Whoops. My bad... I must have misremembered. Fixed.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IUmBTKXItn6hio_yXzqrk7hAId7fLxgz_ewUtxgJwLE/edit?usp=sharing
Civ 1 ports comparison
- Thread starter Lord_Hill
- Start date
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IUmBTKXItn6hio_yXzqrk7hAId7fLxgz_ewUtxgJwLE/edit?usp=sharing
After some searching of threads here on CF, I corrected some bad assumptions I had made before:
- Patch 02 (474/475.02) did exist but did basically nothing besides remove the debug menu. There was apparently a failed attempt to fix the "nothing for advisors to say" lockup in Patch 02 as well.
- There was no in-between state for the happiness model. Just DOS1 (unhappy transports/easier model) and DOS3 (redshirts/harder model).
- Patch 04 (474.04) was apparently just .03 on high-density floppies with no changes otherwise? (so what the hey is 475.04, given that 475.XX is the DOS CD version?)
I changed some columns around as well, added sections for version differences, and for limits put on the player, and I found a lot of information about the SNES version from a 2015 GameFAQs guide.
Anything that still has "???" or is blank is stuff I do not know/remember. (Help?)
- Patch 02 (474/475.02) did exist but did basically nothing besides remove the debug menu. There was apparently a failed attempt to fix the "nothing for advisors to say" lockup in Patch 02 as well.
- There was no in-between state for the happiness model. Just DOS1 (unhappy transports/easier model) and DOS3 (redshirts/harder model).
- Patch 04 (474.04) was apparently just .03 on high-density floppies with no changes otherwise? (so what the hey is 475.04, given that 475.XX is the DOS CD version?)
I changed some columns around as well, added sections for version differences, and for limits put on the player, and I found a lot of information about the SNES version from a 2015 GameFAQs guide.
Anything that still has "???" or is blank is stuff I do not know/remember. (Help?)
Lord_Hill
Prince
Hey, I missed this when you first posted, nice to see it all in a tidy spreadsheet. I can almost certainly fill in some of those gaps when I have a bit of time. I know the thread shifted focus over to graphics formats, but I did originally want to examine gameplay differences as well.
Great! The link on the above reply (above my prior post, that is) goes to the Google Sheet that I put that together on, I believe I have the permissions set to where you (or anyone else that knows better than I do, in regards to some of these ports) can make suggested edits with the relevant information and then the next time I check the document I can approve them and they'll show up. Of course you can just post them here and I'll throw them in.
Of note: I have my doubts about some of the information that I picked up from MobyGames - particularly for the Amiga, 86K Mac, and Atari ST versions - which wasn't much.
(A bit of rambling about the Amiga version: I would buy that Software Demon published an Amiga port of Civ, though idk if that UK-only thing is true or if Moby's just missing stuff. If they [SD] did put out the Amiga port, I would have expected them to publish both the ECS and AGA versions. Moby has MicroProse publishing the low color version and SD publishing the high color. Though the publisher stuff is definitely a lower priority than finding gameplay differences.)
Eventually I'd like to have every version/patch listed in that table, for the ports of Civ1 that got subsequent patches.
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Lord_Hill
Prince
Oh yeah, it's a real rabbit hole if we're going to try and do patch revisions for all of the ports. Mac version had a bunch of revisions, at the very least 1.06, 1.1 and 1.1.2. Amiga ECS does as well although change documentation is sparse for that one.
Did more searching, particularly on the PC-98 version. Additional stuff found:
- The copy of the PC-98 Civ1 port (that I load into an emulator for casual play) states "CIV.EXE V41126B" when it is run, presumably a version number. Not sure if it's the original version, a patched version of some sort, or somewhere in between. I have a physical big box that unfortunately does not actually run on my particular model (it gets through the mouse/sound options, which is where this "V41126B" text would appear, but locks up when attempting to load further - probably because of window accelerator incompatibility or perhaps the lack of a sound card). I will have to check and see if the physical copy I have gives a different response.
- PC-98 seems to have a per-civ unit cap close to the DOS version of around 128 - the sheet says 126 since that's the number of units I had when I first encountered the "You have too many units, disband old ones" message, but it was a bit inconsistent/flaky. Perhaps it just doesn't build any units in a turn if building all of them would bring the unit count above the cap. I've pretty much conquered the entire world in the save I'm working with, but I have to leave one CPU city alive since, like the original, it just boots you out to DOS if you get a domination victory.
