Civ III on the Mac?

[Johnny_Was]

hey all,

I have the pc version [on my 'game' machine] and I'm thinking of installing the Mac on my iBook.

However, before the patch the PC version was very slow, as to be literally unplayable, and I'm wondering if the Mac version has the same problems?

Is the Mac version native to OS X? Or am I stuck with a 'Classic' App? How well does it run for you?

thanks for any guidance you can give

Was

[N. Machiavelli]

Out of curiosity, what are the specs for your 'game' PC to make Civ3 unplayable?

[Gatekeeper]

Johnny_Was:

The Macintosh release of Civ III contained the first patch (1.16, I believe) that PC owners had to DL off the Internet ... so the game shouldn't be slow, although you may have to disable Quartz rendering.

The first Mac patch is in beta now (equivalent to the 1.21 PC patch) and a Mac-specific editor is also being worked on. There's no word yet on whether or not the 1.29 PC patch and Play the World will be coming to the Mac platform.

I believe Civ III Mac works in both the OSX and earlier OS environments. The editor, when it arrives, will be OSX or higher only.

Gatekeeper

[Johnny_Was]

okie - thanks for the response -

my main concern is how slowly apps run under 'Classic' in OS X - Alpha Centauri just plods long and is too sluggish for me to tolerate it - it Civ III also is a 9.2 app that hobbles along under OS X then I will pass.

um, the specs on my 'game' PC

P4 1.8ghz
512M RDRAM
GeForce 3

it was, I believe the GeForce that was causing the initial release of Civ III to run so poorly but the first patch fixed it right up and it runs like a dream.

i wanna put it on my iBook cos I'm laid up with a back injury and looking for a disraction

=)

thanks again

Was

[Jaybe]

1.21 Beta on the Mac is a mixed blessing. Unless you are using a huge map, the speed is decent. The only substantial bug I have discovered in this Beta version is that after a 'short time', you do not end up paying unit costs, regardless of government or number of units. Whether this also applies to AI civs is unknown.

When I was playing a 1.17 game, huge map, on my G4 iMac, there was a late game between-turns delay in excess of 7 minutes -- I had to pay attention to
not miss what was happening. (My monitor went dark at 7 minutes due to Energy Saver settings).

Compared to my "generic" graphics card on my HP Pavilion 7935 (which has no AGP slot :grr: ), the animations on either my G4 iMac or a G4 400 tower really scream. The 400MHz machine is okay on game speed, though I've only been playing standard maps on it.

[Gatekeeper]

Jaybe:

What's the mh on your G4 iMac? Did you have 16 civs playing on that large map? Seven minutes would be an eternity to wait, IMHO!

I haven't heard a peep out of Westlake regarding the 1.21 beta or whether or not we'll get 1.29. Even more worrisome, I haven't heard anything about Play the World being ported ...

Gatekeeper

[- Groucho -]

As for SMAC - there is an OSX beta available. I'm using it and it works great. You can find it on this link: http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=54993

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
Jaybe:

What's the mh on your G4 iMac? Did you have 16 civs playing on that large map? Seven minutes would be an eternity to wait, IMHO!
...
Gatekeeper

My iMac is 800 MHz. Got it when it first became available locally, am about to finish paying for it, and of course, wishing I had waited so I could have the 17" monitor that just came out.

I was moving the 1.17 game from my HP to my Mac so I could play 1.21 on my HP. By the time I had moved it, there were 12 or less civs remaining. By the time it was getting slow it was probably down to 8 civs. BTW, the seven minute intervals were during heavy warfare, including lots of stuff I could see. The map was HUGE, not large, and this was before they had reduced the map sizes.

All the stuff about the 1.21 Beta is moot since they just made the final (1.21g) available for Mac.

[Gatekeeper]

Jaybe:

I assume that a lot of the stuff you have in-game viewable is toggable to the "off" slot? Like units movements and whatnot?

As for the iMac, I'm waiting until they ship with 10.2 and the 17" monitor before buying ... and, of course, whether or not 1.29 and PtW will come over to the Mac.

I'd like to have at least one strategy game to play on my new iMac, and it absolutely has to be Civ III in X mode and Civ II in Classic mode.

Gatekeeper

[Johnny_Was]

-update-

just in case anyone else is wondering it runs great [with the latest patch] on my iBook [G3500 w/360M RAM] - a 'little' sluggish between advisor screens but it's acceptable.

yay!

Was