[HN Gopher] OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of...
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OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization
III
Author : klaussilveira
Score : 862 points
Date : 2026-02-06 21:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (openciv3.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (openciv3.org)
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I love that the community is doing this, though I'm curious why
| Civ 3 in particular. My understanding was that "classic" (for
| lack of a better term) Civ fans tend to prefer either 2 or 4, and
| that 3 was considered to be not as good. But perhaps I was
| mistaken as to the community's opinions on the games.
| toast0 wrote:
| FreeCiv covers civ 1 and 2 more or less.
|
| Personally, I didn't play much of 2 or 3, so I don't have
| strong feelings either way.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Freeciv's point of interest is that it's not trying to
| exactly replicate any one of the original Civs: it has its
| default ruleset plus others that are closer to the original
| games, but it's very easy to make your own.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Which FreeCiv? The one you install locally, or the one you
| play via browser on the Web?
|
| https://freecivweb.com/
|
| The latter has more, like Multiplayer 2.4 Dragoon, and
| Multiplayer 2.5 Elephant(in development), which weren't
| available locally when I last looked.
|
| There is also https://github.com/longturn/freeciv21 which
| has an acceptable local client, and finally does not slow
| down so much when playing larger maps with many AIs, like
| both FreeCiv and FreeCivWeb tend to do.
|
| https://longturn.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
|
| I tried that, recently, and _barely espcaped_ a relapse.
| (Phew!)
| culi wrote:
| UnCiv covers civ 5 as well so I think there's a place for
| something in between
|
| especially since openciv3 aims to fix some of civ 3's
| shortcomings
| bpye wrote:
| Til! I should give UnCiv a try, I've sunk a lot of hours
| into 5 but didn't know about this.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| I actually preferred Civ 3 to 2 and 4. It scratched a certain
| itch.
| data-ottawa wrote:
| 3 is still my favourite of the series. 5 was good too, but 3
| overall feels complete and had great graphics.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| The modding community was gigantic for 3 and was simply
| amazing being a part of it.
| yxhuvud wrote:
| 3 has a really nice feel when you manage to get the early
| timing attacks off against the neighbours, but the later half
| of the game is too solved - the game ends with infantry +
| artillery stacks being the only units you need, and with the
| 3x4 city grid bring optimal.
|
| 4 in contrast had a bunch of different paths to power, and
| those worked even on high difficulties. There were also no
| optimal city grid the same way (though still being denser
| than civ5).
| afavour wrote:
| > with capabilities inspired by the best of the 4X genre and
| lessons learned from modding Civ3. Our vision is to make Civ3
| as it could have been
|
| Looks to not be a straight remake. I wonder whether 3 is a
| preferable target because things like graphical complexity in
| >= 4 is too much.
| WildWeazel wrote:
| Well, "capabilities" is carrying a lot of weight there. One
| of the main objectives is to design it for unrestricted
| modding to accommodate all of the wishlisted features, but
| "out of the box" the default game mode will be 1:1 in
| mechanics with some QoL improvements. The inspiration is
| mostly for designing systems in a way that can be easily
| reconfigured or extended to behave in other ways. We hope
| that by the time we reach feature parity, people will have
| already built some mods to do things that were impossible
| with Civ3.
|
| As mentioned above this was started by Civ3 modders, and we
| all have our passionate reasons for preferring it over other
| entries, but you're not wrong that doing this with a 3D
| engine would be a whole `nother ballgame. There are actually
| Civ4 and Civ5 remakes underway which have both opted for 2D
| implementations.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Is 3 the one with forced retirement?
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Not sure, I only started the series with 4.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Civ 1 and 2 have already been done, so if you want to play
| those, hit up freeciv.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I'm aware. But why rebuild 3 rather than 4, in that case?
| apothegm wrote:
| Because 4 was a travesty unless you're REALLY into
| religion.
|
| 3 was a great game for those who prefer building over war,
| and the first one with a proper non-military victory
| option.
| packetlost wrote:
| 3 is my favorite in the series, but maybe that's not a popular
| take.
| caminanteblanco wrote:
| I can definitely vouch for the 2 or 4 narrative, those have
| always been my favorites of the 'Modernish' civ games, but my
| favorite will always be CivNet (Civ 1 with multiplayer). There
| is some real simplicity in Civ 1 that makes it much better
| suited to a multiplayer experience than the later entries. It
| is a real pain to get any non-hotseat multiplayer working
| nowawdays, but well-worth it.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I love civ 1 so so much.
| npunt wrote:
| Agree, wish there were quality of life improvements to Civ1
| that kept the simplicity and aesthetics fully intact, while
| modernizing some of the tedious mid/late game stuff like
| managing each city in a large empire based on some
| straightforward goals like 'more science' or 'fastest path to
| rocketry' or whatnot.
|
| Freeciv unfortunately has none of the charm of Civ1.
| WildWeazel wrote:
| Because it was born out of the Civ3 modding community which has
| been wanting a remake for 20+ years.
|
| Sounds like you've been listening to Civ4 fans. ;) 3 is just as
| active on steam and has a very active and loyal multiplayer
| league.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Fair enough, thanks!
| stodor89 wrote:
| Here's a perspective on "why civ 3" by one of the best civ 3
| players: https://youtu.be/IOvWgfZiHGo?si=uvTWTaRQsfxE_ffN
| II2II wrote:
| Thank you for the link. It is enlightening for someone who
| likes to play the game, but is not obsessive about a
| particular version. (I like the idea of Civilization, and
| will play it for that reason alone. More often than not, I
| will choose an older version simply because it is faster to
| load and play than for the intrinsic merits of the ruleset
| itself.)
| thrance wrote:
| There's Freeciv [1] for _IV_ , and Unciv [2] for _V_. _I_ doesn
| 't have many fans, _VI_ is too recent, and _VII_ , well...
| Let's not talk about _VII_.
|
| > Civ fans tend to prefer [...]
|
| I'd say, each entry in the series gets love. The saying goes:
| "Your favorite Civ game is the first one you ever played". In
| my experience, that's pretty true (Still stuck on _V_ ).
|
| [1] https://www.freeciv.org/
|
| [2] https://github.com/yairm210/Unciv
| bee_rider wrote:
| Yeah as a Civilization: Call to Power fan I have to say the
| "first game in the series I tried" affinity bonus is
| overwhelming.
|
| Alpha Centauri was objectively the best though.
| GaryBluto wrote:
| Interestingly enough, the Call to Power series was
| unaffiliated with Sid Meier's Civilization and was
| developed after Activision licensed the name from the board
| game Civilization was unauthorizedly based upon. There was
| a sequel called just "Call to Power II" in case you missed
| it, which had it's source code released in 2003 in case
| you're feeling nostalgic.
|
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/civilization-ownership-
| dispute...
| spiritplumber wrote:
| https://paeantosmac.wordpress.com/ This you may appreciate
| chocochunks wrote:
| I think the first Civ I played WAS III (maybe II at a
| friend's house once before?) and it ain't my fav. It sits
| below IV and V and even VI and I don't really like VI all
| that much either...
| acessoproibido wrote:
| For me the most classic one is Civ III by a mile. 4 was way too
| modern/ flashy for me and 2 too old school. But maybe I was
| just born at the right time for 3.
| rpiguy wrote:
| You can turn off a lot of the Civ 4 flash and it will feel
| more like Civ III.
