Civ1 clone in Civ3

[Theov]

Hi all,

I'm in my winter vacation now and I'm making a Civ1 game/clone (well, not a clone, but you know what I mean) within Civ3.
So I'm trying to emulate a Civ1 game, by editing the Civ3 rules.
The goal is to make an as close to real Civ1 ruleset - but with a Civ3 interface.

If you wish to help out, or if you have thought about this yourself before please leave a comment or send me a PM.


What are the best equivalents of the Civ1 units in Civ3?
(C3C only - as it makes editing easier)

Thanks!

Please know that the file below is a work in process.
When completed I will post it at the completed Mod Packs subforum.

 

[Lionic]

Will it be a scenario with Civ 1 rules?

 

[Theov]

Will it be a scenario with Civ 1 rules?

that's what I'm going for as far as possible

 

[Lionic]

What are the best equivalents of the Civ1 units in Civ3?

Well as far as I remember pictures from Civ1 civilopedia:
Fighter -> F-15;
Bomber -> B-52 by Wyrmshadow or Ripptide;
Settler--probably this unit https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/pioneer-ancient.1430/
Mech Infantry--something wheeled, maybe UR-416 or Saracen by Gwendoline.
Artillery--ISU-152 or Su-152. Wyrmshadow, Rippride and Delta_Strife each made their own versions.

 

[Theov]

Well as far as I remember pictures from Civ1 civilopedia:
Fighter -> F-15;
Bomber -> B-52 by Wyrmshadow or Ripptide;
Settler--probably this unit https://forums.civfanatics.com/resources/pioneer-ancient.1430/
Mech Infantry--something wheeled, maybe UR-416 or Saracen by Gwendoline.
Artillery--ISU-152 or Su-152. Wyrmshadow, Rippride and Delta_Strife each made their own versions.

I'll take a look, but editing the graphics will be later on the list.

It's funny how Civ1 and Civ3 are so similar in many ways.
The units, the tech tree, the governments, diplomacy... so many things are so similar.

 

[Theov]

I am running into a few challenges making this mod:

1: Is there a way to add or remove the LM overlay in the editor?
2: Is there a way to remove terrain in the editor all together? (I don't need ocean for example as civ1 doesn't differentiate how far you are away from the coast. For triremes it only checks if you're next to land - so having 'coast' terrain will do.)

 

[tjs282]

1: Is there a way to add or remove the LM overlay in the editor?

LM = Landmark terrain? If so, that has to be deliberately selected and applied to a premade map. So if you don't want it, then you don't need to include it.

For a game on a randomly generated map, the map-generator never includes LM terrains anyway.

2: Is there a way to remove terrain in the editor all together? (I don't need ocean for example as civ1 doesn't differentiate how far you are away from the coast. For triremes it only checks if you're next to land - so having 'coast' terrain will do.)

If you're aiming to import/ recreate the Civ1 EarthMap, then you could just paint over any stray Ocean terrain, with Sea terrain.

IIRC, for the true Civ1 experience, you'd want to eliminate Oceans, Floodplains, and Volcanoes -- but if you want your mod to be playable on random maps, then there isn't really any way to avoid getting unwanted terrains in there, AFAIK. So the next best option might simply be to give those terrains the same properties as e.g. Sea, Desert, and Mountains.

For the Volcanoes, you'd probably also want to set the eruption probability to as near zero as you can (eruption period = 999999 years?) -- since building a Civ3-Temple won't be enough to prevent Volcanic eruptions, and your citizens fleeing in terror. (And Civ3-doesn't have any other disasters apart from terrain-induced disease -- and Plague, if you turn it on...)

It's a shame that Civ3 doesn't allow the Barbarian units' evolution from Warriors/Militia up to Rifles, either. I always thought that was a neat little feature of Civ1.

 

[Theov]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAaaight.
This is an early dirty clone I made.

I welcome everyone to test and critizise it.

Some notable differences (obviously) from Civ1:
Pyramids: don't give you the option to get every gov (so I made them give granaries)
Terrain: forests are still forests, they aren't a separate terrain like in civ1
Governments: democracy works differently because you can't have 0 corruption in civ3 like in civ1. Also "will always offer peace with you" is not included.
Espionage/diplomacy: that's kinda hard to do - I might re-write the whole diplomacy thing. That'd actually be funny.

Units: no, they are pretty much what they are supposed to do
Techs: also
Buildings - to an extend.

Enjoy, let me know what you think.

 

[Predator145]

Nice "conversion".

Civ3 does not have a "ignore defense bonus" flag. This makes the defense tripling City Walls extremely powerful. A Mech Inf fortified in a walled metro would have around 20 defense. Artillery at 12 attack wouldn't scratch it. This makes bomber support mandatory. The civ3 AI at least knows how to use civ3 style bombers.

Speaking of bombers, too bad there isn't any way to fully replicate civ1. You could make them mobile. Giving them the "capture" order and attack stats can make them offensive units than can fly over land and water. But any land/sea unit will kill them regardless of defense. And it will still get full road+rails benefit. Giving 4 movement ATR would result in a highly mobile attacker. The AI could attack border cities and still have enough movement to withdraw to safety afterwards. But it's not hardcoded to return its aircrafts to base by the end of the turn, often over extending and leaving them exposed. Beware, regardless of the "capture" order being ticked or not, having the "offense" AI strat flag will result in the AI being able to use aircrafts to capture cities. And since offense flag units aren't used to pillage, it can't use aircrafts to target terrain improvements like the player can.

If you go down the route above fighters can be even more mobile at 5 movement ATR with modest attack of 6. Their job is to chase down the bombers the AI flew back into its territory but still left outside. With both units being air, real combat will take place. If you have bombard value on your fighter it could defensive bombard attacking bombers, but that's beyond civ1. Fighters with decent defense ( let's say 6 def to the bomber's 12 attack ) and "defense" AI strat flag can also protect your interior cities from bomber attacks and be used by the AI to pillage. The problem is the AI wouldn't build fighters flagged as "offense" or if they built it that's all they would build in the case of offensive bombers.

