OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III
openciv3.org
openciv3.org
How far OSX has come since the days of the “cancel or allow” parody advert.
However yes, security is much more than an UAC dialog.
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2025/05/19/enhanc...
The thing that really irks me is I've got a paid developer account with Apple, I've already done the xcode dance, notarized binaries and all that nonsense, shouldn't this have activated some super special bit on my Apple account that says
“this one needs to do random stuff now and again and after saying, `Hey just checking in, doing this will do X to your computer probably, and maybe set it on fire, but if you say "go for it, I promise I know what I'm doing', I'm gonna trust you champ`, finger guns“
(not sure why in my head the personification of Apple would do "finger guns", but here we are I guess :shrug:)
Hell at this point I'll take a checkbox in my settings that says, ”Some people are into extreme sports, I love to install random binaries, just get out of my way“
Or something like that
(Joke is on you. You thought you'd be given access to app data to back it up? That's against the security model.)
People also forget that it makes it safe for people who aren't grandmas. The reason why you think it's just grandmas is because, for you to get a virus or your computer hacked now, it requires so many user gaffes for something like that to happen. In addition, it almost always involves typing in or telling someone your password when you shouldn’t. In the early 2000s, I still remember there was some ad affiliate for the cyanide and happiness webcomic website that, if you let it's ad load, instantly infected your computer with adware just from visiting the site. That’s unheard of now because of increasingly protective/restrictive policies set by technology companies. It’s one of those situations where if a system is working correctly, you won’t even know it’s working at all.
The application cannot be opened for an unexpected reason, error=Error Domain=RBSRequestErrorDomain Code=5 "Launch failed." UserInfo={NSLocalizedFailureReason=Launch failed., NSUnderlyingError=0xae1038720 {Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=163 "Unknown error: 163" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Launchd job spawn failed}}}
This error exists because Apple has effectively made app notarization mandatory, otherwise, users see this warning. In theory, notarization is straightforward: upload your DMG via their API, and within minutes you get a notarized/stamped app back.
…until you hit the infamous "Team is not yet configured for notarization" error.
Once that happens, you can be completely blocked from notarizing your app for months. Apple has confirmed via email that this is a bug on their end. It affects many developers, has been known for years, and Apple still hasn't fixed it. It completely elimiates any chances of you being able to notarize your app, thus, getting rid of this error/warning.
Have a loot at how many people are suffering from this for years with no resolution yet: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/118465
Other than developing my own (without using any other OS...) which is a ... significant ... task, there's not much other option. YMMV.
As a Linux lifer I agree that the hard diamond surface of the Mac desktop has a solid feeling to it. The Linux way is harder and also more brittle. Windows and Linux are both better than MacOS even as a desktop as long as you do not look at the in the wrong way. The thing is I have only minor problems doing that on either Linux or Windows, but the walled garden of the Mac, Android and iOS is a joke.
MacOS is designed to be a somewhat stable desktop, that is good. It is not a better Unix, it is a political stance that means hacking will forever die.
Linux developers seem to almost-universally believe that if the user doesn’t like it or it doesn’t make sense then the user will fix it themselves either via configuration files or patching the source code. That model works fine for users with a lot of knowledge and time on their hands. In other words, it’s an operating system for hobbyists.
MacOS, for all its faults, is still pretty easy to use (though not even close to the ease of use of Classic Mac OS 9 and earlier).
Linux users, on the other hand, seem to spend more time customizing their operating system and sharing screenshots of it than actually getting work done.
Not being able to install things sucks, but when you do you will easily destroy your nice shiny brittle desktop. The pebkac is strong here, but making the users enemies is a bad solution, this is why Google, Apple and MS are all bad desktops.
As I said I have been a Linux user my whole life. I know it works as a desktop but it works best with either people who do not care about instaling stuff, or thise who care enough to get it working.
I’ve been using Linux since it came on a root and boot floppy. I remain completely unimpressed with its desktop design, ease of use, and (especially) accessibility. It’s a fantastic server OS.
Not a feature they care about. Same for deleting apps not released yet. Haven't looked in a while but for over a decade it has been impossible to delete ios apps submitted and not released. So either you have to release the app, make it "apple approved" and then immediately kill it or have an app always present (I think you can hide it but I've not checked that in quite a while.