|
| But to each his own. Civ 4 was the first one that really,
| really hooked me.
| rmunn wrote:
| For me it was Civ 4's modability that made it the best for
| me. Because when I got tired of playing Civ 4's normal
| game, I could install the Fall From Heaven mod and play a
| completely different game. Wizards, golems, angels, demons,
| spells, wild animals instead of barbarians (which could be
| tamed and turned into your own units if you had units with
| the right promotions)... it made for a completely different
| gameplay experience.
|
| If I hadn't quit computer games cold turkey (when I
| realized I was showing all the signs of addiction) over a
| decade ago, I would still have Civ IV installed and still
| be playing it today. It just didn't get old, because of how
| varied the game could become.
| TheGRS wrote:
| Can I tangent on your question here and ask what others think
| of Civ 7 now? When I learned about it I thought it was a day 1
| game purchase for me for sure, but I held off when I saw a
| stream of bad reviews. I figured I'd come back when they ironed
| the problems out (as they've done in every major Civ release to
| my memory). Haven't taken the plunge yet.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I'm holding off on 7 myself. I think they deviated too hard
| from the formula such that it doesn't look like it's even
| still a Civ game. And while I'm open-minded enough to try it,
| I wasn't going to drop $70 on a game I had reason to suspect
| I would dislike. I figured I would wait until it was on game
| pass, or on sale for $5 someday.
|
| More recently I read that they are going to update the game
| such that you don't have to switch civs. That's a good start
| (though I still don't think I will like the era system at
| all), but reading the initial reviews a year ago I found out
| that the game cuts off abruptly in the mid 20th century,
| rather than going to the information age like normal. To me,
| that is blatantly unfinished, so I'm not planning to get the
| game until they fix that as well.
| JojoFatsani wrote:
| Civ is like TOS Star Trek movies: You can mostly avoid the
| even numbered ones!
| apothegm wrote:
| With the exception of Civ2, which was excellent.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| With TOS Star Trek movies, the usual claim is that you
| should avoid the _odd_ numbered ones.
| ntnsndr wrote:
| Except that 6 is far and away the best
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| It is _rough_. People say it has gotten better since release,
| but if you have not played it before, and were to play it
| fresh right now, it is not great. The UI is both dense and
| vapid at the same time, UI glitches/bugs, jarring all-or-
| nothing lock-step advancement of ages, etc.
| JBAnderson5 wrote:
| They built it as a railroady board game instead of a sandbox
| video game. The rumors from their experimental workshop test
| and latest announcement make me hopeful for a big update in
| the spring. Until then, it doesn't feel worth playing it more
| than a couple times through. Every game feels the same.
| izacus wrote:
| Trying to streamline the series into a boardgame seems to
| be a trend. Even Civ6 felt more like a boardgame for points
| than a sandbox already, even though it was still rather
| enjoyable.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Perhaps not coincidentally, Ed Beach has been a board
| game designer in the past. Which is not to say he's the
| wrong guy for the job, he has done some great work on
| Civ5 BNW and Civ6. But perhaps he went overboard on 7.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I was big into Civ4. Put about 100 hours into Civ5 and felt
| that I'd entirely exhausted its strategic depth. Didn't
| bother with Civ6. Tom Chick hasn't bothered reviewing Civ7
| but doesn't seem to be a fan based on forum comments, so I
| won't be bothering to play it.
| JimDabell wrote:
| I've played and loved Civ 1/4/5/6 for hundreds of hours each.
| They have always been a bit rough around the edges on launch,
| but 7 is the first time I've felt like they a) released a
| half-finished game, b) reduced the game to something that is
| just plain unenjoyable, and c) made me feel ripped off. It's
| a massive downgrade in so many different ways and I would
| pick any previous version over 7. I have loved playing Civ
| for decades but 7 killed my interest in the game completely.
| daotoad wrote:
| Anecdata:
|
| I'm a Civ3 hater, give me 2 or 4 any day. 3 is my least
| favorite version of the game.
|
| But, OTOH, my wife is ride or die for Civ3.
| cyphar wrote:
| I must admit that there is a certain sense of nostalgia I get
| from playing Civ 3 that I never got from any of the other Civ
| games, but that's probably just because it was the first Civ
| game I played and got really hooked on as a young kid.
| GaryBluto wrote:
| I very much enjoy Civ 2 and 3 and would've played 3 more, but
| the 3d rendered sprites make it much more of a pain to add
| anything graphical to.
| danielparsons wrote:
| civ 5 is now the most popular among hardcore civ fans. still in
| the top 100 games on steam. more than 2x the player count of
| its sequel
| distances wrote:
| It is a great game, and the Vox Populi mod has given it so
| much more life.
|
| VP has hands down the best AI that the Civ series has ever
| seen. My "wow" moment was when the enemy parachuted to my
| hinterlands to pillage my critical resources. In comparison,
| the official AI couldn't even pull off an amphibious attack.
| sevenseacat wrote:
| that was my first thought, I was gonna show my husband this but
| he's a Civ 2 ride or die
| tfehring wrote:
| Civ III is still my go-to activity for long flights with no
| internet - I've yet to find a better way to instantly time-travel
| forward 12 hours.
|
| I haven't tried OpenCiv3, but I'm glad it exists - getting
| vanilla Civ III running on MacOS is a hassle and still has issues
| with e.g. audio and cutscenes. I also hope it leads to a way to
| improve worker automation. Managing your workers well is
| important, doing it manually is tedious, and the built-in
| Automate feature is really bad.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The key here is seeing this mentioned and not time traveling
| forward until 6 AM Saturday morning.
| donw wrote:
| Yeah, that's what Factorio is for.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| Factorio is a game about bird songs.
| skeltoac wrote:
| You won't get me this time.
| playa1 wrote:
| Sleep is the bottleneck.
| mikeaskew4 wrote:
| There goes my weekend...
| kilroy123 wrote:
| How did I not ever think to do this? Such a good idea.
| b3ing wrote:
| I like Civilization games but they make 4hrs feel like 30min,
| so I can't play them. Otherwise it would be the year 2060
| already
| mr_toad wrote:
| I feel like my last words could be 'just one more turn'.
| lossyalgo wrote:
| Wasn't that meme initially created by players talking about
| Civ games?
| huevosabio wrote:
| Yes, exactly I had to stop myself starting the game after 7
| else I don't sleep
| philihp wrote:
| Can we settle for Factorio and 2028?