Which brings me to the next solution. By using the "king" ability, you could have a unit that can't be built but be upgraded from one that can be. "Fighter", flagged as "Air Defense" is upgraded to "Fighter2" or "Fighter " with the "king" ability and "offense" and "defense" AI strat. Tick "Veteran Air units" for Barracks so the AI can build fighters and upgrade them to useable units. Perhaps give barracks a happy face to entice them to build raxes ASAP. I'm not sure if putting an unhappy face to counter it out would negate that. I hope the AI can be tricked.

I see your artillery glass cannons are unflagged. The civ3 AI builds nothing but the highest offensive stat units and doesn't really escort glass cannons. Again, by using the "king" solution you can make an "Artillery" AI strat flag "Catapult" that upgrades into an "offensive" flag "king" ability "Catapult ". This way it will build both chariots and catapults, giving it a chance to touch city walls. Although the chariots will advance first and then often unescorted cats come as a second wave. But the original civ1 AI was like that as well. Do the same routine with Bombers ("Air bombard" into "Offense") and you will have the AI build Armor, Bombers and Artillery alongside like they did in civ1. I'm not sure if bombard value plays a role in getting the AI to build the unit if the unit is the only one available for an AI strat. If yes then I'm afraid one has to put up with defensive bombard.

If you eliminate bombardment from the game altogether, city walls and fortresses will need to be toned down. 100% would make it more feasible for the AI to take cities.

 

[tjs282]

Started a game up last night, Standard 70% Continents, Random geography, Random Civ + opponents, Emperor.

I rolled the French as my Civ, got a very jungly start (I've attached the 4000 BC start -- resaved from the Autosave -- and the most recent save, if you're interested).

I got notification that the Russians died (somewhere!) very early on, but I'm not sure how that happened (Volcano?). I share my continent with the Babs (1 short war so far) and Mongols (currently fighting a second war against them: Chariots vs Chariots is brutal!) and have (somehow) made contact with the Aztecs. The Romans and Americans are also out there somewhere (both have settled one town on my continent, but I haven't officially met them yet), as are the Indians.

Comments so far (1350 AD, plus some poking around in the Pedia), bearing in mind that I have only taken a very quick peek at your .biq (and that I've not played CivDOS for a decade, so do not remember all the details!):

Setup:

I might be misrembering, but I think Civ1 had only 1 map size, with max. 8 Civs, right? For a more authentic Civ1 experience, the (Civ3) world sizes Tiny, Small, Large and Huge should therefore maybe be disabled (if possible), or otherwise all set to 100*100, with no differences in map-size cost-factors.

The Space-race VC was switched off! Sure, I could switch it back on, but to be a proper Civ1 clone, Spaceship and Conquest should be the only available VCs (no others should be allowed). Civ-respawn should also be switched on by default.

Similarly, Civ1 had only 5 difficulty levels: Chieftain, Warlord(?), Regent, King, Emperor. I can't remember what the AI-handicaps/ bonuses were for each of those, but I never dared play any higher than King (I play Emp-DG on Civ3)...

Aesthetically speaking, it's perfect that Barbs are bright red, but the French should be (dark) blue, not pink! Could Civs be given their Civ1 colours or the closest analogues, with the 'colour-pairs' sharing the same 2 alternate Civ3-colours?

White: Russians + Romans (maybe they could have white and beige -- like the Uesugi in Sengoku?)
Green: Babs + Zulus (light green + olive green?)
Grey: Mongols + Indians (grey + black?)
Pink: English + Greeks (light pink and magenta?)
Dark blue: French + Germans (blue + navy blue?)
Light blue: Americans + Chinese (light blue + teal?)
Yellow: Egypt + Aztecs (yellow + orange?)

Research:

I was wondering how you were going to reconcile Civ3's hardcoded ages with Civ1's freedom to research whatever one "wanted" (I thought perhaps you were going to cram all the techs into the 1st age, but you didn't!). I would prefer Philosophy and Republic to be moved back to the Ancient Age, though: either that, or make all the Civs Religious (if they aren't already?), so that switching govs more than once is less painful.

(How) Have you adjusted tech-costs? CivDOS just made each new tech progressively more expensive to research, not sure how that could best be simulated here, though.

Spoiler Idle musing :

One idea might be to add a fixed percentage to the tech-costs for each new 'tier' of techs -- 1st-tier being the ones which are researchable at game-start, 2nd-tier being those which require a 1st-tier, 3rd-tiers require a 2nd-tier, etc. -- so e.g. if that percentage was 20%, then a 4th-tier tech would cost 1.2^3 = 1.73 times as much as a 1st-tier tech. The highest tier is about 15, (IIRC), so a 20% increase would make it 1.2^14 = 12.8 times more expensive than the 1st-tier.

Another idea might be to have variable tech-costs for each of the 1st-tier techs, and then set the cost of any new tech, as the sum of all its prereq's costs.

Buildings:

Barracks (but no Harbours):
At present, Barracks don't seem to make veteran Sea units (as they did in Civ1). Since you've disabled the (Civ3) Harbour, the Barracks should maybe also make Sea (and Air) units into veterans. Just wondering: Can I expect my Ancient Barracks to go obsolete with Gunpowder (and my Medieval Barracks with Combustion)?

Temples + Libraries:
Temples now seem to give no Culture -- but Libs still give 3 Culture! Since Civ1 did not have Culture at all (but did allow stealing of knowledge on town-capture), I would suggest reversing this, so that captured Temples (and Cathedrals) give Culture -- and get demolished -- but Libs (and Unis) don't.