Maybe 1 out of 1,000 users will know the magic ritual required to run what they want on their machine, and for every one of those, 10,000 are gaslit into thinking you were trying to harm them by macOS' scary warnings and refusal to do what they want.
Apple will make users know that there are loads of hackers trying to trick them. The threat is extremely real.
> 10,000 are gaslit into thinking you were trying to harm them
Gaslit? Again, many are absolutely trying to harm users. Pretending this is some fake threat is perverse.
As much as people like to complain about downloaded software having restrictions, or encouraging the developer to be verified by Apple, we had already entered a world where users were told to never, ever run any software not by one of the bigs. I mean, I've told relatives that, for good reason after they installed malware and other nonsense repeatedly. It sucks having to get an Apple account and sign your executable, but for any normal user outside of the foolish, that was the only way they were ever going to run your app.
And honestly, for the case given this should be a web app. People shouldn't be trusting some random executable by some random group.
Should it be $100 per year? No, that is ridiculous and usurious.
It isn't 2001 anymore, systems are designed to be secure, and the outdated security model of trusting gatekeepers to keep you safe has been shown to be a farce, as billions of dollars are siphoned each year from innocent users who are just listening to good-intentioned people like yourself and trusting the App Store or Play Store. But they still get scammed anyway. The gatekeepers do not give a shit and approve of malware everyday. Hell, if you structure your scam right, you'll make those gatekeepers very rich until they reluctantly remove you. That or they leave the app because it's a "game" or "service".
How many users are being scammed by "legitimate" apps that charge subscription fees for features already on their devices, or god forbid, apps/games that are just illegal and unregulated casinos? Absolutely tons. I regularly find my older relatives being scammed by the App Store with a dozen different recurring subscriptions they didn't know they signed up for and certainly don't use. And those are the apps/services deemed "legitimate" by gatekeepers, because they're profitable even if they're taking advantage of users.
Sorry, I don't trust gatekeepers who run unregulated casinos and are the largest distributors of malware in the world to keep anyone safe. Design systems to be secure and you don't have to trust corrupt gatekeepers' blessings.
All of these mechanisms can be disabled and overridden. You are annoyed that users are protected from people like you, and, you know, too bad? Suck it up.
The rest of your ridiculous spiel, where you so effortlessly transitioned to laughable whataboutism, is just nonsensical noise, so no point addressing that.
But to repeat, we went through a period where users would install *NOTHING* from small developers, weary and jaded that their trust had been abused for years. The average computer had Chrome and Office on it. Developers who rail (especially so hysterically) against mechanisms that actually made users more likely to trust software do so from a position of astonishing levels of self-sabotaging ignorance.
Only seeing the worst potential explanations of other parties whom make different trade-offs than you is uncharitable. It can also look like what I would call counterfactual hypocrisy, by which I mean, if you were in those shoes, would you actually behave differently?
E.g.: If you were in Apple’s shoes (think about what this entails), what actions would be compatible with a business’s MO from that point of view? From various ethical points of view?
If you say you would’ve behaved differently, is it even possible that you would’ve ended up in their shoes in the first place?
A common response here is early mistakes compound. Or actors have poor character which leads to an inevitable fall. That’s the stuff of Greek tragedies. I’m more of a system thinker. If you look at the patterns, it is pretty easy to see that the leverage points are human systems rather than human nature itself.
If you don’t like the environmental conditions that led to the decision space, then think about changing the system rather than blaming parts of it.
Casting blame on individual parts of the system arguably plays into maintaining the status quo. The most effective changemakers understand how things work and how they got that way without alluding to convenient oversimplifications. Rant now concluded.
You can also try macinabox if you have unraid:
https://hub.docker.com/r/spaceinvaderone/macinabox
It’s probably the easiest way of setting up a Mac VM if you have unraid. I know there are similar options for qemu and kvm based hypervisors. If you have an amd gpu you should be able to pass it through.
The only way atm is installing homebrew and using a gnu tool chain if I understand the license of the official sdks correctly?
https://support.apple.com/guide/security/app-code-signing-pr...
> On devices with macOS 10.15, all apps distributed outside the App Store must be signed by the developer using an Apple-issued Developer ID certificate (combined with a private key) and notarized by Apple to run under the default Gatekeeper settings.
Re: Developer ID Certificates: https://developer.apple.com/help/account/certificates/create...
I suspect the friction that users are facing are due to dodging the above requirements.