- I made a mistake earlier and misattributed the music format used in the PC-98 version, it seems to use the same CVL format as the DOS version.
- The PC-98 version appears to use the DOS 01 (older model, no redshirts) happiness model, though the way I play Civ1 is a) in Chieftain difficulty, and b) by completely ignoring Democracy/Republic and just going with Monarchy because I don't care for the "unit away from home" penalties, so maybe I'm just not seeing it.
- Outside of the PC-98 version, I marked those Mac patches you mentioned, though I listed them twice (once for the monochrome version and once for the 256-color version). I also noticed that I had called it the "86K Macintosh" - whoops! I also looked at some reviews of the Amiga version(s), and was able to add a few bits from the screenshots. In doing so, I found a 1994 German AGA release, published by a company named Komport. Not sure if it's just a translation or if there were any code changes. (I'm not intending to list any re-releases unless there was some sort of code change involved. If it's just the 1993 AGA version with a German translation, I'll merge the two AGA rows back together.) Lastly, I found a French-language technical supplement online for the Atari ST version, so I tacked that on as evidence of that port being released in France (I replaced the generic "EU" region with individual countries, save for the CivNET version).
- The copy of the PC-98 Civ1 port (that I load into an emulator for casual play) states "CIV.EXE V41126B" when it is run, presumably a version number. Not sure if it's the original version, a patched version of some sort, or somewhere in between. I have a physical big box that unfortunately does not actually run on my particular model (it gets through the mouse/sound options, which is where this "V41126B" text would appear, but locks up when attempting to load further - probably because of window accelerator incompatibility or perhaps the lack of a sound card). I will have to check and see if the physical copy I have gives a different response.
- PC-98 seems to have a per-civ unit cap close to the DOS version of around 128 - the sheet says 126 since that's the number of units I had when I first encountered the "You have too many units, disband old ones" message, but it was a bit inconsistent/flaky. Perhaps it just doesn't build any units in a turn if building all of them would bring the unit count above the cap. I've pretty much conquered the entire world in the save I'm working with, but I have to leave one CPU city alive since, like the original, it just boots you out to DOS if you get a domination victory.
- I made a mistake earlier and misattributed the music format used in the PC-98 version, it seems to use the same CVL format as the DOS version.
- The PC-98 version appears to use the DOS 01 (older model, no redshirts) happiness model, though the way I play Civ1 is a) in Chieftain difficulty, and b) by completely ignoring Democracy/Republic and just going with Monarchy because I don't care for the "unit away from home" penalties, so maybe I'm just not seeing it.
- Outside of the PC-98 version, I marked those Mac patches you mentioned, though I listed them twice (once for the monochrome version and once for the 256-color version). I also noticed that I had called it the "86K Macintosh" - whoops! I also looked at some reviews of the Amiga version(s), and was able to add a few bits from the screenshots. In doing so, I found a 1994 German AGA release, published by a company named Komport. Not sure if it's just a translation or if there were any code changes. (I'm not intending to list any re-releases unless there was some sort of code change involved. If it's just the 1993 AGA version with a German translation, I'll merge the two AGA rows back together.) Lastly, I found a French-language technical supplement online for the Atari ST version, so I tacked that on as evidence of that port being released in France (I replaced the generic "EU" region with individual countries, save for the CivNET version).
Lord_Hill
Prince
Guess what? They did! Reverse engineer 'CanadianAvenger' has been looking at a bunch of different Microprose PIC format variants including Railroad Tycoon Deluxe which is interesting because it's actually a port of PC-98 Railroad Tycoon back to DOS. They discovered that the RRDeluxe PIC format is exactly the same as the one used for PC-98 Civ. Check out their blog post on RRDeluxe.
PIC: The Next Generation
Time to take on the last of the MicroProse PIC variants we have uncovered so far, PIC93. This variant stands out from the others a bit as it is the first update to the format that we’ve seen …
canadianavenger.io
Also here's the PC-98 map.pic. If you zoom in and check out Japan you can see the changes they made to join it to the mainland.
EDIT - I linked to the wrong post but hopefully you get the idea. Extraction of PC-98 Civ graphics is now possible, which means I can now start looking at doing a Windows/Mac port like the SNES one.
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