Culture in general:
I would also suggest reducing the Temple's (and Cathedral's?) Culture output to max. 1 per turn, and raising the Culture-limit for a town's second border-pop, from 100 Culture to as high as possible (10,000? 100,000?), so that for the majority of the game, no towns will have Cultural borders which extend beyond their workable BFC. Towns should also "retain Culture on capture" (Scenario properties menu).

Research Lab:
After building a Library, I was given the option of building this already! Unless I'm missing something, this building should (also) be disabled.

Wonders:

A lot of Ancient Wonders seem to be available too 'early' -- which I know is how it worked in Civ1, but there the AI-Civs didn't have to build their Wonders, they got them at random: here, the Civ3-AI immediately starts funnelling shields into them, instead of Settlers and other units

The Mongols built the Colossus in Karakorum, which was completely landlocked. I can't remember if that was also possible in Civ1, but it was weird to see a "coastal" wonder built inland. Same applies to GLight (and Magellans, if that was also in Civ1?)

The Indians have also built CopsObs already (since you moved Astronomy to the Ancient Age).

Terrain:

This is one area where my memory is very spotty. I like that Grassland + Plains can only be irrigated, though: very Civ1!

Coast-tiles seem to give 1 food per turn, but Sea-tiles give 3 food per turn (out of Despotism, not counting Fish)? Is that how it was in Civ1? I can't remember if there was any building which boosted water-sourced food in Civ1, but it would perhaps be more helpful if both Coast and Sea gave 2 fpt (not sure how this would affect freshwater lakes in the Civ3-engine, though).

Possible terrains for Bonus-resources may need some adjustments: For example, I am seeing Gems on Swamp, but IIRC, in Civ1 they only appeared in Jungle (Oil appeared in Swamps, though)

Volcanoes seem dangerously active. Presumably this was deliberate?

Units:

Settlers (still) cost 2 pop-points (as in Civ3) -- I can't remember if that was also the case in Civ1?

More seriously here, though, the AI-Civs appear to be using their Settlers only to found towns -- not to road, mine or irrigate their territory. So even though Workers weren't part of Civ1, it may be necessary to compromise here, and allow them to be built, or enslaved (or possibly autoproduced from the Palace, to be less exploitable by the human?).

I like that the (Civ3 Roman) Legionary is used for the clone's "Legion" unit. But maybe the (Civ3 French) Musketeer could also be used for the clone "Musketeer" unit (at present it still seems to be the Musketman).

Giving fast units "Blitz" is true to Civ1, but (IIRC) allowing them to retreat from a losing fight is not. Maybe make retreat-probability zero for all experience-levels?

BTW, I'm really glad that stack-death is not possible in Civ3!

Bugs:

In the City view, Entertainers are invisible on my system: I suspect they are portrayed as Elvis on yours(?), but I don't have that popheads.pcx installed (not sure why your clone .biq isn't using my -- or rather, Puppeteer's! -- default Civ3 Entertainer-graphic instead, though?)

 

[Theov]

Awesome. Thanks Predator145 and tjs282 for testing and your thorough replies.
What I posted here was exactly for that reason, so get feedback and finish it as close as possible.

I will def look into your comment more thoroughly tmr.

I hadnt thought of the second cultural expansion. The size 10 expansion (aquaducts) I got, but not the BFG. Great idea.

Yes, Brax should go obsolete.

I was also surprised to learn this and will check double check, but yes, you can build the Lighthouse anywhere.

I wouldnt know why the game would look for my popheads. I will check this out as well.

My plan is to make every "column" of techs increasingly more expensive.

This is not a finished clone, so like I said, Ill take all your comments and throw them into the machine.

 

[Theov]

Nice "conversion".

Civ3 does not have a "ignore defense bonus" flag. This makes the defense tripling City Walls extremely powerful. A Mech Inf fortified in a walled metro would have around 20 defense. Artillery at 12 attack wouldn't scratch it. This makes bomber support mandatory. The civ3 AI at least knows how to use civ3 style bombers.

Speaking of bombers, too bad there isn't any way to fully replicate civ1. You could make them mobile. Giving them the "capture" order and attack stats can make them offensive units than can fly over land and water. But any land/sea unit will kill them regardless of defense. And it will still get full road+rails benefit. Giving 4 movement ATR would result in a highly mobile attacker. The AI could attack border cities and still have enough movement to withdraw to safety afterwards. But it's not hardcoded to return its aircrafts to base by the end of the turn, often over extending and leaving them exposed. Beware, regardless of the "capture" order being ticked or not, having the "offense" AI strat flag will result in the AI being able to use aircrafts to capture cities. And since offense flag units aren't used to pillage, it can't use aircrafts to target terrain improvements like the player can.

If you go down the route above fighters can be even more mobile at 5 movement ATR with modest attack of 6. Their job is to chase down the bombers the AI flew back into its territory but still left outside. With both units being air, real combat will take place. If you have bombard value on your fighter it could defensive bombard attacking bombers, but that's beyond civ1. Fighters with decent defense ( let's say 6 def to the bomber's 12 attack ) and "defense" AI strat flag can also protect your interior cities from bomber attacks and be used by the AI to pillage. The problem is the AI wouldn't build fighters flagged as "offense" or if they built it that's all they would build in the case of offensive bombers.

Which brings me to the next solution. By using the "king" ability, you could have a unit that can't be built but be upgraded from one that can be. "Fighter", flagged as "Air Defense" is upgraded to "Fighter2" or "Fighter " with the "king" ability and "offense" and "defense" AI strat. Tick "Veteran Air units" for Barracks so the AI can build fighters and upgrade them to useable units. Perhaps give barracks a happy face to entice them to build raxes ASAP. I'm not sure if putting an unhappy face to counter it out would negate that. I hope the AI can be tricked.