What ultimately helped after weeks of trying and tinkering was installing VMware Workstation, patching it to enable macOS support, create a VM with the specific hardware configuration of an older MacBook, install an old version of macOS and do the 2FA from in there.
Think of it this way: if you required an apple device in order to make an Apple ID, then literally every single podcaster on Apple podcasts (which is still the dominant app for podcasts) must own an Apple device.
You can build Android apps on an Apple device, no problem. You can build Linux apps on an Apple device, no problem. etc... But the reverse isn't true. Its just more of Apple financially gate keeping their ecosystem so they make more money in as many channels as they possibly can.
Testing on real hardware is the ONLY time I would say that owning, or at least having access to the hardware has real tangible benefits, and I would argue that that you NEED or SHOULD do this.. But to block compiling to that ecosystem? Sorry but I fundamentally disagree.
Blocking compiling, means requiring xcode, which requires a mac, which requires you to give more money to Apple, and is no different IMHO than giving Apple $100 a year, because now you're giving them a lot more of that every X years (where x is how many years that laptop gets updates)
What is stopping you from writing an open source alternative to Xcode that runs on Linux?
It'll be a skill they can use for any unsigned app and you can have cute screenshots. The Terminal command, on the other hand, is a huge barrier to entry.
It makes a bit more sense on accounts that have a password set, as it requires you to confirm identity when introducing significant changes to the system (and this is something that Apple also does).
Gatekeeper is a different thing, it basically makes sure that the software you're trying to run has been pre-scanned for malware by a trusted party, similar to Windows's "smart screen" and Defender or APt's GPG keyring integration. It's a mechanism that is completely invisible to 99+% of users. If you see a Gatekeeper pop-up and the app in question is not mlaware, the developer is doing something very wrong.
Refusing to pay $100 for notarization is not "doing something very wrong".
In case you're wondering like me, this is the advert in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CwoluNRSSc&t=0
Like windows complainers, most of us do not care.
I haven't tried OpenCiv3, but I'm glad it exists - getting vanilla Civ III running on MacOS is a hassle and still has issues with e.g. audio and cutscenes. I also hope it leads to a way to improve worker automation. Managing your workers well is important, doing it manually is tedious, and the built-in Automate feature is really bad.
I understand many people self sooth using it, and thats fine. Doesn't make it a good game for replay.
-- Somebody with more hours in ONI than Dosh has in Factorio
2) I guess I can see how some people would like that. But, that's adjacent to what killed factorio for me- It feels like a "Low Code"/"No Code" programming solution to me.
I find it very hard to use a computer in the cramped tables of the plane. And the person in front always ends up aggressively reclining only when I have a laptop out. Plus I feel bad that maybe my bright light is disturbing the people sleeping next to me.
If you are a point hacker you could spend the points on upgrades (which tend to give you better rates than buying base tickets) but then you're paying for a minor comfort improvement that you wouldn't pay for normally -- which is a textbook example of induced consumption and is playing into exactly how airlines want you to use points.
Or ones which do but the outlets are so loose they are practically useless.
That plus flights from Australia are expensive enough in economy, business class is easily 4-10x that cost.
Basically closer to "old economy", where you have leg room and real utensils
If I travel long haul personally I will always go business, booked wel in advance. It’s rare enough that the extra cost is worthwhile. Others spend the money on fancy cars instead.
The paradox grand strategy games are like civilization but with real agency and at times straight up historical accuracy.
Meanwhile I have to deal with Ghandi actually nuking everyone (the bug is ACTUALLY REAL IN CIV 5, the best modern civ game!). Not sure why Indians aren't mad as hell at the whole series.
It's like the modern-era Paradox game you wanted but all the mechanics synergize with each other.
Unfortunately it's a bit too complicated as a result.
Gets to the point where only defensive battles are any fun at all. Attacking just means you sweet spot your way to a flawless victory.
This exploit seems to be present in every TW game I've played, including Rome 2. It's totally ruined the series for me.
I don't mean to cast shade on DF, I really do love it, and am happy for its existence, I just think that DF fans should also look into Songs of Syx.
The defining difference for me are the generated stories in DF, which often are a lot of random trash but still give a feeling of a deeper meaning.
I'm always interested in seeing what people find when developing larger projects in C#.
That said, I think once you get the gist of it and understand the landmines, it is really nice to use vanilla dotnet rather than unity's fork.
