Civilization Chronicles

[DarthDSB]

Hi,

Back in 2007 I bought a PC-CD box set containing Civ I-IV plus a load of extras; it's actually very good. The box set was produced by Firaxis.

I can load up the Civ I CD on a PC running Windows XP (virtual machine) but despite loading up on Windows 10 (no virtual machine) I'm unable to run the program. On XP the CD creates links to run the game which are absent when the game is loaded in Windows 10.

Does anyone know of a way to run Civ 1 on Windows 10 from a CD? I contacted Fraxis and all they told me was "support for Civ 1 has now ended". Appreciate that this box set is 13 years old but I'd really like to be able to run Civ 1 from the CD without using a virtual machine (XP is often clunky and consequently game play is annoying). I've tried compatibility settings etc. but the issue seems to be (although I could be wrong) that Windows 10 does not recognise the app created by the CD.

Really appreciate any help or advice with this.

Thank you.

 

[sjongejonge]

I play Civ1 on Windows 7 with virtual XP and haven't found a way to play on Windows 10.

 

[DarthDSB]

Thanks for your reply. It should be possible to play Civ1 from the Chronicles CD on a W7 laptop running the 32-bit version without the need for a virtual machine.

As mentioned I can load up the CD on W10 but cannot run the program from the installed folders.

Virtual machines are a pain tbh but necessary and preferable to something like DOSBox.

The Chronicles disks are 13 years old and Windows has come a long way since then. The best option would be to use an old PC running XP.

 

[Quintillus]

Is the Windows 10 machine 32-bit or 64-bit? I would not be surprised if the Civ1 release in Chronicles were 16-bit, and if so it wouldn't run on 64-bit Windows, but would run just fine on XP and XP Mode in 7. If Chronicles has a 16-bit installer for Civ1, that would also explain the lack of shortcuts - the installer would not be able to run and thus not be able to create them in 64-bit Windows.

32-bit Windows 10 does exist, and might be a solution. But it does have tradeoffs such as being limited to 4 GB of usable memory (although more can be installed in the machine), and it may be difficult to find drivers for it on some hardware, particularly laptops. I don't have a 32-bit system newer than Vista, so I couldn't test it even if I had picked up a Chronicles box back in the day. But if you want to try for science, that's what I'd recommend. Alternatively, what I'd most likely do in IRL is what you mentioned above - running it on an old computer running XP - as I have a few of those available.

Windows has come a long way. Back when Chronicles came out, Civ IV was new and 32-bit, and 99% of home systems were 32-bit. Now, 95% or so of systems are 64-bit, and it's a small miracle that you can still buy a new copy of 32-bit Windows from a brick and mortar store at all.

 

[DarthDSB]

Quintillus - what a wonderfully informed reply, thank you. I should have twigged re: 64-bit as my laptop runs 64-bit Windows 10 and has 8 GB RAM.

I do have a notebook with W7 32-bit so perhaps that's the way forward but ideally I wanted the disk to run on my main laptop. Seems the only way to do so on that machine is by using a virtual machine. You can still download Windows XP mode for W7 so may also give that a bash...

Thanks again for your response.

 

[Alvarez_Player]

I run Civ1 for dos in a DOS box under W10 (64b) and a Civ1 for Windows - from Chronicles - on a virtual machine Windows XP. I don't have any issue or complaint at all with neither. So I don't get what's the problem on doing that. I've even tested streaming with them and all worked out petty good.

 

[sjongejonge]

I run Civ1 for dos in a DOS box under W10 (64b) and a Civ1 for Windows - from Chronicles - on a virtual machine Windows XP. I don't have any issue or complaint at all with neither. So I don't get what's the problem on doing that. I've even tested streaming with them and all worked out petty good.

There is a Virtual XP for Windows 10 now? That's good to know. When Windows 10 came out I couldn't find Virtual XP so I reverted back to Windows 7.

 

[Tristan_C]

Virtual machines are a pain tbh but necessary and preferable to something like DOSBox.

Interesting. I had assumed dosbox was most everyone's default solution for running civ1.

You can mount the game cd by adding a line to [autoexec] at the bottom of the config file:
mount d g:\ -t cdrom
where 'g:\' is the cd drive as your machine knows it, and 'd' is how dosbox will identify it

Complaints about dosbox's performance usually originate from a matter with the config file; the problem is usually core and cycles:
core=auto
cycles=max
usually maxes out performance

 

[Alvarez_Player]

There is a Virtual XP for Windows 10 now? That's good to know. When Windows 10 came out I couldn't find Virtual XP so I reverted back to Windows 7.

I've been using VMWare without any problems like the ones I used to have with the Oracle virtualization software...

 

[Verrucosus]

The Civ1 version included in the Chronicles edition is the Civ for Windows version, so DOSBox alone might not be enough. The solution is to set up an old Windows 3.1 system within DOSBox and run CivWin from there. I've done that on a Windows 7-64 bit machine and used the same setup for running the classic 16-bit version of Civ2 under both Windows 7 and 10 64-bit systems.