I see your artillery glass cannons are unflagged. The civ3 AI builds nothing but the highest offensive stat units and doesn't really escort glass cannons. Again, by using the "king" solution you can make an "Artillery" AI strat flag "Catapult" that upgrades into an "offensive" flag "king" ability "Catapult ". This way it will build both chariots and catapults, giving it a chance to touch city walls. Although the chariots will advance first and then often unescorted cats come as a second wave. But the original civ1 AI was like that as well. Do the same routine with Bombers ("Air bombard" into "Offense") and you will have the AI build Armor, Bombers and Artillery alongside like they did in civ1. I'm not sure if bombard value plays a role in getting the AI to build the unit if the unit is the only one available for an AI strat. If yes then I'm afraid one has to put up with defensive bombard.

If you eliminate bombardment from the game altogether, city walls and fortresses will need to be toned down. 100% would make it more feasible for the AI to take cities.

I'm not sure yet how to implement bombers and fighters in Civ1/3.
Sorry, what do you mean with "artillery glass cannons"?
Later in development I will look at the bomber/cannon issue. Cats and Artilery were just normal units in Civ1, so that's how I'll treat them.

Started a game up last night, Standard 70% Continents, Random geography, Random Civ + opponents, Emperor.

I rolled the French as my Civ, got a very jungly start (I've attached the 4000 BC start -- resaved from the Autosave -- and the most recent save, if you're interested).

View attachment 589792

I got notification that the Russians died (somewhere!) very early on, but I'm not sure how that happened (Volcano?). I share my continent with the Babs (1 short war so far) and Mongols (currently fighting a second war against them: Chariots vs Chariots is brutal!) and have (somehow) made contact with the Aztecs. The Romans and Americans are also out there somewhere (both have settled one town on my continent, but I haven't officially met them yet), as are the Indians.

Comments so far (1350 AD, plus some poking around in the Pedia), bearing in mind that I have only taken a very quick peek at your .biq (and that I've not played CivDOS for a decade, so do not remember all the details!):

Setup:

I might be misrembering, but I think Civ1 had only 1 map size, with max. 8 Civs, right? For a more authentic Civ1 experience, the (Civ3) world sizes Tiny, Small, Large and Huge should therefore maybe be disabled (if possible), or otherwise all set to 100*100, with no differences in map-size cost-factors.

The Space-race VC was switched off! Sure, I could switch it back on, but to be a proper Civ1 clone, Spaceship and Conquest should be the only available VCs (no others should be allowed). Civ-respawn should also be switched on by default.

Similarly, Civ1 had only 5 difficulty levels: Chieftain, Warlord(?), Regent, King, Emperor. I can't remember what the AI-handicaps/ bonuses were for each of those, but I never dared play any higher than King (I play Emp-DG on Civ3)...

Haven't looked into the map thing - it's on the to-do-list.
chief, war, prince, king, emperor - the difficulty levels will be have to be controlled via Civ3 rules.

Aesthetically speaking, it's perfect that Barbs are bright red, but the French should be (dark) blue, not pink! Could Civs be given their Civ1 colours or the closest analogues, with the 'colour-pairs' sharing the same 2 alternate Civ3-colours?

White: Russians + Romans (maybe they could have white and beige -- like the Uesugi in Sengoku?)
Green: Babs + Zulus (light green + olive green?)
Grey: Mongols + Indians (grey + black?)
Pink: English + Greeks (light pink and magenta?)
Dark blue: French + Germans (blue + navy blue?)
Light blue: Americans + Chinese (light blue + teal?)
Yellow: Egypt + Aztecs (yellow + orange?)

I changed the colors from to their original civ colors, but I didn't want the double color issue, so I gave the other civ the original Civ3 color.
I might give these another look - but I want to prevent any double-colors.

Research:

I was wondering how you were going to reconcile Civ3's hardcoded ages with Civ1's freedom to research whatever one "wanted" (I thought perhaps you were going to cram all the techs into the 1st age, but you didn't!). I would prefer Philosophy and Republic to be moved back to the Ancient Age, though: either that, or make all the Civs Religious (if they aren't already?), so that switching govs more than once is less painful.

Yeah I thought about cramming everything into one era like civ1, but A: that doesn't make it any more enjoyable or playable. And it also doesn't really work from a game-play perspective.
I looked at the way Civ1 organizes its techs and then I realized they actually use eras, but I think they weren't really able to do it in 1991.
The way the techs go from one to the other really seems like there are certain cutoff points, so that's what I went with. It looks and feels more natural.

(How) Have you adjusted tech-costs? CivDOS just made each new tech progressively more expensive to research, not sure how that could best be simulated here, though.
One idea might be to add a fixed percentage to the tech-costs for each new 'tier' of techs -- 1st-tier being the ones which are researchable at game-start, 2nd-tier being those which require a 1st-tier, 3rd-tiers require a 2nd-tier, etc. -- so e.g. if that percentage was 20%, then a 4th-tier tech would cost 1.2^3 = 1.73 times as much as a 1st-tier tech. The highest tier is about 15, (IIRC), so a 20% increase would make it 1.2^14 = 12.8 times more expensive than the 1st-tier.

Another idea might be to have variable tech-costs for each of the 1st-tier techs, and then set the cost of any new tech, as the sum of all its prereq's costs.

I want to look at the tech tree and devide the techs into 'colums' (up-down) and make techs more expensive with every column.

Buildings:
Barracks (but no Harbours):

would you believe they aren't actually there in Civ1. That's why everyone settles in-land. It's almost like they had a epiphany making civ3... "hey guys, maybe making these sea tiles valuable would make the map far more interesting!"

At present, Barracks don't seem to make veteran Sea units (as they did in Civ1). Since you've disabled the (Civ3) Harbour, the Barracks should maybe also make Sea (and Air) units into veterans. Just wondering: Can I expect my Ancient Barracks to go obsolete with Gunpowder (and my Medieval Barracks with Combustion)?

fixed and yes

Temples + Libraries:
Temples now seem to give no Culture -- but Libs still give 3 Culture! Since Civ1 did not have Culture at all (but did allow stealing of knowledge on town-capture), I would suggest reversing this, so that captured Temples (and Cathedrals) give Culture -- and get demolished -- but Libs (and Unis) don't.

