OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III

by klaussilveira • 6 months ago

996 302 6 months ago

bigstrat20037• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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.

culi2• 6 months ago

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

warmwaffles2• 6 months ago

I actually preferred Civ 3 to 2 and 4. It scratched a certain itch.

data-ottawa• 6 months ago

3 is still my favourite of the series. 5 was good too, but 3 overall feels complete and had great graphics.

yxhuvud• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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.

WildWeazel12• 6 months ago

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.

JumpCrisscross2• 6 months ago

Is 3 the one with forced retirement?

bigstrat20037• 6 months ago

Not sure, I only started the series with 4.

TheRealPomax2• 6 months ago

Civ 1 and 2 have already been done, so if you want to play those, hit up freeciv.

bigstrat20037• 6 months ago

I'm aware. But why rebuild 3 rather than 4, in that case?

packetlost• 6 months ago

3 is my favorite in the series, but maybe that's not a popular take.

caminanteblanco2• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

I love civ 1 so so much.

npunt• 6 months ago

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.

WildWeazel12• 6 months ago

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.

bigstrat20037• 6 months ago

Fair enough, thanks!

stodor89• 6 months ago

Here's a perspective on "why civ 3" by one of the best civ 3 players: https://youtu.be/IOvWgfZiHGo?si=uvTWTaRQsfxE_ffN

II2II• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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.

chocochunks• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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.

TheGRS• 6 months ago

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.

bigstrat20037• 6 months ago

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.

wewtyflakes4• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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.

Marsymars3• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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.

CSMastermind• 5 months ago

I'd recommend avoiding it for now. It still feels unfinsished and poorly thought out. I have many criticisms of their decisions with regards to game design, but even if you like the direction they went in, the UI is rough, and the actual experience of playing isn't fun.

They're releasing a big update in the spring where they reworked the core gameplay mechanic because so many people disliked it. If nothing else I'd wait until that comes out.

daotoad2• 6 months ago

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.

cyphar2• 6 months ago

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.

GaryBluto2• 6 months ago

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.

danielparsons2• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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.

Gagarin1917• 5 months ago

It looks like Civ 6 actually has twice the player count compared to 5 on Steam.

sevenseacat• 6 months ago

that was my first thought, I was gonna show my husband this but he's a Civ 2 ride or die

tfehring2• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

The key here is seeing this mentioned and not time traveling forward until 6 AM Saturday morning.

donw• 6 months ago

Yeah, that's what Factorio is for.

mikeaskew4• 6 months ago

There goes my weekend…

kilroy123• 6 months ago

How did I not ever think to do this? Such a good idea.

b3ing• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

I feel like my last words could be ‘just one more turn’.

huevosabio2• 6 months ago

Yes, exactly I had to stop myself starting the game after 7 else I don't sleep

philihp• 6 months ago

Can we settle for Factorio and 2028?

brobdingnagians• 6 months ago

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.

SilverElfin2• 6 months ago

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.

hdgvhicv3• 6 months ago

It amazes me that high paid SV techies won’t pay more to fly in premium or business

Der_Einzige2• 6 months ago

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.

wewtyflakes4• 6 months ago

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.

chongli10• 5 months ago

I've put a lot of time into the Total War series. My favourite is probably Shogun 2. I will say that the combat is quite fun at first but once you learn ranged combat, artillery, and the "sweet spot" it falls apart.

Gets to the point where only defensive battles are any fun at all. Attacking just means you sweet spot your way to a flawless victory.

This exploit seems to be present in every TW game I've played, including Rome 2. It's totally ruined the series for me.

ddp26• 6 months ago

How do you manage the laptop + mouse?

Gud2• 6 months ago

track point

tfehring2• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

Dwarf Fortress. That's really how to suddenly say "Oh, how did it get to 4am already?"

felixthehat• 6 months ago

Yeah civ VI on my iPad with an apple pencil kills flights

JumpCrisscross2• 6 months ago

Any chance the AIs will be easily extensible?

WildWeazel12• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

How does this compare with https://freeciv.org for game play =3

dleslie• 6 months ago

Not sure, when Civ2Civ3 is now the default ruleset in Freeciv.

https://freeciv.fandom.com/wiki/Civ2civ3

WildWeazel12• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

uh oh

yeah, that's dangerous for me, this is the ONE that got me started

reconnecting• 6 months ago

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.

WildWeazel12• 6 months ago

Hi all, OpenCiv3 founder here. Thanks for the support! Check us out on Civfanatics or Discord to keep up with the project.

slazaro• 6 months ago

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#.

huevosabio2• 6 months ago

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.

WildWeazel12• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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.

popalchemist2• 6 months ago

Have you considered adding LLM features for the negotiations? Could be cool.

wewtyflakes4• 6 months ago

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.

wilson0902• 6 months ago

you may be interested in https://www.paxhistoria.co/

anthonyIPH• 6 months ago

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.

WildWeazel12• 6 months ago

not sure if serious...

ukuina• 6 months ago

Would it be feasible to add an API to OpenCiv3 (or run it as an SDK) so we can script up actions?

WildWeazel12• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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.

WildWeazel12• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

This is great stuff! Civ3 is still by far my favorite Civ. And a nice use of Godot.

klaussilveira• 6 months ago

Thank you for creating such a badass project.

genocidicbunny• 5 months ago

Good to see you around here! I remember some of your posts way back in the day. I don't recall, did you hang around the civfanatics IRC much back in the day?

bigcat12345678• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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_silin2• 6 months ago

Another awesome game - Civ II inspired.

http://www.c-evo.org/

axus• 6 months ago

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_silin2• 6 months ago

Yep, I even wrote one and made a mod of C-Evo (long time ago).