This experience led Soren Johnson (co-designer of Civ III and lead designer of Civ IV) to the realization that Civ AIs are supposed to "play to lose" [1].
Even many popular mods fuck this up! DEI in Total War Rome 2 needs submods to make the AI play by the same rules as the player!!! This is top of the most subscribed list right now FOR A REASON!!! https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=36258...
Make the AI play by the exact same rules as the player. Make a scaling AI difficulty slider which goes from "piss easy" to "insane grandmaster" but without cheats. It's not that hard to do this, the chess engine crowd figured it out back in 2001. FEAR figured it out in 2004. Game AI has straight up not improved and at many times gotten worse in the ensuing two decades.
They really didn't. No one likes playing against weaker chess engines. They play perfectly like a higher-rated engine and then randomly make an obvious blunder. They don't play naturally like a human player of that rating.
The weaker AIs in Civ games do a far better job at "playing to lose" than low rated chess engines. It's not even close!
And it's still a constant complaint that Stockfish suggests moves that no human could really play and follow up correctly.
The neat part is that they are open source, so anyone who wants to take it in a different direction can fork it. The multiplayer version openMW being a great example of this.
I believe Civfanatics was in it (run by “Chieftess” if I recall), Apolyton (which I was a member of — elected in as Minister of Public Works and had to come up with a plan to clear our pesky jungles) and a number of other sites.
It was such an awesome time. Real diplomacy and trade negotiations between the fan sites while waiting to play our turns. Man, it was fun.
Personally, I didn't play much of 2 or 3, so I don't have strong feelings either way.
The latter has more, like Multiplayer 2.4 Dragoon, and Multiplayer 2.5 Elephant(in development), which weren't available locally when I last looked.
There is also https://github.com/longturn/freeciv21 which has an acceptable local client, and finally does not slow down so much when playing larger maps with many AIs, like both FreeCiv and FreeCivWeb tend to do.
https://longturn.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html
I tried that, recently, and barely espcaped a relapse. (Phew!)
especially since openciv3 aims to fix some of civ 3's shortcomings
4 in contrast had a bunch of different paths to power, and those worked even on high difficulties. There were also no optimal city grid the same way (though still being denser than civ5).
Looks to not be a straight remake. I wonder whether 3 is a preferable target because things like graphical complexity in >= 4 is too much.
As mentioned above this was started by Civ3 modders, and we all have our passionate reasons for preferring it over other entries, but you're not wrong that doing this with a 3D engine would be a whole `nother ballgame. There are actually Civ4 and Civ5 remakes underway which have both opted for 2D implementations.
3 was a great game for those who prefer building over war, and the first one with a proper non-military victory option.
If you want to see a free equivalent of 4, you know what to do: start the effort.
Freeciv unfortunately has none of the charm of Civ1.
Sounds like you've been listening to Civ4 fans. ;) 3 is just as active on steam and has a very active and loyal multiplayer league.
> Civ fans tend to prefer [...]
I'd say, each entry in the series gets love. The saying goes: "Your favorite Civ game is the first one you ever played". In my experience, that's pretty true (Still stuck on V).
Alpha Centauri was objectively the best though.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/civilization-ownership-dispute...
But to each his own. Civ 4 was the first one that really, really hooked me.
If I hadn't quit computer games cold turkey (when I realized I was showing all the signs of addiction) over a decade ago, I would still have Civ IV installed and still be playing it today. It just didn't get old, because of how varied the game could become.
And the thing that was largest in making me go, "Yeah, this isn't good for me, I need to quit" was that it was consuming my thoughts all the time. When I wasn't in front of the computer gaming, I was thinking about the game and planning the strategy for my next move. (I usually played turn-based games rather than action games). Which is fine in small doses, but it was taking over my mind when I was at church wanting to focus on worshiping God, when I was at work (and distracting me from getting work done), when I was trying to read...
Basically, I realized that it was an unhealthy focus for me, and taking over way too much of my attention that I wanted to be able to spend on a much wider variety of things. So I quit. First year was the hardest, second and third years were hard too, but by now I've gotten used to reaching for a book to read rather than a game. And the book, I can put down anytime I need to, without feeling that empty-ish feeling that says "Awww, I want to get back into the game..." That letdown when I exited the game was another clue, BTW: it matched how I'd heard drug addicts (specifically, former addicts who had kicked their habit) describe the feeling of coming down off a high. I've never used drugs myself so I can't compare it directly, but it was similar enough to the descriptions I'd heard from them that I said "okay, that's probably not a good sign either."