Culture in general:
I would also suggest reducing the Temple's (and Cathedral's?) Culture output to max. 1 per turn, and raising the Culture-limit for a town's second border-pop, from 100 Culture to as high as possible (10,000? 100,000?), so that for the majority of the game, no towns will have Cultural borders which extend beyond their workable BFC. Towns should also "retain Culture on capture" (Scenario properties menu).

I don't know though how these "lvl multiplier" and "border factor" work in the editor. The best way is indeed on how you describe it. The first expansion is to the BFG and then it's impossible for a town to grow beyond that. Is that doable? That would come closest to civ1.

Research Lab:
After building a Library, I was given the option of building this already! Unless I'm missing something, this building should (also) be disabled.

oops

Wonders:

A lot of Ancient Wonders seem to be available too 'early' -- which I know is how it worked in Civ1, but there the AI-Civs didn't have to build their Wonders, they got them at random: here, the Civ3-AI immediately starts funnelling shields into them, instead of Settlers and other units

The Mongols built the Colossus in Karakorum, which was completely landlocked. I can't remember if that was also possible in Civ1, but it was weird to see a "coastal" wonder built inland. Same applies to GLight (and Magellans, if that was also in Civ1?)

The Indians have also built CopsObs already (since you moved Astronomy to the Ancient Age).

No such thing as coastal wonders in Civ1.
Yeah, it's bad if Civ3 AI builds the wonders but, then again, Civ1 would do that also.

Terrain:

This is one area where my memory is very spotty. I like that Grassland + Plains can only be irrigated, though: very Civ1!

Coast-tiles seem to give 1 food per turn, but Sea-tiles give 3 food per turn (out of Despotism, not counting Fish)? Is that how it was in Civ1? I can't remember if there was any building which boosted water-sourced food in Civ1, but it would perhaps be more helpful if both Coast and Sea gave 2 fpt (not sure how this would affect freshwater lakes in the Civ3-engine, though).

Possible terrains for Bonus-resources may need some adjustments: For example, I am seeing Gems on Swamp, but IIRC, in Civ1 they only appeared in Jungle (Oil appeared in Swamps, though)

Volcanoes seem dangerously active. Presumably this was deliberate?

- fixed the sea error
- I have no idea why there are so many vulcanoes and why they hate us so much. Maybe I angried some gods.
- fixed the location of the resources

Units:

Settlers (still) cost 2 pop-points (as in Civ3) -- I can't remember if that was also the case in Civ1?

More seriously here, though, the AI-Civs appear to be using their Settlers only to found towns -- not to road, mine or irrigate their territory. So even though Workers weren't part of Civ1, it may be necessary to compromise here, and allow them to be built, or enslaved (or possibly autoproduced from the Palace, to be less exploitable by the human?).

I like that the (Civ3 Roman) Legionary is used for the clone's "Legion" unit. But maybe the (Civ3 French) Musketeer could also be used for the clone "Musketeer" unit (at present it still seems to be the Musketman).

Giving fast units "Blitz" is true to Civ1, but (IIRC) allowing them to retreat from a losing fight is not. Maybe make retreat-probability zero for all experience-levels?

BTW, I'm really glad that stack-death is not possible in Civ3!

settlers: fixed, only 1 pop
settlers not doing worker jobs - I might need to make a "worker" unit that looks and costs the same as the settler to do the worker job then.
It should be "musketeer" as named in Civ1.
Thanks! I didn't know you could change the influence values - I also eliminated 'elite' status. Everything is Regular or Veteran now. If it says Elite, it will still only have 4 hitpoints.

Bugs:

In the City view, Entertainers are invisible on my system: I suspect they are portrayed as Elvis on yours(?), but I don't have that popheads.pcx installed (not sure why your clone .biq isn't using my -- or rather, Puppeteer's! -- default Civ3 Entertainer-graphic instead, though?)

No idea. It should take the popheads you use from the core-non-mod game you have. Weirdly, I have the same problem.

Alright. I've added an updated version to the original post.

 

[Predator145]

"Glass cannon" is the term for units with very high attack and next to no defense. The AI is notoriously bad at using them. If implemented as offensive units, both artillery and bombers will be glass cannons (bombers have zero defensive utility). Bombers should be ATR and highly mobile so the AI will use them fine. The problem with the Civ3 AI is that it mostly if not only builds the unit with the highest offensive stats. So if you ticked offensive for catapult it would build no chariots . By not ticking the offensive flag the AI will only build chariots and no catapults. This together with cavalry and legions already being ignored by the civ3 AI makes for a worse civ1-lite experience. And phalanx behind walls are impossible for the AI to touch.

My biggest gripe with the civ3 AI is the "only build the unit with the highest relevant stat" hardcoding. This can be solved by using "king" ability units. Air and Arty units will be built under Air and Arty flags but upgraded into offensive "king" units.

 

[tjs282]

I don't know though how these "lvl multiplier" and "border factor" work in the editor. The best way is indeed on how you describe it. The first expansion is to the BFG and then it's impossible for a town to grow beyond that. Is that doable?

In epic Civ3, the border-expansions happen at 10, 100, 1000, and 10000 Culture-points, and I believe that those limits are adjustable, although admittedly I can't remember exactly where in the Editor they are set (if I'm right, it's most likely either Scenario Properties or Rules—General Settings).

If so, then all you'd have to do is set the second and third expansion-thresholds high enough that even a capital's border won't pop a second time before 2050 — or whatever you've chosen as the game-end point: e.g. if the game is going to last 500-600 turns, and your generic Culture-building gives only 1 Culture, then setting the first expansion to happen at 10 Culture (as in epic Civ3), but the second expansion to happen at 10000 Culture (and the third at 10001, and the fourth at 10002?), would probably be enough.

