Hey guys,
It's time for us fans to try and fix a bit of a silly wrong in the Civilization world and franchise. In that basically Sid Meier's Civilization 1 the game that started it all, along with all iterations of Sid Meier's Civilization 2 a game considered to be one of the greatest of all time (to this day it still ends up in top 50 or 100 lists in gaming media) are somehow still not on Good old Games or Steam and cannot be legally purchased anywhere other than in the secondhand markets.
Regardless of which game in the series is your favourite (ie many love 3, 4, 5, & 6) it's time for all us Civ series fans to band together to try and fix this problem that has gone on for long enough! I'm also going to post this around all the Civ communities to see if we can get some momentum on this and hopefully get some attention.
Colonization, Master of Magic, and Master of Orion 1&2 are on both platforms these days and unlike many old games that are still lost in limbo due to only being 16bit Windows apps neither problem truly exists with these 2 classic Civ games so is the problem simply that the current license holder has forgotten about them? Or are they stuck in a licensing limo out of reach like some other Microprose games? Civ 1 & 2's source code is likely long lost however the source codes were lost for those other Microprose games I just listed above and it didn't stop them being re-released by their respective current license holders as quite franky it wasn't needed (would have been nice though lol).
Sid Meier's Civilization 1 is a DOS game and these days DOS games are all sold on these sites inside a Dosbox setup. Civilization for Windows & CivNet were unfortunately 16bit windows apps so it's unlikely we'll get them unless the source is found (which is a shame as I recently got CivWin working in HD) but there should be no 'technical' excuse for not putting Civ1 DOS back out there again at the very least.
Sid Meier's Civilization 2 vanilla along with its Conflicts in Civilization and Fantastic Worlds addons were 16bit Win applications so once again it's unlikely we'll get them however the Multiplayer Gold Edition re-release of Civ2 (with it's 2 addons included) was a 32bit application and there is a freely available fan patch that further ensure's it's fully compatible with modern 64bit systems. Yes MGE made some changes some people didn't like however once again there is a excellent freely available fan tool that disables those things (ie over aggressive AI) to make it feel more like classic Civ2 again, along with adding some nice new features and disabling the CD check. Civ2 was built to play videos off the hard drive (if you copied them off the cd) and no doubt some modifications could be made to use mp3s instead of the CD for music (such as has been done with ToT which I'll get to below). The game also works fine without music so even if they wanted to be lazy there once again should be no serious 'technical' excuse for not putting Civ2 back out there again, just a matter of getting some fan permissions and cutting through some licensing red tape.
Civilization 2 Test of Time was built from MGE so naturally it is also a 32bit application and once again fans have made a 64bit patch for it ensuring full compatibility with modern 64 bit OS. On top of that the excellent ToT Patch Project has made many many improvements including better graphics, improved video playing and mp3 music support which truly removes the need for the old CD (yes it also removes the CD check too). So once again there hould be no serious technical excuse for not putting ToT back out there again, just a matter of getting some fan permissions and cutting through some licensing red tape.
.
Steam doesn't really have a missing game wishlist list however Good old Games does and when games get a lot of wish list attention it often prompts GoG to chase after the license holders themselves. In many cases they've worked with fans to include some of the fan made patches and mods to ensure modern system compatibility too which has been awesome! And then most of the time (but not always) after the license holder has gone to the effort to set things up on GoG they'll go and do Steam too.
So we just need to get their attention! I've done some searches on GoG and there are many Civ wishlists. Below are all the biggest ones I could find so if you're a big Civ1-2 fan or you're a later Civ games fan that wants to help your Civ loving brothers and sisters right a wrong then please visit these wish lists and click the little +1 plus one button. If you don't want to visit them all then just visit the first one under each section as that's the biggest one! If you think it's all a waste of time doom and gloom etc maybe you're right but please please please click on the wish buttons in the links below anyway as hey.. it can't hurt to try and then you can totally come back here and say we're wasting our time haha. So many other 'difficult situation' games out there that were less successful that Civ made it to GoG due to big fan wishlists showing that the money would be there so why not classic Civ too!
I've also created a thread on the Civilization series GoG forum that I believe is monitored in some capacity by GoG staff and the current license holder. So feel free to post a supportive comment in this thread too!
https://www.gog.com/forum/sid_meiers...e_added_to_gog
Combination wish lists:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/civilization_1_2 (9.1k votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/s...vilization_123 (4.9k votes - note Civ3 is already on GoG)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/s...ation_i_and_ii (2.3k votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/c...2_test_of_time (222 votes)
Civilization 1:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/s...civilization_1 (4.6k votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/civilization_i (735 votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/c..._i_dos_version (147 votes)
Civilization 2:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/s...ilization_ii_1 (10.3k votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/c...astic_worlds_1 (951 votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/s...n_civilization (400 votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/s...r_gold_edition (252 votes)
Civ2 Test of Time:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/c...i_test_of_time (1.7k votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/civilization_2_tot (190 votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/c...s_test_of_time (130 votes)
.