More recently I read that they are going to update the game such that you don't have to switch civs. That's a good start (though I still don't think I will like the era system at all), but reading the initial reviews a year ago I found out that the game cuts off abruptly in the mid 20th century, rather than going to the information age like normal. To me, that is blatantly unfinished, so I'm not planning to get the game until they fix that as well.
They're releasing a big update in the spring where they reworked the core gameplay mechanic because so many people disliked it. If nothing else I'd wait until that comes out.
I'm a Civ3 hater, give me 2 or 4 any day. 3 is my least favorite version of the game.
But, OTOH, my wife is ride or die for Civ3.
VP has hands down the best AI that the Civ series has ever seen. My "wow" moment was when the enemy parachuted to my hinterlands to pillage my critical resources. In comparison, the official AI couldn't even pull off an amphibious attack.
- OpenCiv1
- FreeCiv (civ 2)
- OpenCiv3
- ???
- UnCiv
I'm curious why civ 4 is the one that got skipped. I feel like it's the one that is most commonly labelled as the "peak"
Civ III in my opinion had some of the best art of the entire series. The 3D feeling of the successor games are kind of off-putting by comparison.
(PS: once a friend lost a battleship to a stone age militia in the original Civ)
Civ5 started the whole hex thing, which I was never excited about. Yes, Civ4 had stacks of doom but Civ5 turned into a puzzle of moving units in order because you could only have one per hex.
Anyway, Civ2 and Civ3 never got as much play from me. I'm a little surprised that people had the same enthusiasm. My memory of these 2 was that they just added a bunch of tedium, like I distinctly remember that tile improvement changed to turning farms into supermarkets. It's been a lot of years so I might be misremembering. Maybe I just dind't give them enough time. Or maybe nothing could capture my initial enthusiasm for the novelty that was Civ1.
Anyway, i'm always happy to see projects like this. Games really do live forever. Like people will invent software for free to keep running them (ie emulators).
The Civ series has kinda defied the usual trend to entshittification. I'm really thinking of SimCity here. It's hard to describe how much EA shit the bed with SimCity %, so much so that it basically launched Cities: Skylines, which itself has had issues with the CS2 launch.
Does Civ3 have a massive fanbase compared to Civ1, Civ2 or Civ4? I really don't know.
[1]: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/mod-fall-from-heaven-...
Sadly, I don't think it can be done by us screen reader users, as the Godot editor UI is not really accessible (though they're apparently changing that in the latest version).
Later versions added better graphics, some interesting gameplay choice and elements. But all of them felt much slower gameplay wise compared to Civilization I.
I feel in a similar way with SimCity. I liked the follow-ups and they were a bit better in terms of gameplay compared to later Civilizations, but the first version is still by far the best, even if young people today will find the graphics crap.
There is something about purity, to get the most basic parts out. Games today are more like movies. They may be fun but they feel more like playing a movie than a game. Little Nightmares was interesting, pretty to look at and fun from a game play perspective too, but ultimately I feel that the modern games lost something fundamental that they may never get back (at the least non-indie games; indie games are a bit more varied).
The content is a bit lacking though, would see more diversity in tech tree, and units.
I didn't play it much, but when I did I'd play for 6+ hours at a time. I'll check this out later tonight, and might see if I can find the old CD and get the original running.
More generally - if someone remind us of the major differences between the different versions of Civilization, in a nutshell, we would be in your debt.
I remember losing 6pm to 3am playing civ 4 one time. One more turn...
(But I'm not sure what I need openCiv for... the steam game is good. Maybe its just useful for the long term.)
The customization available in IV makes it basically infinitely replayable, but the AI makes the trajectory of each game too predictable if you understand the mechanics well enough.
Lots of old strategy games have been revived by introducing new factions that change the game’s meta; imagine if this process was automated by training the AI on recorded games from the entire playerbase, or on games recorded locally to adapt to the user’s unique style of play.
I just realised that the actual latest version of Die Ha… Civilization is VII (2025), and for me II remains the gold classic.
Both in Civilisation and in Die Hard.
but seriously yes everything about the game will be designed for customization
yeah, that's dangerous for me, this is the ONE that got me started