I previously nominated the Temple as the default Cultural improvement, but thinking about it, the Barracks might actually be a better option. Although it's a less intuitive choice as a Culture-producer, it has the same shield-cost as a Temple (at least, the first one does), but it has no tech-prereqs (IIRC), allowing it to be built even before CB is known, and best of all, it's already set to go obsolete with a true-to-Civ1 replacement(s) — which should help to minimise the Culture-doubling effect (hardcoded to happen 1000 years after a building is completed).

If it turns out that the Cultural border-expansion thresholds aren't adjustable, then that latter factor will make the Barracks an even better Culture-building candidate.

- I have no idea why there are so many vulcanoes and why they hate us so much. Maybe I angried some gods.

I thought maybe you were trying to simulate the Civ1 disasters!

Which reminds me: if you're going to give the Barbs such a powerful ship as the Frigate as their sea-unit then how about giving them a duplicate Frigate which is also bombard-capable (but sinks in Sea, and can't cross Oceans?), to allow them to harass coastal towns/improvements (to simulate Civ1's "pirate-raids" disaster)? If you then (also) gave the Barracks-buildings the naval bombard-defence settings of the (Civ3) Coastal Fortress, then the Barb-ships would avoid any town that had one, fulfilling the spirit of that mechanic, if not the letter.

Similarly, Floodplains could continue to cause disease "flooding", but City Walls could eliminate that risk.

settlers not doing worker jobs - I might need to make a "worker" unit that looks and costs the same as the settler to do the worker job then.

I suspect the problem might be that either the Civ3-AI is confused by a dual-use Settler/Terraform unit — or did you not give the clone-Settler all the Worker-jobs in the first place, so could not give it the "Terraform" strategy?

If the latter is the problem, then you can give all Worker-jobs to the Settler, but then disable the ones you don't want (Build Colony/ Outpost/ Barricade/ Airfield/ Radar Tower, etc.), e.g. by making those jobs require an unresearchable "Era=None" tech, or a dummy-resource that can never be hooked (rename Civ3-Uranium to "Unobtainium", found only in Oceans, Appearance ratio = 1 — so it only appears once on any map).

(BTW, the same mechanic can be used to disable the 'non-Civ1' buildings + Wonders — rather than stuffing them all into the final "Fusion Power" tech!)

Either way, and bearing in mind how (in)frequently the Civ3-AI ever builds dedicated "Terraform"-strategy units, separating "Settler-Settlers" from "Worker-Settlers" would probably work better than what we have at present.

Alright. I've added an updated version to the original post.

Good, because the Mongol hordes (of Knights) are now bearing down on me, so I need an excuse to restart!

Just out of curiosity, have you also announced this mod-idea in the Civ1 forum?

 

[Theov]

"Glass cannon" is the term for units with very high attack and next to no defense. The AI is notoriously bad at using them. If implemented as offensive units, both artillery and bombers will be glass cannons (bombers have zero defensive utility). Bombers should be ATR and highly mobile so the AI will use them fine. The problem with the Civ3 AI is that it mostly if not only builds the unit with the highest offensive stats. So if you ticked offensive for catapult it would build no chariots . By not ticking the offensive flag the AI will only build chariots and no catapults. This together with cavalry and legions already being ignored by the civ3 AI makes for a worse civ1-lite experience. And phalanx behind walls are impossible for the AI to touch.

My biggest gripe with the civ3 AI is the "only build the unit with the highest relevant stat" hardcoding. This can be solved by using "king" ability units. Air and Arty units will be built under Air and Arty flags but upgraded into offensive "king" units.

I will really have to look into this behavior, but I'm trying to do what Civ1 does. And Civ1 does send the best units at you.
If the AI has spare units behind, they will use them too, so there is a mix if you go to war. But I never realized the 'offense' and 'defense' flag did these. I thought they were just to complement the 'build often' flags.

In epic Civ3, the border-expansions happen at 10, 100, 1000, and 10000 Culture-points, and I believe that those limits are adjustable, although admittedly I can't remember exactly where in the Editor they are set (if I'm right, it's most likely either Scenario Properties or Rules—General Settings).

If so, then all you'd have to do is set the second and third expansion-thresholds high enough that even a capital's border won't pop a second time before 2050 — or whatever you've chosen as the game-end point: e.g. if the game is going to last 500-600 turns, and your generic Culture-building gives only 1 Culture, then setting the first expansion to happen at 10 Culture (as in epic Civ3), but the second expansion to happen at 10000 Culture (and the third at 10001, and the fourth at 10002?), would probably be enough.

I previously nominated the Temple as the default Cultural improvement, but thinking about it, the Barracks might actually be a better option. Although it's a less intuitive choice as a Culture-producer, it has the same shield-cost as a Temple (at least, the first one does), but it has no tech-prereqs (IIRC), allowing it to be built even before CB is known, and best of all, it's already set to go obsolete with a true-to-Civ1 replacement(s) — which should help to minimise the Culture-doubling effect (hardcoded to happen 1000 years after a building is completed).

If it turns out that the Cultural border-expansion thresholds aren't adjustable, then that latter factor will make the Barracks an even better Culture-building candidate.

I havent found these culture border expansions yet - if they can be somehow set to one expansion, that'd be awesome and exactly (almost) what I need.
good call

I thought maybe you were trying to simulate the Civ1 disasters!

Which reminds me: if you're going to give the Barbs such a powerful ship as the Frigate as their sea-unit then how about giving them a duplicate Frigate which is also bombard-capable (but sinks in Sea, and can't cross Oceans?), to allow them to harass coastal towns/improvements (to simulate Civ1's "pirate-raids" disaster)? If you then (also) gave the Barracks-buildings the naval bombard-defence settings of the (Civ3) Coastal Fortress, then the Barb-ships would avoid any town that had one, fulfilling the spirit of that mechanic, if not the letter.