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| Slightly tangential but recently I've gotten into the
| Ilwinter Game Design games Dominions 6 and Conquest of
| Elysium 5. I was surprised how similar but how different they
| are to Europa Universalis and Civilization respectively. Very
| interesting studies in horizontal game design where every
| faction has dramatically different gameplay strategies.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| > I've yet to find a better way to instantly time-travel
| forward 12 hours
|
| I find it very hard to use a computer in the cramped tables of
| the plane. And the person in front always ends up aggressively
| reclining only when I have a laptop out. Plus I feel bad that
| maybe my bright light is disturbing the people sleeping next to
| me.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| It amazes me that high paid SV techies won't pay more to fly
| in premium or business
| SilverElfin wrote:
| It's incredibly expensive on international flights, right?
| A 12 hour flight sounds like something that would cost
| thousands for business class.
| stevage wrote:
| I remember being a high paid techie getting 19 hours of
| paid work done between Melbourne and New York, on a laptop
| in economy (and a long layover in LAX due to a storm). It
| was fricking glorious, most productive day of my life.
| lossyalgo wrote:
| How did you run your laptop for 19 hours in economy class
| without a power plug? Not even M-series MacBooks last
| that long.
| cyphar wrote:
| Business class flights from Sydney to San Francisco cost
| A$6k, 6-10x as much as economy. Flights from Sydney to
| Europe are more like 3-4x (A$7k vs A$2k) but still
| ludicrously expensive. Good luck convincing your company to
| expense that for work trips, and most of us don't have SV
| salaries. Honestly, I still manage to get some work done on
| long flights, the more annoying thing is flights which
| don't have power outlets or WiFi.
|
| If you are a point hacker you could spend the points on
| upgrades (which tend to give you better rates than buying
| base tickets) but then you're paying for a minor comfort
| improvement that you wouldn't pay for normally -- which is
| a textbook example of induced consumption and is playing
| into exactly how airlines want you to use points.
| bpye wrote:
| > flights which don't have power outlets
|
| Or ones which do but the outlets are so loose they are
| practically useless.
| dbetteridge wrote:
| Not everyone on hackernews is paid SV salaries?
|
| That plus flights from Australia are expensive enough in
| economy, business class is easily 4-10x that cost.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Aren't there any airlines traveling to and from Australia
| that offer something midway in between sardine and
| business class?
| pintxo wrote:
| Not everyone on here is necessarily from SV?
| bpye wrote:
| When I fly transatlantic I don't mind paying to get an exit
| row or bulkhead seat, but even just premium economy is a
| much more significant increase in cost over economy, at
| least flying from Canada.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| The total war games are like civilization but with actually
| good combat. Especially if you get mods like DEI for Rome 2,
| RTR for Rome 1 remastered, etc. It's regrettable that we let
| the grimdark warhammer crowd define the series.
|
| The paradox grand strategy games are like civilization but with
| real agency and at times straight up historical accuracy.
|
| Meanwhile I have to deal with Ghandi actually nuking everyone
| (the bug is ACTUALLY REAL IN CIV 5, the best modern civ game!).
| Not sure why Indians aren't mad as hell at the whole series.
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| I have found paradox games to have uneven game mechanics;
| some run miles wide, some of them run deep, and many others
| are just very superficial, and there is no reliable
| indication which will be which when you are playing fresh.
| jjmarr wrote:
| Check out Terra Invicta.
|
| It's like the modern-era Paradox game you wanted but all
| the mechanics synergize with each other.
|
| Unfortunately it's a _bit_ too complicated as a result.
| izacus wrote:
| There's no better story generators than those games though,
| even Civs don't quite compare.
| ddp26 wrote:
| How do you manage the laptop + mouse?
| Gud wrote:
| track point
| tfehring wrote:
| 13" Macbook Air, I rarely use a mouse to begin with. Trans-
| Pacific flights usually have a few extra inches of legroom
| compared to domestic flights, so it's not that cramped even
| in economy (and obviously a non-issue in premium economy or
| business).
| jwilliams wrote:
| It _used_ to be Factorio for me (I live in Australia, so long
| flights happen a lot). The problem with Factorio the flight isn
| 't long enough! and the game bleeds into 100+ hours post-
| flight.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Dwarf Fortress. That's _really_ how to suddenly say "Oh, how
| did it get to 4am already?"
| bpye wrote:
| I lost the best part of a week of my Christmas break to it
| when the Steam version was released a couple years back...
| lossyalgo wrote:
| DF gets all the news (rightfully so, it's an epic game that
| I've dumped a ton of hours into) but if you haven't
| already, consider checking out Songs of Syx. It's like DF
| but multiplied by 100. You can have tens of thousands of
| citizens, doing most of the things they do in Dwarf
| Fortress, and a lot more, including waging huge wars
| against the neighbors. The limits of DF kinda made me sad,
| actually, that you are limited to so few Dwarves (and don't
| say it's because you want to know the story of all of them,
| because after 30 or so you lose track of who is who
| anyways, so might as well up the limit from 100 to 50K, or
| more? ;) Songs of Syx has also routinely been getting
| massive updates since 2020 and I have a feeling the code is
| a bit cleaner so the solo dev can add features faster
| (unlike DF's code base which is, according to one of the
| new devs a nightmare to work with). It's a game that is
| never talked about but deserves a whole lot more love from
| gamers.
|
| I don't mean to cast shade on DF, I really do love it, and
| am happy for its existence, I just think that DF fans
| should also look into Songs of Syx.
|
| The defining difference for me are the generated stories in
| DF, which often are a lot of random trash but still give a
| feeling of a deeper meaning.
| felixthehat wrote:
| Yeah civ VI on my iPad with an apple pencil kills flights
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Any chance the AIs will be easily extensible?
| WildWeazel wrote:
| Hopefully yes, because so far none of us are AI programmers...
|
| but seriously yes everything about the game will be designed
| for customization
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| How does this compare with https://freeciv.org for game play =3
| dleslie wrote:
| Not sure, when Civ2Civ3 is now the default ruleset in Freeciv.
|
| https://freeciv.fandom.com/wiki/Civ2civ3
| WildWeazel wrote:
| Gameplay wise this is a straight remake of Civ3 as a baseline,
| while allowing much greater customization. Freeciv is
| definitely an inspiration, but it's kind of its own thing.
| jrm4 wrote:
| uh oh
|
| yeah, that's dangerous for me, this is the ONE that got me
| started
| reconnecting wrote:
| Interesting choice of version.
|
| I just realised that the actual latest version of Die Ha...
| Civilization is VII (2025), and for me II remains the gold
| classic.
|
| Both in Civilisation and in Die Hard.
| WildWeazel wrote:
| Hi all, OpenCiv3 founder here. Thanks for the support! Check us
| out on Civfanatics or Discord to keep up with the project.
| slazaro wrote:
| Any interesting insights about using Godot with C#? I love C#
| and I'm happy using it in Godot even though it's not as
| seamless as in Unity: in Godot 4 we still can't export to Web
| if the project is C#, and there's the whole conversion between
| C# types and Godot types that adds inefficiencies and extra
| allocations, etc.; it feels like it's a second-class language
| in Godot.
|
| I'm always interested in seeing what people find when
| developing larger projects in C#.
| huevosabio wrote:
| We were building on C# Godot and I think it is a second class
| citizen in the sense that 1) you can't export to wasm and 2)
| they are moving the interface to be handled by gdextension.
|
| That said, I think once you get the gist of it and understand
| the landmines, it is really nice to use vanilla dotnet rather
| than unity's fork.
| WildWeazel wrote:
| The founding developers were all software engineers with .NET
| experience, so it was the natural choice even though at the
| time it was Godot 3.x with Mono. I had used Unity before but
| not Godot. The project is structured as mostly plain C# DLLs
| with a relatively thin Godot UI layer controlling it, so the
| Godot type system is fairly encapsulated. We haven't really
| seen any issues with those decisions beyond just working out
| the communication between Godot and DLL. But again we were
| just working from what we knew so I can't really say if this
| was the best way to go about it.
| Arwill wrote:
| I have this principle of "5% scripting". If the high level
| scripting on top of C++ consumes about 5% of frame time, then
| the language of the script does not matter.
| popalchemist wrote:
| Have you considered adding LLM features for the negotiations?
| Could be cool.