PeterBBB• 5 months ago

Updated version of this game here;- https://sourceforge.net/projects/c-evo-eh/

jlarocco• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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.)

1980phipsi2• 6 months ago

I would love to see someone use modern machine learning techniques to make a kick ass Civ AI.

Marsymars3• 6 months ago

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.

JojoFatsani3• 6 months ago

Civ4 is super cheap on Steam BTW

syngrog66• 6 months ago

UnCiv is the best FOSS clone of Civ I've played

rl32• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

Isn’t that pretty common for the open source remakes? Let the programmers focus on the coding and outsource the art.

rl32• 6 months ago

Yeah, I just think it's cool when they achieve drop-in compatibility.

caminanteblanco2• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

I'm with you-- civ 1 is by far the best! I adore the wonky graphics. None of the new ones hit the same.

culi2• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

None for Alpha Centauri yet?

TiredOfLife• 6 months ago

Those that like civ 4 are still playing civ 4 and have no time left to develop

jmyeet• 6 months ago

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-...

danielparsons2• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

“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.

ceejayoz2• 6 months ago

To be fair, the threat landscape changed, too.

antiframe• 6 months ago

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.

Folcon• 6 months ago

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“

SomeHacker44• 6 months ago

Yes. The threats are now from Apple and other vendors who increasingly want, build and enforce lock in.

tclancy3• 6 months ago

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}}}

tclancy3• 6 months ago

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.

freakynit4• 6 months ago

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

heavyset_go2• 6 months ago

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_nerd3• 6 months ago

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.

xpe• 6 months ago

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.

WildWeazel12• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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.

AceJohnny22• 6 months ago

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/help/account/certificates/create...

I suspect the friction that users are facing are due to dodging the above requirements.

sssilver• 6 months ago

I have a Macbook Pro M4 Max, an Apple Developer account, a bit of time, and some enthusiasm. Would love to help!

fullstackwife• 6 months ago

Why not build it as a web app and play via browser?

tclancy3• 6 months ago

I volunteer.

Catagris• 6 months ago

I have a MacBook m4 Pro, m3, mac Mini m3, an apple developer account and willing to help.

fragmede2• 6 months ago

https://github.com/fragmede/civ-iii/releases/tag/v0.3-mac-si...

zapzupnz• 5 months ago

Rather than making people run commands in Terminal, it would be more ideal to just tell people to try to run the app, then go to System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> scroll down until they see the Open Anyway button.

It'll be a skill they can use for any unsigned app and you can have cute screenshots. The Terminal command, on the other hand, is a huge barrier to entry.

philistine• 5 months ago

Contact the maintainer of macsourceports. They do exactly what you despise for dozens of projects.

DeathArrow• 6 months ago

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.

miki1232114• 6 months ago

"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.

bpye5• 6 months ago

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".

RalfWausE2• 5 months ago

An American corporation is NOT a trusted party!

ghgr• 6 months ago

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

ghostly_s• 5 months ago

lol, I just assumed this was a reference to the old workflow for bypassing code-signing on OS X, which was you had to click 'Cancel' in the popup then right-click and select "open" (no indication in the UI that this did something different than double-clicking).

neocron• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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.

jmspring• 5 months ago

It gets a bit old and sad when this topic and macOS processes dominate the comments section.

Like windows complainers, most of us do not care.

glimshe• 6 months ago

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)

daotoad2• 6 months ago

I lost a nuke to a phalanx in Civ 1. Still salty about that _decades_ later.

yread• 6 months ago

It was a dud

supertrope• 6 months ago

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.

WildWeazel12• 6 months ago

tbh that's a civ rite of passage

nasretdinov• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

Neat! Civ 3 was always my favorite version.

SPascareli13• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

Really cool, I want something like that for Railroad Tycoon 2.

craftkiller• 6 months ago

https://github.com/Trilarion/freerails

mfld• 6 months ago

This looks great! Shout out to FreeCol, a reimagined Colonization, that has the same isometric look and is a lot of fun.

mcfedr• 6 months ago

wow, look at me stuck in the world of freeciv (civ 2)

closetkantian• 6 months ago

Really wish someone would do this for Alpha Centauri, my favorite game of all time

nebalee• 6 months ago

There's https://github.com/afwbkbc/glsmac but that still has a lot of work to be put into.

miki1232114• 6 months ago

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-• 6 months ago

I encourage people to try Unciv. It is the best open-source Civ clone for desktop/mobile.

https://github.com/yairm210/Unciv

miclill• 6 months ago

Cool. It seems Unciv is basically Civ V while openciv3 is Civ III, if anyone else is wondering...

ubixar• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

FreeCol / Colonization team FTW

dnautics• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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• 6 months ago

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.

shevy-java• 6 months ago

Strangely enough I still think Civilization I is best.

Later versions added better graphics, some interesting gameplay choice and elements. But all of them felt much slower gameplay wise compared to Civilization I.

I feel in a similar way with SimCity. I liked the follow-ups and they were a bit better in terms of gameplay compared to later Civilizations, but the first version is still by far the best, even if young people today will find the graphics crap.

There is something about purity, to get the most basic parts out. Games today are more like movies. They may be fun but they feel more like playing a movie than a game. Little Nightmares was interesting, pretty to look at and fun from a game play perspective too, but ultimately I feel that the modern games lost something fundamental that they may never get back (at the least non-indie games; indie games are a bit more varied).

OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III

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