Civ1 mod?

What should be isometric?

  • Everything! (terrain, resources, cities & units)

    Votes: 7 35.0%
  • Everything except units

    Votes: 4 20.0%
  • Only terrain, including resources

    Votes: 2 10.0%
  • Only pure terrain

    Votes: 5 25.0%
  • Nothing. And if that's impossible, don't make it.

    Votes: 1 5.0%
  • I don't care anyway.

    Votes: 1 5.0%

  • Total voters
    20

Matrix

CFC Dinosaur
Retired Moderator
Joined
Oct 28, 2000
Messages
5,521
Location
Tampere, Finland
I've been working on a Civ1 mod: making everything look like Civ1. But the big problem is that Civ3 is "isometric", while Civ1 isn't: in Civ1 everything is in squares; in Civ2 and Civ3 they are diamonds. So what should I do?

[edit] By the way, I've already finished terrain (isometric). I'll show a screenshot when I'm home. ;)
 
Seeing Civ3 units working civ1 terrain is surreal :) If you do continue with this, I notice something with the hut on screenshot#2 NW of Pompeii -- It looks kinda strange being rotated 45 degrees. I suppose everything is in order to deal with the change in perspective, but it's far more disorienting on the hut. I would rather have the hut be in its standard orientation, but smaller and centered within the diamond, if you know what I mean. That way you wouldn't be as inclined to tilt your head (or your monitor) when looking at it. Just a thought...

And now for a completely unrelated question. Your city names list the owning civilization after them. (e.g. "Reykjavik (Viking)") Did you do something to make that happen (mine do not) or is that just a difference between the US and European versions?
 
Originally posted by pdescobar
Seeing Civ3 units working civ1 terrain is surreal :) If you do continue with this, I notice something with the hut on screenshot#2 NW of Pompeii -- It looks kinda strange being rotated 45 degrees. I suppose everything is in order to deal with the change in perspective, but it's far more disorienting on the hut. I would rather have the hut be in its standard orientation, but smaller and centered within the diamond, if you know what I mean. That way you wouldn't be as inclined to tilt your head (or your monitor) when looking at it. Just a thought...
Good point. :) That's what this poll is about. ;)
Originally posted by pdescobar
And now for a completely unrelated question. Your city names list the owning civilization after them. (e.g. "Reykjavik (Viking)") Did you do something to make that happen (mine do not) or is that just a difference between the US and European versions?
Err, I guess so. :confused: I also can't turn it off. It's like Firaxis thought all Europeans are color blind anyway. :crazyeye:
 
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
 
Last edited:
Hey, has @Theov seen this?

He made a start on a Civ1-in-Civ3Conquests mod a couple of months back, and that isometric-but-recognisably-Civ1 terrain-set would be a great addition to it (if compatible...?)!
 
Hey, has @Theov seen this?

He made a start on a Civ1-in-Civ3Conquests mod a couple of months back, and that isometric-but-recognisably-Civ1 terrain-set would be a great addition to it (if compatible...?)!

Oh wow! Thank you! I searched the whole forum and didn't see his work.. but I think that's because I searched for Civ1 mod and not Civ1 clone but I see his two threads now:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ1-clone-in-civ3.667077/
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ1-clone-in-civ3.667078/

That's good that @Theov is focusing on rules since that the one thing really missing! As I've PM'd @Matrix and @Ville which brought both of them back to the CFC which is great! However Matrix is not sure if he still has a copy of his terrain and Ville sadly confirmed that he does not have his custom rules files anymore (maybe Matrix has them too?). So fingers crossed we have some good luck there or someone else comes forward!

Either way hopefully some of my research above helps Theov as there's been some interesting prior work on this idea over the decades and your post above clearly shows that there's more to be found in the depths on this forum.

As right now it's looking like...
  • The Civ1 terrain is already done (if Matrix can find his files or someone else has them)
  • The Civ1 units are already converted to flc (and with a bic) by Sims2789 and the download works
  • The Civ1 City graphic has a preliminary design by Chieftess that could be imported in without too much trouble.
  • The Civ1 rulsets by Ville are lost sadly (unless someone else has them) but Theov is working on a new set.

If Matrix's graphics aren't found then yeah.. hmmm.. I dunno how well my Civ1 tileset for Civ2 would covert over to Civ3.. depends on the title size difference.. eg if Civ3 is almost exactly twice the size of the Civ2 one then no probs! If not then it'll look all stretched and ugly meaning it would be better to start from scratch on a Civ1 tileset for Civ3. The other problem is Civ2 MGE has a limited colour palette so a lot of concessions had to be made for our mod so our assets don't use original Civ1 colours.

I've also found that someone made a Civ1 terrain set for Civ4 too but sadly that's been lost over time too! :(

 
Last edited:
Hey, has @Theov seen this?

He made a start on a Civ1-in-Civ3Conquests mod a couple of months back, and that isometric-but-recognisably-Civ1 terrain-set would be a great addition to it (if compatible...?)!
no hadn't seen this

I focused mostly on the rules first, since gameplay -> graphics.
It would not be very difficult to extract the civ1 graphics (they are at the civ1 forums, they are easily extractable and you can edit them easily - I once even made a civ1 x-mas theme)
It'd be pretty fun to have those static units walk around on a civ3 map - maybe someone can bring them to life with an animation.

I'm busy with school nowadays - so I don't have much time for modding. In the summer vacation (soon) i'll pick it back up.
 
Last edited:
I checked at home, but I'm afraid I lost the Civ1 mod for Civ3. Apparently I made this mod in 2003, and the computer I had back then is long gone!

The reason I made this, is - believe it or not - I still find the graphics of Civ1 the best. Not because I like pixel art, but it looks so much more playful, like a board game. Realistic looks should not always be the goal.

(For the same reason I also like the original Colonization more than the Civ4 remake, although that game is technically better.)
 
Damn.. oh well thanks for coming back to CFC and trying to help us out @Matrix ! :)

Hopefully someone else has your files and we can rescue all that work you did! I let you know if anything happens!

Fellow collectors & rescuers @Node60 and @r16 please let me know if you've got Matrix's Civ1 terrain for Civ3 mod. :)

Oh and yeah I love Civ1 Dos's graphics too. There's a great mod that imports the dos graphics into Civilization for Windows that allows you to play Civ in modern resolutions with classic graphics which I love. I ended up doing a video about it as it looks great. And yeah I think classic Col's graphics have aged better than Civ4Cols, especially if you play the windows version of classic Col in modern resolutions.
 
Last edited:
certainly can't help here .
 
Top Bottom