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| You are getting downvoted, but this is a cool idea. Diplomacy
| has historically been a weak part of the series, and being
| able to shore that up may be a lot of fun to play against.
| ant6n wrote:
| Maybe ask Ghandi for his favorite scone recipe, so that he
| won't nuke you.
| N_Lens wrote:
| Gandhi*
| chongli wrote:
| I would say diplomacy is the most misunderstood feature of
| the series. Players constantly _say_ they want a stronger
| AI that 's smarter at diplomacy. But whenever they have
| built an AI like that, their play testers complained that
| it doesn't behave like a real world leader (too ruthless).
|
| This experience led Soren Johnson (co-designer of Civ III
| and lead designer of Civ IV) to the realization that Civ
| AIs are supposed to "play to lose" [1].
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJcuQQ1eWWI
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| That makes sense, but at the end of the day, it may be
| more fun to play around with opponents that act more
| relatedly. This could take the form of in-game/session-
| appropriate diplomatic responses that don't read like
| pre-canned text, or, having explanatory text for why the
| AI is acting perhaps in goofy ways (which comes up a
| lot).
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| I am so tired of game designers/developers being so
| pathetically wrong about stuff like this. Modders have to
| CONSTANTLY fix these boneheaded, user hostile decisions
| in nearly every game. A lot of game developers are not
| the people actually loving/playing their games in the
| same way that the cello maker is usually not the cello
| player.
|
| Even many popular mods fuck this up! DEI in Total War
| Rome 2 needs _submods_ to make the AI play by the same
| rules as the player!!! This is top of the most subscribed
| list right now FOR A REASON!!! https://steamcommunity.com
| /sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=36258...
|
| Make the AI play by the exact same rules as the player.
| Make a scaling AI difficulty slider which goes from "piss
| easy" to "insane grandmaster" but without cheats. It's
| not that hard to do this, the chess engine crowd figured
| it out back in 2001. FEAR figured it out in 2004. Game AI
| has straight up not improved and at many times gotten
| worse in the ensuing two decades.
| chongli wrote:
| _It 's not that hard to do this, the chess engine crowd
| figured it out back in 2001._
|
| They really didn't. No one likes playing against weaker
| chess engines. They play perfectly like a higher-rated
| engine and then randomly make an obvious blunder. They
| don't play naturally like a human player of that rating.
|
| The weaker AIs in Civ games do a far better job at
| "playing to lose" than low rated chess engines. It's not
| even close!
| stevage wrote:
| Yeah, the ability of chess engines to play like a human
| of a given rating is a pretty recent development.
|
| And it's still a constant complaint that Stockfish
| suggests moves that no human could really play and follow
| up correctly.
| wilson090 wrote:
| you may be interested in https://www.paxhistoria.co/
| nkmnz wrote:
| No information on the website, but a login. Suspicious.
| wilson090 wrote:
| https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/pax-historia
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| Bizarre that this got YCombinator funding. Not obvious
| how it scales.
| anthonyIPH wrote:
| From what I've seen with projects like this, the successful
| ones do a good job of 'sticking to the mission' of faithfully
| recreating the original game in a modern engine (openMW,
| daggerfall unity, all my points of reference are TES related)
|
| The neat part is that they are open source, so anyone who
| wants to take it in a different direction can fork it. The
| multiplayer version openMW being a great example of this.
| WildWeazel wrote:
| not sure if serious...
| Marsymars wrote:
| Even if you don't want an LLM for the actual functionality
| of negotiations, LLM-generated text would be neat. As-is,
| the text becomes irrelevant, "Our words are backed with
| nuclear weapons" is just "nukes = true" - letting an LLM
| tell you the AI has nukes seems like harmless fun.
| popalchemist wrote:
| Lifelong Civ player. I have always felt the negotiations
| part of the game is laughably bad, and a huge missed
| opportunity. The ability to use language as a tool --
| diplomacy, but also rhetoric, veiled threats, etc -- is
| something I excel at, and I would love the chance to test
| my mettle against an enemy in an imaginary nuclear war
| context, because when else do you get to play high stakes
| games like that with words in real life? Civ is the perfect
| venue for it, but the game designers are extremely
| boneheaded about how they executed that particular part of
| the game.
| ukuina wrote:
| Would it be feasible to add an API to OpenCiv3 (or run it as an
| SDK) so we can script up actions?
| WildWeazel wrote:
| There will certainly at least be (technically already is) a
| Lua scripting interface for mods. We've hand-waved some talk
| of a proper C# SDK but have no concrete plans yet.
| davely wrote:
| Oh my, this brings me back! One of my fondest gaming memories
| involves a massive Civilization 3 PBEM match between a number
| of Civilization fan sites, where we all had private forums and
| ran these virtual nations against each other. This was way back
| in 2002 or 2003!
|
| I believe Civfanatics was in it (run by "Chieftess" if I
| recall), Apolyton (which I was a member of -- elected in as
| Minister of Public Works and had to come up with a plan to
| clear our pesky jungles) and a number of other sites.
|
| It was such an awesome time. Real diplomacy and trade
| negotiations between the fan sites while waiting to play our
| turns. Man, it was fun.
| Brendinooo wrote:
| I didn't do that stuff but I remember...was it Kryten? Making
| a multi unit graphic utility, I used it to make and publish
| some multi units. Fun times. CivFanatics was great.
| WildWeazel wrote:
| I was also there at Civfanatics watching from the sidelines.
| Fond memories indeed, and some of those same people laid the
| foundations for this project.
| jcurbo wrote:
| This is great stuff! Civ3 is still by far my favorite Civ. And
| a nice use of Godot.
| klaussilveira wrote:
| Thank you for creating such a badass project.
| bigcat12345678 wrote:
| Yes CIV3 still feels to me the peak Civ experience.
|
| The content is a bit lacking though, would see more diversity in
| tech tree, and units.
| tbmtbmtbmtbmtbm wrote:
| looks super cool. I'm a lifelong civ player but my first one was
| civ 4, so this seems like a fun chance to dip into some of the
| earlier ones. love that they're using Godot for the engine!
| d_silin wrote:
| Another awesome game - Civ II inspired.
|
| http://www.c-evo.org/
| axus wrote:
| Loved this one; from the same guy who wrote Scanner which was
| nice before WinDirStat and WizTree. You could add AI plugins
| which could take the role of a player, without cheating.
|
| http://www.steffengerlach.de/freeware/
| d_silin wrote:
| Yep, I even wrote one and made a mod of C-Evo (long time
| ago).
| jlarocco wrote:
| I don't know about the dedicated Civilization fans, but 3 was the
| only version I played.
|
| I didn't play it much, but when I did I'd play for 6+ hours at a
| time. I'll check this out later tonight, and might see if I can
| find the old CD and get the original running.
| sevensor wrote:
| Ooof, good luck. Civ3 copy protection was intense. I had to get
| out my old Win2k disk and stand up a VM. Attempts to rip an iso
| will be complicated by the fact that they deliberately wrote
| bad data to the disk. All of this is surmountable, but unless
| you enjoy a very particular kind of fun, you may prefer to
| spend $2 on GoG.
