different experience.
Honestly it feels to me that Civ1 - Civ2 is the most direct upgrade in the series. Civ 2 was mostly just a better civ 1. From civ4 onwards, the series was a lot more willing to shake things up in its gameplay.
Looks like C# completely taken over gamedev.
It's in the first party libraries now.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.numerics...
"OpenCiv1 uses .NET 8 and Avalonia UI framework" So.... way bigger filesize than the original game + dosbox running on a html server?
Nice exercise though, but I'll stick to the original.
By the way CivNet (civ1 + networking for Win 3.11) runs perfectly in Wine
We got civ 2, civ 3, and civ 1.
But when will we get the greatest civ ever, civ 4?
Time to pimp up my throne room
In Civ 1 you bring ameliorations to your palace, not throne room. Please hand in your geek card.