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UnCiv, a free and open source remake of Civilization V

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What do you do when you want to keep the mechanics of a game you love alive? If you're developer Yair Morgenstern, you remake it yourself like they did with UnCiv.

A remake of Civilization V, although it looks nothing alike as it's gone for a much more retro pixel-art like style it's supposed to follow the same game mechanics. Much like the classic Freeciv which is based on earlier rules and features.

Available for both Android and PC, you can clearly see with it needing a few adjustments to look good on PC. Only in the last few months has the developer actually started bundling PC release files with it, so hopefully if it becomes a bit more popular and/or pulls in some help, it can get an improved flow for PC players. Playable though and always fun to see more open source strategy games appear.

They do have a lot of plans for the project including user interface improvements, city-state quests, adding in missing civilizations, religion, trade routes and so on.

You can find it on GitHub.

Hat tip to RTheren.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Nevertheless Jan 8, 2020
Quoting: Whitewolfe80
Quoting: PatolaI am curious. What is so special about Civilization V mechanics (compared to other versions) that is so worth mimicking? Tried to find that on the project page but couldn't.

They took out a number of gameplay elements in civ 6 and oversimplified the military aspects small and big changes really. In civ 5 you can create and stack an army in civ 6 you can't

It's the other way around. There is no stacking of military units in Civ5. In Civ 6 there are corps and armies. I think it's a good middle way between Civ4s stacks of doom, and Civ5s no stacking at all.
Nevertheless Jan 8, 2020
Quoting: Colombo
Quoting: NeverthelessI really never counted mouseclicks for micromanagement in any Civ I played. I also did not define where exactly the difference between management and micro management is. I only kbow that I find Unit movement and work order wise I find Civ6 far less annoying than Civ5. There are far less workers to move, nagging for orders and to secure from enemies. Streets are built automatically by trade routes, military units can be stacked as corps and armies later on.
Of course the number of cities influences the amount of decisions you have to make (also influenced by the map size), and of course you don't just have to tell what is built into a city, but sometimes (for districts and wonders) you also have to decide where they shall be built, but I find these decisions rather interesting than annoying.
I would like it if they'd highlight new policy cards for a better overview, but I like it to be able to fine tune the direction I want my civ to go.
I like Civ V too, I just find Civ6 more "managable", even if (should I count) I found out, I had to click my mouse even some more to play it.

Mouseclicks is essentially how you are doing any actions in a typical strategy game (unless you are using keybinding for everything). In AoE, you can send your lumberjacks to cut wood by selecting them all by click and drag and sending them to tree. And you can also micromanage every single lumberjack by sending them to the nearest tree, correct side of tree and so on... with a littre extra gain, but a huge amount of clicks. So any micromanagement will always boil down to increase in the number of clicks, time and decisionpower.

Regarding builders, thats not true. If you assume that each worker will build more than 3-5 improvements (it will), you will always have less workers over time than builders. I thought that the mechanics of builders is nice, especially with the like of China or Aztecs that could build wonders or districts by spending chargers. But I started to hate it in practice.

Same with districts. It sounded like a good idea, but the sheer amount of different bonuses means that trying to play it somewheat efficiently is incredibly demanding and building districts (especially with their ever increasing cost) is ever present and annoying decision. And thats basically the most important and interesting thing on districts, they don't serve any other purpose (except the military one)! I think they could have been done much better and more interesting, especially from long-term perspective (once you place them, there isn't much more interaction with them).

Civ 6 have some nice mechanics and some nice ideas, but a lot of it is done in a quite annoying way. Not that Civ 5 didn't have annoying mechanics (such as the nonexisting UI showing you local happiness, inability to claim land in any other way than to put city on it, but a strict penalty for taking cities).

True, m.m. increases the amount of things you have to do yourself. That means you choose to do so, although there is an automatic system for it. And you do it because the automation is not good enough for your taste (or for almost everyones taste, like the automated workers in Civ 5).
This does not apply in the same way for systems like the civic cards, although of course you can say that the system is too cumbersome for your taste. I just did not regard it as micromanagement.
Like @Purple Library Guy said, the limitations to city number growth makes sense, but always felt a little artificial in terms of game mechanics to me too. Maybe a realistic system would make things more cumbersome by itself. So maybe by not implementing it, the more cities with more management work to do is a tradeoff Firaxis (like me) didn't even think of...
I still like the builders system a lot more than the workers, because you (efficiently) build roughly as much as you need of them, while I constantly tended to find new work for all my existing workers, putting work and time and clicks into it, just because they were sitting around in my cities.
Colombo Jan 8, 2020
Regarding growth limitations, they were there since at least Civ 2. In Civ 2, you get unhappy citizen when you city reach certain size depending on difficulty. You also get additional unhappy citizen when your empire reaches certain size. See:
https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Civilization_II/Getting_Started#Citizen_happiness

and

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/hapiness.322213/

There is also corruption, which decrease the trade income (which can be converted to luxuries, money and research)