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| Wake me up when OpenCiv4, but only when there's an option for
| smart AI rather than boosted fake AI.
|
| I remember losing 6pm to 3am playing civ 4 one time. One more
| turn...
|
| (But I'm not sure what I need openCiv for... the steam game is
| good. Maybe its just useful for the long term.)
| 1980phipsi wrote:
| I would love to see someone use modern machine learning
| techniques to make a kick ass Civ AI.
| Marsymars wrote:
| Genuine question - would that be amenable to _fast_ AI? It 's
| less of a problem on modern PCs running Civ4, but on
| contemporary systems late-game large maps with many AI/units
| could really drag during turn-processing.
| lurk2 wrote:
| You don't necessarily need it to learn during the game, it
| would be enough for it to learn between games. If you've
| played the game long enough there are behaviors you can
| exploit that wouldn't work against a human player. They
| iterated on the AI in Beyond the Sword and fixed some of
| the more abusable mechanics in Civilization V (e.g. by
| introducing diplomatic penalties when you camp units next
| to an AI's borders), but it's just inevitable that once
| you've played a game long enough you will find these kinds
| of exploitable patterns.
|
| The customization available in IV makes it basically
| infinitely replayable, but the AI makes the trajectory of
| each game too predictable if you understand the mechanics
| well enough.
|
| Lots of old strategy games have been revived by introducing
| new factions that change the game's meta; imagine if this
| process was automated by training the AI on recorded games
| from the entire playerbase, or on games recorded locally to
| adapt to the user's unique style of play.
| JojoFatsani wrote:
| Civ4 is super cheap on Steam BTW
| syngrog66 wrote:
| UnCiv is the best FOSS clone of Civ I've played
| rl3 wrote:
| It's really cool to see projects like this designed for dropping
| in assets from the proprietary version. The separation in the
| first place is unfortunate, but at least the capability exists.
|
| Civ III in my opinion had some of the best art of the entire
| series. The 3D feeling of the successor games are kind of off-
| putting by comparison.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Isn't that pretty common for the open source remakes? Let the
| programmers focus on the coding and outsource the art.
| rl3 wrote:
| Yeah, I just think it's cool when they achieve drop-in
| compatibility.
| caminanteblanco wrote:
| For those like myself who have wanted this but for Civ1 (all 4 of
| us), someone on CivFanatics has made incredible progress, and the
| game is actually playable now: https://github.com/rajko-
| horvat/OpenCiv1
| yobert wrote:
| I'm with you-- civ 1 is by far the best! I adore the wonky
| graphics. None of the new ones hit the same.
| culi wrote:
| So there's
|
| - OpenCiv1
|
| - FreeCiv (civ 2)
|
| - OpenCiv3
|
| - ???
|
| - UnCiv
|
| I'm curious why civ 4 is the one that got skipped. I feel like
| it's the one that is most commonly labelled as the "peak"
| Qem wrote:
| None for Alpha Centauri yet?
| HiPhish wrote:
| There is this one: https://github.com/afwbkbc/glsmac
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Those that like civ 4 are still playing civ 4 and have no
| time left to develop
| jmyeet wrote:
| I have a long history with the Civ series. I spent a massive
| amount of time playing Civ1. My next most played was Civ4 and
| most of that wasn't the base game. It was a mod that had a very
| loyal fan base: Fall From Heaven 2 [1]. I have tried a couple of
| times to get all this to work on a modern PC but I think I'm
| played out on the game and I never quite get it off the gorund. I
| have a ton of nostalgia for it though.
|
| Civ5 started the whole hex thing, which I was never excited
| about. Yes, Civ4 had stacks of doom but Civ5 turned into a puzzle
| of moving units in order because you could only have one per hex.
|
| Anyway, Civ2 and Civ3 never got as much play from me. I'm a
| little surprised that people had the same enthusiasm. My memory
| of these 2 was that they just added a bunch of tedium, like I
| distinctly remember that tile improvement changed to turning
| farms into supermarkets. It's been a lot of years so I might be
| misremembering. Maybe I just dind't give them enough time. Or
| maybe nothing could capture my initial enthusiasm for the novelty
| that was Civ1.
|
| Anyway, i'm always happy to see projects like this. Games really
| do live forever. Like people will invent software for free to
| keep running them (ie emulators).
|
| The Civ series has kinda defied the usual trend to
| entshittification. I'm really thinking of SimCity here. It's hard
| to describe how much EA shit the bed with SimCity %, so much so
| that it basically launched Cities: Skylines, which itself has had
| issues with the CS2 launch.
|
| Does Civ3 have a massive fanbase compared to Civ1, Civ2 or Civ4?
| I really don't know.
|
| [1]: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/mod-fall-from-
| heaven-...
| danielparsons wrote:
| I love the hex system - adds a lot of tactical depth. Choice of
| naval vs air vs land focus often comes down to who you're
| fighting and where. Then you turn around to fight someone else
| and realize your 20 veteran frigates are near useless despite
| your new enemy being coastal because all of their cities are
| tucked away in bays or behind hills...
| cwillu wrote:
| "Mac will try hard not to let you run this; it will tell you the
| app is damaged and can't be opened and helpfully offer to trash
| it for you. From a terminal you can xattr -cr
| /path/to/OpenCiv3.app to enable running it."
|
| How far OSX has come since the days of the "cancel or allow"
| parody advert.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| To be fair, the threat landscape changed, too.
| antiframe wrote:
| Not terribly fair. When Windows decided running everything as
| administrator was bad and to add a visual sudo-like prompt,
| Apple made fun of them for it, but it was Microsoft reacting
| to a changing threat landscape then too.
| klodolph wrote:
| Vista gets maligned but UAC is a good feature to have
| around, and Vista introduced it.
| Semaphor wrote:
| My first thought was "But back then those prompts were
| constant, making them almost useless", though maybe that
| did actually help by making software vendors rely less on
| admin rights?
| pjmlp wrote:
| That was the whole point.
| klodolph wrote:
| It was a big mess, because users didn't expect it,
| developers wanted users to just have everything run as
| admin, and the UAC user experience wasn't polished yet.
| But that's what you expect from new security features
| being introduced.
| charcircuit wrote:
| UAC is not a security boundary. Malware can bypass it if it
| wants.
| pjmlp wrote:
| It helps to actually enable having to type a password
| instead of clicking on Yes.
|
| However yes, security is much more than an UAC dialog.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Additionally, just remembered, recently there is an
| additional option on Windows 11 that the UAC generates a
| temporary admin user and then throws the security token
| away.
|
| https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2025/05/19/enh
| anc...
| Folcon wrote:
| I mean it has, but the situation is getting ridiculous, I'm
| at the point where I'm honestly not sure what special set of
| magical incantations and rituals I need to do to get this
| process to work, it seems to change between different bits of
| software and get more complex with time as if Apple keeps
| finding proverbial bigger fools who can get through this mess
| without intending to and so they're solution is to keep
| making it increasingly more Byzantine
|
| The thing that really irks me is I've got a paid developer
| account with Apple, I've already done the xcode dance,
| notarized binaries and all that nonsense, shouldn't this have
| activated some super special bit on my Apple account that
| says
|
| "this one needs to do random stuff now and again and after
| saying, `Hey just checking in, doing this will do X to your
| computer probably, and maybe set it on fire, but if you say
| "go for it, I promise I know what I'm doing', I'm gonna trust
| you champ`, _finger guns_ "
|
| (not sure why in my head the personification of Apple would
| do "finger guns", but here we are I guess :shrug:)
|
| Hell at this point I'll take a checkbox in my settings that
| says, "Some people are into extreme sports, I love to install
| random binaries, just get out of my way"
| imglorp wrote:
| You shouldn't need the company's permission to run whatever
| you want on your machine.
