Sound/Graphic mods for Civilization 1 for Windows?

[Blake00]

Hi guys,

As well as mucking around with Colonization for Windows in HD I've recently started experimenting with Civilization for Windows again and enjoying the fact that through a XP VM I'm able to play this old game at 1080P HD across my big 46" screen. And best of all thanks to the awesome Dos graphics mod by Honza I'm able to play it with my preferred classic graphics & colours too as while the CivWin graphics were sharper and maybe more realistic colour wise I just never liked them and I hated the yellow city screen. I've attached a picture and will probably do a video soon too.

However I've got a few queires I'm hoping some of the experts here might know..

1. Is CivWin version 1.2.0 the final version? Or is there some hard to find offical patch out there to a later version?

2. Has anyone created any music or sound mods for CivWin? I couldn't see anything in the CivFanatics file repository. I've noticed all the music files are like 5-10 second low quality wav files massively inferior to the dos version. If there's nothing out there then perhaps I'll try to have a play and see what happens when i try to put high quality and/or longer tracks as unlike in the 90s big fat wav files don't matter now days haha! There's some beautiful roland recordings on youtube I could use if the game's sound player is 'nice' to me lol.

3. Is there any way to load in custom maps? eg a bigger earth? I'm guessing not as I haven't seen any around here.

4. This one is a real long shot but I was always a big fan of the graphics in the Super Nintendo version of Civ 1 (see second attachment) so I'm wondering if anyone ever tried to create a tile set for either CivDos or CivWin using the SNES graphics?

------------------------------- 09/07/2018 EDIT -------------------------------

Update on item 1:
This is interesting.. I've been rummaging through a webarchive copy of the long gone Apolyton Civ1 downloads section and it contains a CivWin 2.0 official patch from Micropose.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140903215648/http://apolyton.net/local_links/links/c-patches-422
I tried it out and my CivWin still says 1.2.0 though. Maybe the guy who uploaded it misread and its just a 1.2 patch which is already applied to most of the versions floating around the net these days? Dunno!

Update on Item 2:
I finished my CivWin soundtrack overhaul mod here..
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...dows-complete-soundtrack-overhaul-mod.633237/

Update on Item 3:
User CivZ found and uploaded a cool map & game editor for CivWin called CivCracker that also converts CivDos games to CivWin format which means any Civ1 scenarios can now be played in CivWin!!
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/playing-as-barbarians-in-civilization-1.632894/#post-15159260

Update on Item 4:
User Riderr3 has extracted the tilesets for SNES Civ! Of course importing them into either CivDos or CivWin is another matter haha!
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ilization-1-for-windows.632023/#post-15123138

 

[Blake00]

RE: point 2... it worked!!!!!! I sourced a beautiful high quality genuine Roland MT-32 recording of all the dos versions tracks. I then recorded some of it and converted the opening theme song to a wav file and did a few experiments in WinCiv with various wav quality levels and was able to replace the opening theme song with the full length song at a much higher quality!! It worked just fine in CivWin 1.22 in both a Win 98 vm via dosbox and a Win XP vm via Virtualbox.

If no one else has done this already then I'm thinking I'll go ahead and do all the songs and release a music overhaul upgrade pack here at CivFanatics.

 

[Posidonius]

RE: point 2... it worked!!!!!! ... If no one else has done this already then I'm thinking I'll go ahead and do all the songs and release a music overhaul upgrade pack here at CivFanatics.

Hehee, quite sure no one has already done this, thank you for doing some work on CivWIN. The audio is creaky and crackely in a XP VM, but on the other hand it is the most stable platform for CivWIN to date. Feel like i'm playing in the Golden Age of CivWIN today, it just never crashes anymore, no matter what absurd limits i push the game to.

As for your point #3, do not think it is possible to make a larger planet. 4000 squares is the limit in a non-Earth map. The Earth map is larger, but with vast areas of inhospitable squares. Many random 80x50 maps are more friendly. Found one with 1045 good lands, and 50 reachable fisheries. Current game has zero deserts on the whole planet. Delicious. Anyway, i don't like playing Earth, it ruins the surprise if you already know where everything is.

 

[CivZ]

1. Is CivWin version 1.22 the final version? Or is there some hard to find offical patch out there to a later version?

Mine is version 1.2.0. Where did you get yours?

 

[Blake00]

Hehee, quite sure no one has already done this, thank you for doing some work on CivWIN. The audio is creaky and crackely in a XP VM, but on the other hand it is the most stable platform for CivWIN to date. Feel like i'm playing in the Golden Age of CivWIN today, it just never crashes anymore, no matter what absurd limits i push the game to.

