Civilization
I'm a big fan of the Civilization games. I recall playing it for the first time back on a crusty old PC machine under DOS. I had a Mac at the time, so the release of Civ for the Mac was a pretty big deal. What impressed me more was that, although the DOS version ran at a blocky 320x240 resolution, the Mac version ran at 640x480 and looked significantly better. It was one of my first memories of a Mac game being dramatically better than the original.
Since I started working on Mac games professionally, I've had a closer relationship than most with the Civ games. The very first game I worked on for Westlake back in 1999 was Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, which was in pretty much every way a "sequel" to Civ by the same team that did Civ2. Not long after that, I worked on the Mac version of Civ3 for MacSoft, and we managed to ship that one just 2 months after the PC version - practically unheard of for a third-party porting house. We even squeaked out the editor, although not without some controversy. ;-)
Last week, Aspyr announced that we were going to develop and publish the Mac versions of "Civ3 Complete" and Civ4. The "Civ3 Complete" package is essentially the original game along with the 2 expansion packs. The most notable new feature in Civ3 Complete is multiplayer, although it'll be Mac only since it used DirectPlay originally.
Fate has once again conspired to put me on these projects, although admittedly it was almost a necessity for Civ3. The Aspyr version of Civ3 is, for all intents, a "re-porting" of the original PC code. The rights for the Mac version had expired from MacSoft, so Aspyr was able to pick them up as I understand it. However, it also means that we didn't have any of the Mac code for the MacSoft version. Interestingly, I had sent a bunch of fixes and changes back to the Firaxis guys for the core Civ3 game while doing the MacSoft port, so that has helped a little, along with my familiarity with the game code. On a personal level, I'm quite pleased that I'll finally be able to go back and "finish" Civ3 for the Mac.
Unfortunately, it looks like the editor will not make it this time around. It was a real time sink (and quite a moving target) to do the first time for MacSoft, and without the old Mac code to go on, it'd be pretty involved. We're looking to ship Civ3 in December, so (given that I started in mid-September), there's no time left to even think about it. That said, you can probably use the old MacSoft editor to create scenarios that will run in the new versions.
Simultaneously with this, I'm working on Civ4, which just started shipping in the last week or so. I'm going to try and post more about the development process for it if I can, since it looks pretty representative of what a modern game port involves.
Comments
I wonder if the new iMacs (ATI X600 XT) will be able to run Civ4 smoothly at the native resolution of 1680x1050?
At such a high resolution... I somehow doubt it.
:-(
Posted by: Franco | November 4, 2005 03:16 PM
Do you have any inkling of whether the min specs would be equal to or (preferrably) less than the pc min specs? My 2002 G4 iMac is getting a wee bit old now, but it would be great if it could run this (800MHz, 32MB GeForce 4MX :'(
Posted by: Michael May | November 5, 2005 03:03 AM
Great news on both fronts, Brad :-) Can't wait for them to ship.
Posted by: AlanH | November 5, 2005 02:39 PM
Good to hear news on the Civ series!
Will Alpha Centauri get a facelift as well, or is it pretty much deprecated? Months ago your input fixed my Crash-randomly in game problem but good old SMAC still dies horribly when a movie plays and loves to pump up the volume on game start...
Well, nonetheless, once I get a machine for Civ IV I am getting it!
Posted by: Bob Kiwi | November 5, 2005 05:21 PM
Brad, how do you find the Mac mini in terms of fan noise?
Posted by: Franco | November 8, 2005 05:19 AM
less posting, more coding!
CIV (<-- hah, just noticed that, C as in civilization, IV for four, = CIV, dur) on the PC is about as stable as a supermodel, and considerably more bloated! PLEASE let it run on a powerbook so I never have to leave my bed.....
Posted by: desmondch | November 8, 2005 09:03 AM
Brad,
Just flew to Tokyo for business and spent much of the flight playing Civ 3 on my PowerBook G4. Thanks!
One request I have for Civ 3 Complete is that it be able to support Mac monitor resolutions, including big ones like the 20" Apple LCD (1680 x 1050) and the 30" Apple Cinema Display. It would be awesome to have a whole world map visible on the screen at once using the 30" Apple Cinema Display.
Posted by: Andrew | November 22, 2005 01:40 PM
And hopefully Civ4 won't be an inhouser, so I can get in on it!
Posted by: yellow | December 22, 2005 02:31 PM
A couple notes on Civ IV for PC: My brother-in-law got it for Christmas, but needed more RAM. (Apparently, 256MB isn't enough to run it. Duh.) However, after a 512MB upgrade and installing the latest patch, his bottom-of-the-line Samsung L15 (2Ghz Celeron/768MB RAM/no graphics card) ran it smoothly.
How well it will run on the Mac remains to be seen, and is up to Brad and his team. But the fact that the PC version runs well on something that is obviously below the hardware specs is encouraging.
Hopefully it won't take three years to get expansion packs.
Posted by: The Icelander | January 5, 2006 11:52 AM
"That said, you can probably use the old MacSoft editor to create scenarios that will run in the new versions."
no, you can't. the old editor was never given the ability to specify proper civilization placement, and can't open the new bix maps.
I found that the absolute most annoying part of the whole goty mac edition debacle (that, and the omission of large influential civs such as celts in favor of smaller, less critical ones like the iroquois...i don't give a hang about multiplayer).
i like civ on an earth map, and it is bothersome to no end to play on the earth without civs where they belong.
I eagerly awaited the release of an updated mac version for years, and when i saw that one incorporating ptw was to be released i snapped it up (expecting that the civ placement feature would be included).
I'm sorry I did.
Posted by: Antaine | February 20, 2006 10:13 AM
I said:
"That said, you can probably use the old MacSoft editor to create scenarios that will run in the new versions."
Antaine said:
"no, you can't. the old editor was never given the ability to specify proper civilization placement, and can't open the new bix maps."
I stand by my original statement. You can create scenarios in the MacSoft editor and C3C for the Mac will load them. Obviously the scenarios you create will only contain the capability that is supported by the original editor, but C3C for Mac supports the files you so create.
I should also add that if you want to use a scenario that has a world mad and proper civ placement, several prebuilt ones exist (and some ship with C3C) that do just this - no editor required.
Posted by: Brad Oliver | February 22, 2006 02:05 PM
Hello,
I am a civ fan which uses a mac and i have been trying to download the civ 3 (conquests) editor and every time i have tried to download it from one of your websites, it said that the "brad-oliver" URL could not be found.
Please help because it would be awesome to play civ in a user created map.
Thanks,
A fan
Posted by: Xhulio Uruci | March 19, 2006 03:14 PM