| klodolph wrote:
| ...you don't, just like you don't need the bank's
| permission to withdraw funds... but they will still try
| and stop you pulling out $10,000 so you can buy iTunes
| gift cards to pay off your taxes.
| chongli wrote:
| It's not an issue of permission, it's an issue of trying
| to make a computer that's safe for grandma to use.
| Criminals can and will convince grandma to navigate a
| byzantine labyrinth of prompts and technical measures in
| order to drain her bank account. That's the threat model
| we're dealing with here.
| lokar wrote:
| I think a time-lock feature to enable "I know what I'm
| doing mode" for a year, after a 48h delay would be ok.
|
| Or something like that
| miki123211 wrote:
| I like Chrome OS's approach where you essentially choose
| your security level at initial setup, and need to wipe
| your machine if you wish to change it.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| But what if a scammer walks grandma through backing
| everything up, unlocking the machine, installing a
| rootkit, and then restoring from backup? /s
|
| (Joke is on you. You thought you'd be given access to app
| data to back it up? That's against the security model.)
| Gud wrote:
| No, that would still suck.
| nkrisc wrote:
| At a certain point you have to let adults be adults and
| make adult mistakes.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Tried that. Didn't go great.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| It went just fine. But more importantly, it's completely
| immoral to treat adults as if they were children.
| anthk wrote:
| Any inmutable distro with Flatpak will solve this
| forever. No need to restrict anything.
| wtetzner wrote:
| Is that really true though? It kinda just feels like a
| way to force people to have to pay $100 per year, own
| Apple hardware, etc.
| chongli wrote:
| How else are you going to have the ability to revoke
| malware's signing keys to get it to stop running on every
| machine immediately?
| NewsaHackO wrote:
| >make a computer that's safe for grandma to use
|
| People also forget that it makes it safe for people who
| aren't grandmas. The reason why you think it's just
| grandmas is because, for you to get a virus or your
| computer hacked now, it requires so many user gaffes for
| something like that to happen. In addition, it almost
| always involves typing in or telling someone your
| password when you shouldn't. In the early 2000s, I still
| remember there was some ad affiliate for the cyanide and
| happiness webcomic website that, if you let it's ad load,
| instantly infected your computer with adware just from
| visiting the site. That's unheard of now because of
| increasingly protective/restrictive policies set by
| technology companies. It's one of those situations where
| if a system is working correctly, you won't even know
| it's working at all.
| miki123211 wrote:
| And you don't. THIs is not iOS, gatekeeper can be
| bypassed if you know how.
| spockz wrote:
| IIRC everything you compile on macOS yourself, possibly
| only when using Apple's llvm toolchain, already gets the
| proper bits set to execute just fine. This also seems to
| work for rust and go binaries. I'm not sure whether that is
| because they replicated the macOS llvm toolchain behaviour
| for the flag or whether another mechanism is at play.
| wtetzner wrote:
| I don't know about Go, but I think Rust uses the system
| linker by default.
| foldr wrote:
| The command line incantation is just a convenience. You can
| unblock the app that you just tried to run by going to
| Privacy and Security in system settings and clicking around
| a bit.
| fragmede wrote:
| You used to be able to, but not anymore.
| BirAdam wrote:
| You used to be able to boot into the rescue mode and
| disable their security system. Is that not a thing anymore?
| SomeHacker44 wrote:
| Yes. The threats are now from Apple and other vendors who
| increasingly want, build and enforce lock in.
| tclancy wrote:
| What is going on with this? I tried that and the alias I have
| built in for this problem, `make_safe() { xattr -d -r
| com.apple.quarantine $1 }`
|
| The application cannot be opened for an unexpected reason,
| error=Error Domain=RBSRequestErrorDomain Code=5 "Launch
| failed." UserInfo={NSLocalizedFailureReason=Launch failed.,
| NSUnderlyingError=0xae1038720 {Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain
| Code=163 "Unknown error: 163"
| UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Launchd job spawn failed}}}
| tclancy wrote:
| And it inspired me to buy it for $0.99 and that doesn't work
| on Mac either. The [your least favorite tribe] really are
| revolting.
| freakynit wrote:
| The situation is actually worse than it looks.
|
| This error exists because Apple has effectively made app
| notarization mandatory, otherwise, users see this warning. In
| theory, notarization is straightforward: upload your DMG via
| their API, and within minutes you get a notarized/stamped app
| back.
|
| ...until you hit the infamous "Team is not yet configured for
| notarization" error.
|
| Once that happens, you can be completely blocked from
| notarizing your app for months. Apple has confirmed via email
| that this is a bug on their end. It affects many developers,
| has been known for years, and Apple still hasn't fixed it. It
| completely elimiates any chances of you being able to
| notarize your app, thus, getting rid of this error/warning.
|
| Have a loot at how many people are suffering from this for
| years with no resolution yet:
| https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/118465
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Yikes. Why anyone would willingly develop for Apple
| platforms is beyond me. But then I also don't understand
| why some some people like using the crap^WmacOS. To each
| their own I guess. Hardware does look nice though, too bad
| about their software.
| rjh29 wrote:
| Because they "have" to have the nice display or good
| battery life I guess. Everyone has different priorities.
| Personally for me it's Linux or nothing.
| freakynit wrote:
| Well, gotta sell wherever the customers are,
| unfortunately.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Because that is where the users with the money are.
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| Well, mainly because it's a better unix than Linux for
| the desktop, and I'd rather pull my eyes out of their
| sockets with a rusty screwdriver than use Windows.
|
| Other than developing my own (without using any other
| OS...) which is a ... significant ... task, there's not
| much other option. YMMV.
| pimeys wrote:
| Better is subjective.
| pastage wrote:
| MacOS is a better desktop in the sense that the desktop
| is locked down. GNOME trie to be the same as MacOS but
| being the default desktop for nerds and build for people
| who lives the Apple way makes it a bit schizofrenic.
|
| As a Linux lifer I agree that the hard diamond surface of
| the Mac desktop has a solid feeling to it. The Linux way
| is harder and also more brittle. Windows and Linux are
| both better than MacOS even as a desktop as long as you
| do not look at the in the wrong way. The thing is I have
| only minor problems doing that on either Linux or
| Windows, but the walled garden of the Mac, Android and
| iOS is a joke.
|
| MacOS is designed to be a somewhat stable desktop, that
| is good. It is not a better Unix, it is a political
| stance that means hacking will forever die.
| chongli wrote:
| I don't know anything about "hard/brittle" analogies for
| operating systems. What I do know is that Linux
| distributions don't seem to have a coherent strategy for
| building an operating system with sensible defaults and a
| consistent design that makes it easy to use for non-
| technical users.
|
| Linux developers seem to almost-universally believe that
| if the user doesn't like it or it doesn't make sense then
| the user will fix it themselves either via configuration
| files or patching the source code. That model works fine
| for users with a lot of knowledge and time on their
| hands. In other words, it's an operating system for
| hobbyists.
|
| MacOS, for all its faults, is still pretty easy to use
| (though not even close to the ease of use of Classic Mac
| OS 9 and earlier).