As for your point #3, do not think it is possible to make a larger planet. 4000 squares is the limit in a non-Earth map. The Earth map is larger, but with vast areas of inhospitable squares. Many random 80x50 maps are more friendly. Found one with 1045 good lands, and 50 reachable fisheries. Current game has zero deserts on the whole planet. Delicious. Anyway, i don't like playing Earth, it ruins the surprise if you already know where everything is.

Cheers man. Cool then I'll go ahead with it! Although I'm going to hold off as I've contacted the guy who did the Roland video and asked if he was cool with me using his recordings and not only did he reply yes but he offered his original wav files too!!! He hasn't sent them yet so if I don't hear anything for a week or so I'll go ahead with what I've got.

Yeah I figured that was the case. Oh well SWY's open source civ 1 reconstruction project is certainly a great possibility for future huge maps in Civ1 one day.

Mine is version 1.2.0. Where did you get yours?

Opps typo!!! Sorry guys, mine is 1.2.0. Have fixed the OP.

 

[darkpanda]

RE: point 2... it worked!!!!!! I sourced a beautiful high quality genuine Roland MT-32 recording of all the dos versions tracks. I then recorded some of it and converted the opening theme song to a wav file and did a few experiments in WinCiv with various wav quality levels and was able to replace the opening theme song with the full length song at a much higher quality!! It worked just fine in CivWin 1.22 in both a Win 98 vm via dosbox and a Win XP vm via Virtualbox.

If no one else has done this already then I'm thinking I'll go ahead and do all the songs and release a music overhaul upgrade pack here at CivFanatics.

I just noticed in your youtube link that the video is using a tool called "Civilization Jukebox" - a quick Google search yielded this tool: https://www.pcorner.com/list/GAMES/CIVJUK.ZIP/INFO/

Never knew such a tool existed, this is really good news for sourcing Civ audio in many ways

 

[Blake00]

I just noticed in your youtube link that the video is using a tool called "Civilization Jukebox" - a quick Google search yielded this tool: https://www.pcorner.com/list/GAMES/CIVJUK.ZIP/INFO/

Never knew such a tool existed, this is really good news for sourcing Civ audio in many ways

Nice find man. I did think about hunting for the tool as I'd never heard of it either, but I knew I could never produce anything as amazing as he BarbariaBros did with that real Roland MT-32 of his.

On that topic, good news, BarbariaBros has given me his original wav recordings! I'll start work on the CivWin soundtrack conversion mod next weekend.

 

[riderr3]

Hi guys,


4. This one is a real long shot but I was always a big fan of the graphics in the Super Nintendo version of Civ 1 (see second attachment) so I'm wondering if anyone ever tried to create a tile set for either CivDos or CivWin using the SNES graphics?

Also liked them.
I ripped a CIV1 SNES tiles some time ago, here are the link.
https://imgur.com/a/fZb5too

Luckily, they are also 16x16 size. But it seems they will need new palette. I didn't mess with it yet, may be someone can help with paletting/editing.

 

[Blake00]

Also liked them.
I ripped a CIV1 SNES tiles some time ago, here are the link.
https://imgur.com/a/fZb5too

Luckily, they are also 16x16 size. But it seems they will need new palette. I didn't mess with it yet, may be someone can help with paletting/editing.

That's awesome man! I figured someone must have tried. Looks like most of it is fine and only a few things need some colour changes to the 'nearest option' heh. Although I wonder if the CivWin palette would be more accommodating? (I'm guessing its not completely identical to the dos version)

 

[Blake00]

Update on item 1:
This is interesting.. I've been rummaging through a webarchive copy of the long gone Apolyton Civ1 downloads section and it contains a CivWin 2.0 official patch from Micropose.
https://web.archive.org/web/20140903215648/http://apolyton.net/local_links/links/c-patches-422
I tried it out and my CivWin still says 1.2.0 though. Maybe the guy who uploaded it misread and its just a 1.2 patch which is already applied to most of the versions floating around the net these days? Dunno!

Update on Item 2:
I finished my CivWin soundtrack overhaul mod here..
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...dows-complete-soundtrack-overhaul-mod.633237/

Update on Item 3:
User CivZ found and uploaded a cool map & game editor for CivWin called CivCracker that also converts CivDos games to CivWin format which means any Civ1 scenarios can now be played in CivWin!!
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/playing-as-barbarians-in-civilization-1.632894/#post-15159260

Update on Item 4:
User Riderr3 has extracted the tilesets for SNES Civ! Of course importing them into either CivDos or CivWin is another matter haha!
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...ilization-1-for-windows.632023/#post-15123138