So its not like this wasn't in game before.
Kimyrielle Jan 8, 2020
I mean, it's not that Civilization couldn't be salvaged. My biggest gripes with Civ VI are the god-awful visuals that just don't fit the genre of the game and can be explained only with the developers having played too much World of Warcraft in their spare time. And the resource micro-management. I don't want to have to deal with that kind of stuff. I want to build nations and cities, not managing trade routes because I lack a lump of charcoal to build a unit. And finally the stupid AI. But since they didn't manage for the past 30 years to implement a AI that doesn't act like a forensic psychiatry patient, my hopes are kinda limited.

Other than that I still consider Civ kind of the mother of all strategy games, which it arguably is.

The problem is (getting back on topic) that Civ V isn't necessarily better than Civ VI. Both games have things going for them, and things that made one cringe. Not sure if there ever will be THE PERFECT Civ. But if I'd implement a Civ game one day, I'd probably not clone a specific game of the series. It would be my own take.
Nevertheless Jan 8, 2020
Quoting: ColomboRegarding growth limitations, they were there since at least Civ 2. In Civ 2, you get unhappy citizen when you city reach certain size depending on difficulty. You also get additional unhappy citizen when your empire reaches certain size. See:
https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Civilization_II/Getting_Started#Citizen_happiness

and

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/hapiness.322213/

There is also corruption, which decrease the trade income (which can be converted to luxuries, money and research)

So its not like this wasn't in game before.

Uh... sorry.. I meant city numbers, not size!
wvstolzing Jan 8, 2020
Quoting: KimyrielleI want to build nations and cities, not managing trade routes because I lack a lump of charcoal to build a unit.

It sounds like you want to play Civ II.


QuoteAnd finally the stupid AI. But since they didn't manage for the past 30 years to implement a AI that doesn't act like a forensic psychiatry patient, my hopes are kinda limited.

An AI that actually plays the game (rather than just spawn units & cities while unreasonably handicapping the player according to the difficulty setting) would be the best upgrade they could ever release for this game. All the 'diplomacy' updates they've introduced over the years have amounted pretty much to nothing because the AI's 'decisions' remain arbitrary as ever.

I wonder if this free engine makes any efforts towards implementing a real AI.
Colombo Jan 8, 2020
Quoting: NeverthelessUh... sorry.. I meant city numbers, not size!

Read again. From Civ 2, both size AND number of cities were limited with sort of global unhappinese system. In Civ 5, it was just put in a clear view and constrained for a smalled empires.
Colombo Jan 8, 2020
Quoting: wvstolzingAn AI that actually plays the game (rather than just spawn units & cities while unreasonably handicapping the player according to the difficulty setting) would be the best upgrade they could ever release for this game. All the 'diplomacy' updates they've introduced over the years have amounted pretty much to nothing because the AI's 'decisions' remain arbitrary as ever.

I wonder if this free engine makes any efforts towards implementing a real AI.

This. AI is braindead. It doesn't play "to win", it just works as some sort of background noise.

If they decided that they would try to make AI win that tries to win and then designed various mechanics around it (such as alliances against stronger players, leagues so that several AIs could band together in some sort of faction against common enemies for a common goal, vassalages to solve problems with having to utterly destroy enemy). This would make much more interesting game with a kind of self-balancing build in.
Pangaea Jan 8, 2020
Civilization 4 is the best version in the series, with depth and so, so many ways to achieve your goals (and a damn hard AI/difficulty level). This game is available DRM free on GOG, so I see little reason to try out the inferior, dumbed down versions that came after it.

Hopefully they bring the series back to its roots at some point in the future, but I won't hold my breath.
Nevertheless Jan 9, 2020
Quoting: PangaeaCivilization 4 is the best version in the series, with depth and so, so many ways to achieve your goals (and a damn hard AI/difficulty level). This game is available DRM free on GOG, so I see little reason to try out the inferior, dumbed down versions that came after it.

Hopefully they bring the series back to its roots at some point in the future, but I won't hold my breath.

Maybe it's time to re-play all of them to get the complete picture. :)
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