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Apple developers seem to almost-universally believe that
| if the user doesn't like it or it doesn't make sense then
| the user will... just have to learn to live with it.
| pastage wrote:
| You are encouraged to play with footguns on Linux, I do
| not do it and none of my family do it works fine for us.
| On "Linux desktop" one of the things you are not
| encouraged to play with is installation of programs. The
| Linux way is preferable that is why Apple and all the
| other are walking down the same path.
|
| Not being able to install things sucks, but when you do
| you will easily destroy your nice shiny brittle desktop.
| The pebkac is strong here, but making the users enemies
| is a bad solution, this is why Google, Apple and MS are
| all bad desktops.
|
| As I said I have been a Linux user my whole life. I know
| it works as a desktop but it works best with either
| people who do not care about instaling stuff, or thise
| who care enough to get it working.
| sersi wrote:
| It was a better linux for the desktop back during the
| snow leopard day but it's slowly gotten worse at the same
| time that linux became better. Now the only advantages
| they have is the hardware. The os is buggy doesn't
| respect apple's own human interface guidelines and is
| increasingly locked down. Gone are the days of simbl
| extensions, customizability and a clean nice coherent
| stable os with few bugs.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| It might be "better unix" (whatever that means), but it
| sure as hell is not better. Locked down, buggy, and
| difficult / impossible to navigate by keyboard. And I
| need to install (and trust) a 3rd party app to get a
| multi value clipboard? Yeah right, better. I'd prefer
| Windows, and I'm not fan of the ad-OS either.
| philipallstar wrote:
| The advantage is you can just develop it once and
| publish, rather than pushing things through multiple
| different packaging processes, and a MacOS person might
| be more likely to spend money.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Can't you (as in the user) still just type `sudo spctl
| --master-disable` to get rid of the nonsense?
| consp wrote:
| > It affects many developers, has been known for years, and
| Apple still hasn't fixed it.
|
| Not a feature they care about. Same for deleting apps not
| released yet. Haven't looked in a while but for over a
| decade it has been impossible to delete ios apps submitted
| and not released. So either you have to release the app,
| make it "apple approved" and then immediately kill it or
| have an app always present (I think you can hide it but
| I've not checked that in quite a while.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This is the reason I dropped macOS as a platform target. Apple
| will make users think you're a hacker trying to trick them,
| because macOS acts as if your app is radioactive if you don't
| pay the Apple tax, and refuses to let users run the apps they
| want.
|
| Maybe 1 out of 1,000 users will know the magic ritual required
| to run what they want on their machine, and for every one of
| those, 10,000 are gaslit into thinking you were trying to harm
| them by macOS' scary warnings and refusal to do what they want.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| > Apple will make users think you're a hacker trying to trick
| them
|
| Apple will make users know that there are loads of hackers
| trying to trick them. The threat is _extremely_ real.
|
| > 10,000 are gaslit into thinking you were trying to harm
| them
|
| Gaslit? Again, many are absolutely trying to harm users.
| Pretending this is some fake threat is perverse.
|
| As much as people like to complain about downloaded software
| having restrictions, or encouraging the developer to be
| verified by Apple, we had already entered a world where users
| were told to never, ever run any software not by one of the
| bigs. I mean, I've told relatives that, for good reason after
| they installed malware and other nonsense repeatedly. It
| sucks having to get an Apple account and sign your
| executable, but for any normal user outside of the foolish,
| that was the only way they were ever going to run your app.
|
| And honestly, for the case given this should be a web app.
| People shouldn't be trusting some random executable by some
| random group.
| wtetzner wrote:
| How does paying $100 per year to sign your binary ensure
| it's not malicious?
| llm_nerd wrote:
| It doesn't ensure anything. But it does force an identity
| trail (you have to prove your identity), and more
| importantly allows Apple to have a rapid kill switch: If
| a developer uses their account to distribute malware,
| Apple revokes the cert and those apps will no longer run
| on user devices (as soon as the revocation hits).
|
| Should it be $100 per year? No, that is ridiculous and
| usurious.
| xpe wrote:
| Taking a legitimate concern (which of course does factor into
| the overall trade-offs) but exaggerating it into a tirade is
| uninteresting. Trade-offs are complex. There is more than one
| sensible mix depending on one's values and position.
|
| Only seeing the worst potential explanations of other parties
| whom make different trade-offs than you is uncharitable. It
| can also look like what I would call counterfactual
| hypocrisy, by which I mean, if you were in those shoes, would
| you actually behave differently?
|
| E.g.: If you were in Apple's shoes (think about what this
| entails), what actions would be compatible with a business's
| MO from that point of view? From various ethical points of
| view?
|
| If you say you would've behaved differently, is it even
| possible that you would've ended up in their shoes in the
| first place?
|
| A common response here is early mistakes compound. Or actors
| have poor character which leads to an inevitable fall. That's
| the stuff of Greek tragedies. I'm more of a system thinker.
| If you look at the patterns, it is pretty easy to see that
| the leverage points are human systems rather than human
| nature itself.
|
| If you don't like the environmental conditions that led to
| the decision space, then think about changing the system
| rather than blaming parts of it.
|
| Casting blame on individual parts of the system arguably
| plays into maintaining the status quo. The most effective
| changemakers understand how things work and how they got that
| way without alluding to convenient oversimplifications. Rant
| now concluded.
| WildWeazel wrote:
| Mac support is the bane of my existence. It doesn't help that
| none of us core contributors have one, so if anyone is willing
| to be a lab monkey...
| darthcircuit wrote:
| You can run macOS in a docker container. There's no hardware
| acceleration for gpu, but works well enough.
|
| You can also try macinabox if you have unraid:
|
| https://hub.docker.com/r/spaceinvaderone/macinabox
|
| It's probably the easiest way of setting up a Mac VM if you
| have unraid. I know there are similar options for qemu and
| kvm based hypervisors. If you have an amd gpu you should be
| able to pass it through.
| mherrmann wrote:
| quickemu [1] is good at running macOS VMs.
|
| 1: https://github.com/quickemu-project/quickemu
| WildWeazel wrote:
| My only experience with docker is headless in CI. I do have
| AMD. I'll have to look into this. Thanks
| Cloudef wrote:
| Emulating mac or using mac SDKs on non apple devices is
| against apple's bullshit license though.
| freakynit wrote:
| BS needs to be countered with rejection.
| chongli wrote:
| If Apple finds out they'll ban your developer
| certificates and then all installed copies of your app
| will stop working.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Has this ever happened? Not revoking certificates, which
| they've certainly done for malware or e.g. iOS "signing
| services", but because a developer used non-Apple
| hardware.
| chongli wrote:
| I don't know the answer to that but a quick search shows
| lots of examples of people complaining that their
| developer certificate has been revoked, demonstrating a
| willingness by Apple to revoke certificates if they
| believe the developer violated their terms of service. I
| doubt Apple would go out of their way to include language
| in the agreement that binds developers to their own
| sanctioned platform if they didn't intend to enforce it.
| admax88qqq wrote:
| I would wager all of those are distributing malware.
| chongli wrote:
| I would take that wager. I highly doubt Apple's
| revocation team has a 0% false positive rate.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I agree, but I think a better wager (and what GP probably
| meant) would be that all of these developers had their
| certificates revoked because Apple thought they were
| distributing malware. That's what the system is for.