Similarly, Floodplains could continue to cause disease "flooding", but City Walls could eliminate that risk.
I suspect the problem might be that either the Civ3-AI is confused by a dual-use Settler/Terraform unit — or did you not give the clone-Settler all the Worker-jobs in the first place, so could not give it the "Terraform" strategy?

If the latter is the problem, then you can give all Worker-jobs to the Settler, but then disable the ones you don't want (Build Colony/ Outpost/ Barricade/ Airfield/ Radar Tower, etc.), e.g. by making those jobs require an unresearchable "Era=None" tech, or a dummy-resource that can never be hooked (rename Civ3-Uranium to "Unobtainium", found only in Oceans, Appearance ratio = 1 — so it only appears once on any map).

Civ1 actually brings frigates and knights - barbs in Civ1 are not to mess around with, they aren't the wanna-be slaves that civ3 brings.

(BTW, the same mechanic can be used to disable the 'non-Civ1' buildings + Wonders — rather than stuffing them all into the final "Fusion Power" tech!)

Either way, and bearing in mind how (in)frequently the Civ3-AI ever builds dedicated "Terraform"-strategy units, separating "Settler-Settlers" from "Worker-Settlers" would probably work better than what we have at present.
Good, because the Mongol hordes (of Knights) are now bearing down on me, so I need an excuse to restart!

I have unobtanium already in the biq file, it's just that I left some buildings as placeholders at fusion power because by that time the game is over anyway.

Just out of curiosity, have you also announced this mod-idea in the Civ1 forum?

I have.

I found in Rome that the map size of Civ1 is 50 x 80.
For google and search purposes I'll repeat this, because I couldn't find this anywhere on the internet.

Civilization1 Civ1 earth or no earth map size is 50 tiles by 80 tiles or squares .

 

[tjs282]

Bombers should be ATR and highly mobile so the AI will use them fine.

I don't really like the idea of turning Civ3 air-units into Civ1-clone land-units.

Civ1 air-units did not act like Civ1 land-units, since they had to return to a city at the end of their turn (Fighters) or after 2 turns (Bombers). ATAR also doesn't allow land-units to cross water, AFAIK.

Also, once it knows how to build Bombers, the Civ3-AI uses air-bombardment perfectly adequately.

So for the Civ1-clone, I would say that Fighters and Bombers should stay as Air-units. But they will need RoF > 4* and Lethal Land/Sea-bombard, so that they actually have the possibility to kill units (which should in turn possibly all also have an "anti-Aircraft" stat, so that they can shoot down attacking Fighters + Bombers). But air-units should also have the 'Craters' box (and/or the 'Collateral damage' box?) unchecked, if that will then prevent the AI from using them to destroy terrain-improvements.

*Or... would they?

Civ1 combat is/was resolved in a single round, based entirely on the A/D-values, with vet-status adding an invisible 50%(?) to a unit's A/D-values. We can't simulate the latter directly in the Civ3 engine, but here's a kinda radical idea: we could simulate the former by giving all regular clone-units only 1 (or maybe 2) HP. Promotions would be unavoidable, but if Vet units got +1HP, and Elites +0HP, then the Vet would then have a better chance of winning a battle against a Regular, battles would be resolved a lot quicker (without having to turn off battle-animations!), and fast-unit retreat would become less- or irrelevant.

Low HP likely would not discourage the AI: in my test game, I frequently saw redlined AI-Chariots try for a second attack against fortified, full-health D=1 units (I didn't build any Walls).

If the AI has spare units behind, they will use them too, so there is a mix if you go to war. But I never realized the 'offense' and 'defense' flag did these. I thought they were just to complement the 'build often' flags.

Regarding units in general, I noticed in my game that the AI-Civs were using D=1 Legions to guard all their towns, instead of D=2 Phalanxes. So the AI-strats for those two units might definitely need looking at, since for the same shield-cost, the AI really should be building the better defender.

I found in Rome that the map size of Civ1 is 50 x 80.

Good point! i.e. 4000 tiles in total.

But that was a square grid, not isometric. So in Civ3 terms, 80 x 80 would be too small, because that's actually only 3200 tiles: each of the 80 columns is only 40 tiles tall corner-to-corner, but offset from the adjacent column, with co-ordinates alternating even-numbered tiles in one column (0,0; 0,2; 0,4, etc.) with odd-numbered tiles in the next (1,1; 1,3; 1,5, etc.). Similarly, 100 x 100 would be too large (5000 tiles), therefore 80 x 100 (80 columns of 50 tiles) would give 4000 tiles.

Next step would be to use BmpToBic and/or MapTweaker to make an Earth-map with those dimensions...

 

[Quintillus]

I havent found these culture border expansions yet - if they can be somehow set to one expansion, that'd be awesome and exactly (almost) what I need.
good call

lurker's comment: They are on the General Settings tab of the Firaxis editor, near the center of the page (or on the Culture tab of my editor). While you can't set it to have one expansion maximum, the Border Factor is exponential. You could thus increase both the border factor and culture production to make it much less common that the borders would ever expand beyond the BFG. For example:

A building has 2 culture per turn
With 10 border factor
5 turns to reach level 1 (10)
50 turns to reach level 2 (100)

A building has 20 culture per turn
With 100 border factor
5 turns to reach level 1 (100)
500 turns to reach level 2 (10,000)

And so on. Of course, the tradeoff is the base culture value is going to be much higher, which may not be desirable. But I think a much higher border factor, perhaps with increased base factor rates, would be the best way to achieve that aspect of what you are looking for in Civ III.

 

[Predator145]

I don't really like the idea of turning Civ3 air-units into Civ1-clone land-units.

Civ1 air-units did not act like Civ1 land-units, since they had to return to a city at the end of their turn (Fighters) or after 2 turns (Bombers). ATAR also doesn't allow land-units to cross water, AFAIK.

Also, once it knows how to build Bombers, the Civ3-AI uses air-bombardment perfectly adequately.