It's time for us fans to try and fix a bit of a silly wrong in the Civilization world and franchise. In that basically Sid Meier's Civilization 1 the game that started it all, along with all iterations of Sid Meier's Civilization 2 a game considered to be one of the greatest of all time (to this day it still ends up in top 50 or 100 lists in gaming media) are somehow still not on Good old Games or Steam and cannot be legally purchased anywhere other than in the secondhand markets.
Regardless of which game in the series is your favourite (ie many love 3, 4, 5, & 6) it's time for all us Civ series fans to band together to try and fix this problem that has gone on for long enough! I'm also going to post this around all the Civ communities to see if we can get some momentum on this and hopefully get some attention.
Colonization, Master of Magic, and Master of Orion 1&2 are on both platforms these days and unlike many old games that are still lost in limbo due to only being 16bit Windows apps neither problem truly exists with these 2 classic Civ games so is the problem simply that the current license holder has forgotten about them? Or are they stuck in a licensing limo out of reach like some other Microprose games? Civ 1 & 2's source code is likely long lost however the source codes were lost for those other Microprose games I just listed above and it didn't stop them being re-released by their respective current license holders as quite franky it wasn't needed (would have been nice though lol).
Sid Meier's Civilization 1 is a DOS game and these days DOS games are all sold on these sites inside a Dosbox setup. Civilization for Windows & CivNet were unfortunately 16bit windows apps so it's unlikely we'll get them unless the source is found (which is a shame as I recently got CivWin working in HD) but there should be no 'technical' excuse for not putting Civ1 DOS back out there again at the very least.
Sid Meier's Civilization 2 vanilla along with its Conflicts in Civilization and Fantastic Worlds addons were 16bit Win applications so once again it's unlikely we'll get them however the Multiplayer Gold Edition re-release of Civ2 (with it's 2 addons included) was a 32bit application and there is a freely available fan patch that further ensure's it's fully compatible with modern 64bit systems. Yes MGE made some changes some people didn't like however once again there is a excellent freely available fan tool that disables those things (ie over aggressive AI) to make it feel more like classic Civ2 again, along with adding some nice new features and disabling the CD check. Civ2 was built to play videos off the hard drive (if you copied them off the cd) and no doubt some modifications could be made to use mp3s instead of the CD for music (such as has been done with ToT which I'll get to below). The game also works fine without music so even if they wanted to be lazy there once again should be no serious 'technical' excuse for not putting Civ2 back out there again, just a matter of getting some fan permissions and cutting through some licensing red tape.
Civilization 2 Test of Time was built from MGE so naturally it is also a 32bit application and once again fans have made a 64bit patch for it ensuring full compatibility with modern 64 bit OS. On top of that the excellent ToT Patch Project has made many many improvements including better graphics, improved video playing and mp3 music support which truly removes the need for the old CD (yes it also removes the CD check too). So once again there hould be no serious technical excuse for not putting ToT back out there again, just a matter of getting some fan permissions and cutting through some licensing red tape.
.
Steam doesn't really have a missing game wishlist list however Good old Games does and when games get a lot of wish list attention it often prompts GoG to chase after the license holders themselves. In many cases they've worked with fans to include some of the fan made patches and mods to ensure modern system compatibility too which has been awesome! And then most of the time (but not always) after the license holder has gone to the effort to set things up on GoG they'll go and do Steam too.
So we just need to get their attention! I've done some searches on GoG and there are many Civ wishlists. Below are all the biggest ones I could find so if you're a big Civ1-2 fan or you're a later Civ games fan that wants to help your Civ loving brothers and sisters right a wrong then please visit these wish lists and click the little +1 plus one button. If you don't want to visit them all then just visit the first one under each section as that's the biggest one! If you think it's all a waste of time doom and gloom etc maybe you're right but please please please click on the wish buttons in the links below anyway as hey.. it can't hurt to try and then you can totally come back here and say we're wasting our time haha. So many other 'difficult situation' games out there that were less successful that Civ made it to GoG due to big fan wishlists showing that the money would be there so why not classic Civ too!
I've also created a thread on the Civilization series GoG forum that I believe is monitored in some capacity by GoG staff and the current license holder. So feel free to post a supportive comment in this thread too!
https://www.gog.com/forum/sid_meiers...e_added_to_gog
Combination wish lists:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/civilization_1_2 (9.1k votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/s...vilization_123 (4.9k votes - note Civ3 is already on GoG)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/s...ation_i_and_ii (2.3k votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/c...2_test_of_time (222 votes)
Civilization 1:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/s...civilization_1 (4.6k votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/civilization_i (735 votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/c..._i_dos_version (147 votes)
Civilization 2:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/s...ilization_ii_1 (10.3k votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/c...astic_worlds_1 (951 votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/s...n_civilization (400 votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/s...r_gold_edition (252 votes)
Civ2 Test of Time:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/c...i_test_of_time (1.7k votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/civilization_2_tot (190 votes)
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/c...s_test_of_time (130 votes)
.