Easter egg found: Marie Antoinette's diet secret

[Skybuck]

Cake !


I suspect civilization 1 either has a bug or sabotage, the following instruction needs to be by-passed when the player has produced to many units.

Also the player must press F1 to get back into the game after by-passing this bug.

The following sequence of instructions can be used to find it:

2770:000002AF 0BC0 or ax,ax
2770:000002B1 7403 je 000002B6 ($+3) (no jmp)
2770:000002B3 E9DC00 jmp 00000392 ($+dc) (down)
2770:000002B6 C786F2FE0100 mov word [bp-010E],0001 ss:[EE00]=0001

Set a breakpoint or run to the je or jmp instruction and then bypass these jumps by executing:

SR EIP 2B6

in dos box debugger.

After executing this by-pass return to the game, run the game/debugger as normal and press the F1 key, the first couple of rounds of this bug, will show the normal defense ministery or diplomancy screens.

After a while apperently this easter egg screen pop-ups.

Maybe this is an inside joke to alert you to the fact that your army is to thick or something, referenced by this cake joke. Maybe one of the developer's wifes or female developers was very fat or something and ate a lot of cake.

One last thing this is not a hoax and a fabrication, this is the real deal. I will now continue playing the game.

I am also very close to winning the game.

So the rest of the game will be recorded live on youtube to see if anything else strange happens or pops up:

The live stream is here (also see the screenshot attached for the easter egg window):

Enjoy ! =D

 

[Skybuck]

I find a reference to Marie Antionette and cake, the google search terms I used was: "civilization 1 marie cake secret message"

I turns up:

Marie Antoinette - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

On the wikipedia it says:

"The phrase "Let them eat cake" is often attributed to Marie Antoinette"

She was the last queen of France before the French Revolution.

Why would there be a reference to this person ? Maybe Sid Meier himself is related to her ! HAHA ! =D Her face looks a bit like his maybe...

 

[Skybuck]

I found a reference to this line of text in this forum thread/posting, it's supposed to be a news header, perhaps it was abusively loaded by messing with the assembler/debugger or perhaps it's simply a bug, or perhaps intentional lol, funny stuff:

Newspaper "headlines" in Civ1

I know there were all sorts of newspaper announcements in Civ1 DOS. (Like, "England destroyed by the Germans" or "Civil Unrest. Mayor flees in fear.") Were they also in Civ1 Windows version? Were they in Civ2? When were they stopped, as I really loved them? I don't think I have seen...

forums.civfanatics.com

 

[Mize]

Yes that Marie Antoinette bit is just one of several jokes that are displayed as small text in the newspaper articles. Just eye candy. I know nothing about debugging, but I suspect your tinkering with the game caused the text to appear in the wrong popup box. Or the game itself skipped a beat and did it on its own. Civ is known to sometimes bug out like that and display wrong texts. This is one funny example I remember: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/mongite.70572/

 

[darkpanda]

"The phrase "Let them eat cake" is often attributed to Marie Antoinette"

She was the last queen of France before the French Revolution.

Why would there be a reference to this person ? Maybe Sid Meier himself is related to her ! HAHA ! =D Her face looks a bit like his maybe...

As wikipedia states she was the wife of Louis XVI, last king of France (not counting Louis XVIII), and as such the last queen of France. They were ousted during the French Revolution, which marked the end of more than 1000 years of monarchy in France and the advent of the 1st French Republic.

The story tells that, when she was explained that peasants were rioting because "there was no more bread" available (looming famine), she candidly replied the famous "then let them eat cake !" as if it was a mere frivolity to specifically demand bread.

This famous sentence (which she arguably never actually pronounced) is often used to illustrate the complete disconnection between monarchs and their people, and somehow justify the French Revolution.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette ended up executed, beheaded by the guillotine in 1793.

 

[Skybuck]

Yes that Marie Antoinette bit is just one of several jokes that are displayed as small text in the newspaper articles. Just eye candy. I know nothing about debugging, but I suspect your tinkering with the game caused the text to appear in the wrong popup box. Or the game itself skipped a beat and did it on its own. Civ is known to sometimes bug out like that and display wrong texts. This is one funny example I remember: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/mongite.70572/

Hmm I think I have seen this one as well in one of my games. I thought not much of it, but indeed, something strange ! =D Maybe I thought I imagined it as I pressed enter real fast ! =D