So for the Civ1-clone, I would say that Fighters and Bombers should stay as Air-units. But they will need RoF > 4* and Lethal Land/Sea-bombard, so that they actually have the possibility to kill units (which should in turn possibly all also have an "anti-Aircraft" stat, so that they can shoot down attacking Fighters + Bombers). But air-units should also have the 'Craters' box (and/or the 'Collateral damage' box?) unchecked, if that will then prevent the AI from using them to destroy terrain-improvements.

*Or... would they?

Civ1 combat is/was resolved in a single round, based entirely on the A/D-values, with vet-status adding an invisible 50%(?) to a unit's A/D-values. We can't simulate the latter directly in the Civ3 engine, but here's a kinda radical idea: we could simulate the former by giving all regular clone-units only 1 (or maybe 2) HP. Promotions would be unavoidable, but if Vet units got +1HP, and Elites +0HP, then the Vet would then have a better chance of winning a battle against a Regular, battles would be resolved a lot quicker (without having to turn off battle-animations!), and fast-unit retreat would become less- or irrelevant.

Low HP likely would not discourage the AI: in my test game, I frequently saw redlined AI-Chariots try for a second attack against fortified, full-health D=1 units (I didn't build any Walls).
Regarding units in general, I noticed in my game that the AI-Civs were using D=1 Legions to guard all their towns, instead of D=2 Phalanxes. So the AI-strats for those two units might definitely need looking at, since for the same shield-cost, the AI really should be building the better defender.
Good point! i.e. 4000 tiles in total.

But that was a square grid, not isometric. So in Civ3 terms, 80 x 80 would be too small, because that's actually only 3200 tiles: each of the 80 columns is only 40 tiles tall corner-to-corner, but offset from the adjacent column, with co-ordinates alternating even-numbered tiles in one column (0,0; 0,2; 0,4, etc.) with odd-numbered tiles in the next (1,1; 1,3; 1,5, etc.). Similarly, 100 x 100 would be too large (5000 tiles), therefore 80 x 100 (80 columns of 50 tiles) would give 4000 tiles.

Next step would be to use BmpToBic and/or MapTweaker to make an Earth-map with those dimensions...

High ROF traditional air units vs air defense of all units sounds good. This way air units bypass terrain and fortifications. But IMO ATR offensive AIR UNITs are closer to civ1 experience. The air unit can attack, fly over water and even capture cities, but it can't defend at all. You still don't want to leave them open by the end of the turn. Returning back to the defensive cover of a land unit is still the best option most of the time. But you can choose to do a 1 way ticket suicide attack at double the usual range. If memory serves me correct that's something you could do in civ1 as well. The AI would do that more often than the human player but I think the threat of an offensive unit capable of capturing and razing a city 12 tiles deep into your territory is worth it. There is no way to disable mobile air units from benefiting from rails though.

 

[Blake00]

This is a very cool project I've just been informed of and would love to cover in my Civ videos series down the track. I won't repeat myself and retype everything I said but I posted my investigations of previous Civ1 mods for Civ3 with some interesting the results (some stuff lost, some stuff not) as well some info on Civ1 mods for Civ2 and Civ4 at the link below if anyone's interested:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ1-mod.37121/#post-16098224

Damn.. apologies for the necro but sadly the download for this doesn't work anymore and @Matrix has been away from CFC for a while now (EDIT: I PM'd him and he's come back and is going to look for it! Woot!). Anyone still have a copy of it somewhere? I have large file upload access to CFC and have been rescuing lots of old long lost mods around the place so will do the same with this one if it resurfaces.

Sadly even Matrix's picture links above don't work anymore.. only surviving visual evidence of his terrain is over in @computerdude113 and @Chieftess thread where they experimented with some units and cities and you can see his retro grassland in the background.





Found another thread where @Sims2789 managed to make a whole Civ1 unit set for Civ3 (thankfully the download for that still works) which was the thing missing from Matrix's pack. So if Matrix's work is rescued it could be combined with Sims2789's units and Chieftess's city and we'd have the combined mod they all dreamed of all those years ago! The only thing missing would be rules and gameplay Civ1 feel but that matters less to me as I just like playing with all the visual stuff for fun. Although I can see that @Ville made a Civ1 rulset for Civ3 years ago too which could be thrown in the combined stew pot too but sadly his download link is now missing for some reason. Can also see that @pdescobar wanted to resurrect the Civ1 mod idea way back then too but didn't get far.

Why would I try to find Matrix's terrain mod? Well a lot of the old mod rescues I'm doing are also for a Civ video series I'm making and I also recently worked on a Civ1 graphics mod for Civ2 . I will be doing a video on that and had the thought that I should look to see if there were Civ1 mods for later Civ games I could mention and sure enough there are! Problem is they're all missing now days lol.

Civ1 mod for Civ2

Good luck on your project Theov! I'll let you guys know if I have any luck scoring copies of the lost stuff.

.

 

[Theov]

This is a very cool project I've just been informed of and would love to cover in my Civ videos series down the track. I won't repeat myself and retype everything I said but I posted my investigations of previous Civ1 mods for Civ3 with some interesting the results (some stuff lost, some stuff not) as well some info on Civ1 mods for Civ2 and Civ4 at the link below if anyone's interested:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ1-mod.37121/#post-16098224


Good luck on your project Theov! I'll let you guys know if I have any luck scoring copies of the lost stuff.

.

Thanks.
I am reading everyone's comments, especially, but not exclusively: (list for future-self)
- unit strength and combat mechanics
- map sizes
- air combat (reach of bombers/fighters, giving all units anti air combat strength/air units couldnt capture cities in civ1 though)
- borders, I would actually like the Civ3 culture borders if they were to be in civ1, instead of the "place a unit to make sure the ai doesnt build a city in your territory" system.
Though I would want the culture be limited to just the city's BFC.

When I make time to improve this project, I'll update the OP.
If, in the meanwhile someone wants to improve it, he's welcome to do so.