| rayboy1995 wrote:
| I am the dev of Pocket Squadron (https://play.google.com/
| store/apps/details?id=com.bombsight....) and a few years
| ago I tried to make a build for iOS due to many player
| requests. I did not have a mac so I setup a mac VM and a
| dev account to start making builds and see how big of a
| lift it would be. My account was banned unfortunately.
| Still no iOS build to this day, I'm probably missing out
| on a good bit of money.
| sagarm wrote:
| Best way to reject it is to ignore macOS.
| hellzbellz123 wrote:
| But you can't distribute whatever you build legally as far
| as im aware. The apple sdks prevent you from shipping
| legally.
|
| The only way atm is installing homebrew and using a gnu
| tool chain if I understand the license of the official sdks
| correctly?
| tomrod wrote:
| Tangible thing versus conceptual thing. License never
| stood a chance.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| Apple has been slowly tightening the screws on app
| notarization (code signing) requirements for running apps on
| macOS. To do it properly you need to be a registered
| developer ($100/year), and they're certainly not making it
| easy if you don't have access to a Mac.
|
| https://support.apple.com/guide/security/app-code-signing-
| pr...
|
| > _On devices with macOS 10.15, all apps distributed outside
| the App Store must be signed by the developer using an Apple-
| issued Developer ID certificate (combined with a private key)
| and notarized by Apple to run under the default Gatekeeper
| settings._
|
| Re: Developer ID Certificates: https://developer.apple.com/he
| lp/account/certificates/create...
|
| I suspect the friction that users are facing are due to
| dodging the above requirements.
| hellzbellz123 wrote:
| The whole sdk has a restriction that you can't use it off
| platform. The code signing thing is just a tax on ios devs
| eptcyka wrote:
| You need an apple ID. You cannot create one without using
| an apple device.
| sssilver wrote:
| I have a Macbook Pro M4 Max, an Apple Developer account, a
| bit of time, and some enthusiasm. Would love to help!
| als0 wrote:
| Notarize it.
| fullstackwife wrote:
| Why not build it as a web app and play via browser?
| tclancy wrote:
| I volunteer.
| Catagris wrote:
| I have a MacBook m4 Pro, m3, mac Mini m3, an apple developer
| account and willing to help.
| fragmede wrote:
| https://github.com/fragmede/civ-iii/releases/tag/v0.3-mac-
| si...
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I got a Mac only because of the excellent battery life. But I
| dread Os X. Not only it is dumbed down and it is harder to
| accomplish what is trivial in other operating system, but I
| have to actively fight against it if I want to run software
| that is not downloaded from the app store or I want to open
| files with apps I downloaded from elsewhere. And the UI is
| broken.
| miki123211 wrote:
| "cancel or allow" (which Microsoft still does) makes no sense,
| it just trains user to click "allow" every time. Users don't
| know what they should allow or not.
|
| It makes a bit more sense on accounts that have a password set,
| as it requires you to confirm identity when introducing
| significant changes to the system (and this is something that
| Apple also does).
|
| Gatekeeper is a different thing, it basically makes sure that
| the software you're trying to run has been pre-scanned for
| malware by a trusted party, similar to Windows's "smart screen"
| and Defender or APt's GPG keyring integration. It's a mechanism
| that is completely invisible to 99+% of users. If you see a
| Gatekeeper pop-up and the app in question is not mlaware, the
| developer is doing something very wrong.
| bpye wrote:
| > If you see a Gatekeeper pop-up and the app in question is
| not mlaware, the developer is doing something very wrong.
|
| Refusing to pay $100 for notarization is not "doing something
| very wrong".
| ghgr wrote:
| > How far OSX has come since the days of the "cancel or allow"
| parody advert.
|
| In case you're wondering like me, this is the advert in
| question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CwoluNRSSc&t=0
| neocron wrote:
| And yet people still support it by finding ways around it
| instead if just leaving mac in the dust, simply not supporting
| it. Worked for Internet Explorer, will work the same dor mac
| rpdillon wrote:
| The lockdown has been slow and steady. Slow enough that at
| every juncture, apologists point out that it is still
| _possible_ to run software you choose. I think we enjoy freedom
| that people do not appreciate because they never had to earn
| it. Gaining it back will require extraordinary effort.
| glimshe wrote:
| I once had 10 civil war-tech troops with rifles lined up against
| a fort with ONE bow and arrow troop. I lost every single one of
| my troops and that's the last time I've played Civ 3 in my life.
| Hopefully they addressed this issue...
|
| (PS: once a friend lost a battleship to a stone age militia in
| the original Civ)
| daotoad wrote:
| I lost a nuke to a phalanx in Civ 1. Still salty about that
| _decades_ later.
| yread wrote:
| It was a dud
| supertrope wrote:
| Civ III battles are best thought of as dice rolls like the
| board game Risk. If you have more modern units you get to roll
| more dice but there's still a small chance archers defeat
| musketmen.
| WildWeazel wrote:
| tbh that's a civ rite of passage
| nasretdinov wrote:
| Civ V definitely solved the issue by separating unit strength
| and their HP. Not sure about Civ 4, but I think it applies
| there too.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Neat! Civ 3 was always my favorite version.
| SPascareli13 wrote:
| Freeciv was what brought me too the civ world, I'm sure this
| project will be the same for many children of this generation.
| tdrz wrote:
| Really cool, I want something like that for Railroad Tycoon 2.
| craftkiller wrote:
| https://github.com/Trilarion/freerails
| mfld wrote:
| This looks great! Shout out to FreeCol, a reimagined
| Colonization, that has the same isometric look and is a lot of
| fun.
| mcfedr wrote:
| wow, look at me stuck in the world of freeciv (civ 2)
| closetkantian wrote:
| Really wish someone would do this for Alpha Centauri, my favorite
| game of all time
| nebalee wrote:
| There's https://github.com/afwbkbc/glsmac but that still has a
| lot of work to be put into.
| miki123211 wrote:
| This feels like the perfect game to add (screen reader)
| accessibility to.
|
| Sadly, I don't think it can be done by us screen reader users, as
| the Godot editor UI is not really accessible (though they're
| apparently changing that in the latest version).
| isomorphic- wrote:
| I encourage people to try Unciv. It is the best open-source Civ
| clone for desktop/mobile.
|
| https://github.com/yairm210/Unciv
| miclill wrote:
| Cool. It seems Unciv is basically Civ V while openciv3 is Civ
| III, if anyone else is wondering...
| ubixar wrote:
| been following OpenCiv3 with interest. curious if you've been
| using any AI coding assistants to speed things up, or if it's
| been mostly vanilla dev? the codebase looks pretty clean
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| FreeCol / Colonization team FTW
| dnautics wrote:
| I'm one of the weird ones that really wants an open source
| Civ:CTP. Especially if you can still edit the .ini file to have
| 255 civilizations on the map.
| marcd35 wrote:
| ive never played before. i moved my guys around the map for 6
| turns then they just disappeared. also cant figure out how to
| increase the scaling of the screen
| einpoklum wrote:
| I'm old enough to have played Civ I when I was a child, but have
| not played since then. So, why didn't this project choose to
| create a Civ 7 or Civ 6 play-alike, nor a Civ 1 play-alike, but
| rather Civ 3? What's special about it?
|
| More generally - if someone remind us of the major differences
| between the different versions of Civilization, in a nutshell, we
| would be in your debt.
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