Civ 1 Map Editors Tour

[Lord_Hill]

In a similar vein to my ports comparison thread, I thought it would be fun to take a look at the different map editors that fans (and in one case, Microprose) have created over the years. Being an old DOS game, Civ was not designed with customization in mind and it took a lot of effort from some very clever people over a long time period to reach the point we're at today. It's interesting to see how things developed and the unique features that some of the older editors have that might be worth another look. For now, I've taken a few pretty screenshots. So in chronological order we have:

CivMap (aka Civilization Map Changer)
Author: Holger Eichmann
Release year: 1993?

When talking to people about Civ 1 editing you'll often get the line "but there was a map editor, I just had no idea how to get it to work". Our own downloads page even says the same thing. They're probably talking about this delightful DOS program from 1993.

Actually I'm running the version hacked by @Dack to work with DOSBox (as you can see by the screenshot), as per this discussion

CIVMAP21 revisited

A little background, last winter my pcs motherboard failed. Rather than buy a new computer I purchased a used mother board, not an exact replacement. The down side of this was that my DOS world turned into a unknown landscape. My only reason for remaining in that world is CIV and my SVE file...

forums.civfanatics.com

Cool Feature Example: It's a 'live' editor that changes stuff in RAM rather than modifying the map files like all the others. That means it can do wacky things like break the special resources algorithm and let you put them wherever you want.

Civilization Map Editor
Author: Edward Lee Baldwin, Microprose Software
Release year: 1995

The only official editor written by Microprose, it was bundled with CivNet and only compatible with that version.

Cool Feature Example: It's terrain only, so pretty bare bones, but it can pull maps out of CivWin saves meaning you can play multiplayer on your favourite layouts.

Cived (aka Civ 1 Editor)
Author: Gaborka
Release year: 2001

Cool Feature Example: It's a full featured Civ editor running in Excel! But mainly, it was (to my knowledge) the first open source implementation of the map loading/saving logic and opened the door for others to build on.
Release Thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ1-map-editor.2078/

 

[Lord_Hill]

TerraForm
Author: Dack
Release year: 2005

Cool feature example: This is the one that truly made Civ 1 scenario editing a reality, finally a feature packed editor with a friendly UI. Dack and Gowron did a tonne of work to completely reverse the save format and it kickstarted a wave of new scenarios and even a short lived game of the month. My favourite feature is 'set to 4000bc' which lets you take an in progress save and wind it back to the start.
Release Thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/terraform-a-map-editor-for-civ-dos.126921/

CivCracker (aka Win Civ Editor)
Author: MountainMn10
Release Date: 2011

Cool Feature: This one really flew under the radar. The first and only map editor entirely dedicated to the largely forgotten Windows port, it actually has a tonne of features. My favourite feature is the set of 'build everywhere' shortcuts that let you do things like irrigate and railroad the whole world with a single click. It was also the first editor of any kind to have DOS to Windows save conversion.

This editor was almost completely lost as the author only put it online for a short while. A lucky conversation years later between users CivZ and Blake00 led to its rediscovery and addition to the downloads centre.
Release Thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civwin-editing.254477/



JCivEd
Author: DarkPanda
Release Year: 2013

Cool Feature: Too many to name, this is the most modern and fully featured editor to date. As well as the usual map and save editing functionality you'd expect, it also acts as a mod sdk (allowing graphics changes) and unofficial patch. The EXE patching allows you to customise your Civ experience in ways that would have seemed impossible before, and you can even fix long standing bugs like the end game pollution bug and arctic terrain glitching. CivWin support was also added later allowing DOS to Windows save conversion and for the first time, Windows back to DOS as well.

Release Thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/jcived-a-toolbox-for-civilization.486470/

 

[darkpanda]

Cived (aka Civ 1 Editor)
Author: Gaborka
Release year: 2001
View attachment 669180

Cool Feature Example: It's a full featured Civ editor running in Excel! But mainly, it was (to my knowledge) the first open source implementation of the map loading/saving logic and opened the door for others to build on.
Release Thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ1-map-editor.2078/

Wow, had I known the existence of this Excel tool, I probably would've never bothered to start JCivEd... Really cool

 

[Blake00]

This is great! Might link to this in the main links post when you finish as it could be a good resource!

 

[Lord_Hill]

It was getting a bit quiet around here, so I added part two (which was mainly an excuse for some pretty screenshots).

 

[Quintillus]

I'm glad you posted a part two, as I'd missed it the first time around! Having written an editor for Civ III, it's really interesting seeing the evolution of similar tools for Civ I, and over the span of 20 years (for initial release dates) as well.

This could be a good candidate page for front page/social media sharing (Blake00)... I bet a lot of people who played Civ I would be curious to read this, and many of them who aren't already on this forum might be even more curious if they weren't aware that map editors were available or half as powerful as they are today.

 

[Blake00]

I agree.. this is a nice news candidate @The_J .
Loved part 2 as well! Great work @Lord_Hill ! Have added a link to this thread in the main pinned links thread too.

 

[Lord_Hill]

Those nice comments were a lovely thing to discover this morning, thanks both. I was thinking a 5 minute diversion so I'm flattered that you think its frontpage worthy.