OpenCiv3 is an open-source, cross-platform, mod-oriented, modernized remake of Civilization III by the fan community built with the Godot Engine and C#, with capabilities inspired by the best of the…
OpenCiv3 (formerly known by the codename “C7”) is an open-source, cross-platform, mod-oriented, modernized reimagining of Civilization III by the fan community built with the Godot Engine and C#, with capabilities inspired by the best of the 4X genre and lessons learned from modding Civ3. Our vision is to make Civ3 as it could have been, rebuilt for today’s modders and players: removing arbitary limits, fixing broken features, expanding mod capabilities, and supporting modern graphics and platforms. A game that can go beyond C3C but retain all of its gameplay and content.
OpenCiv3 is under active development and currently in an early pre-alpha state. It is a rudimentary playable game but lacking many mechanics and late-game content, and errors are likely. Keep up with our development for the latest updates and opportunities to contribute!
New Players Start Here: An Introduction to OpenCiv3 at CivFanatics
Connect with the community
NOTE: OpenCiv3 is not affiliated with civfanatics.com, Firaxis Games, BreakAway Games, Hasbro Interactive, Infogrames Interactive, Atari Interactive, or Take-Two Interactive Software. All trademarks are property of their respective owners.
December 2025: v0.3 Dutch Preview 1 Has Been Released!
The OpenCiv3 team is pleased to announce the first preview release of the v0.3 “Dutch” milestone. This is a major enhancement over the “Carthage” release, and our debut with standalone mode featuring placeholder graphics without the need for Civ3 media files. A local installation of Civ3 is still recommended for a more polished experience. See the release notes for a full list of new features in each version.
OpenCiv3 Dutch Preview 1 with the same game in Standalone mode (top) and with imported Civ3 graphics (bottom)
Download
Download the appropriate zip file for your OS from the Dutch Preview 1 release
All official releases of OpenCiv3 along with more detailed release notes can be found on the GitHub releases page.
Install
System Requirements
- 64-bit Windows, Linux, or Mac OS. Other platforms may be supported in future releases.
- Minimum hardware requirements have not yet been identified. Please let us know if OpenCiv3 does not perform well on your system.
- Recommended: A local copy of Civilization III files (the game itself does NOT have to run) from Conquests or the Complete edition. Standalone mode is available with placeholder graphics for those who do not have a copy.
Windows Installation
This is a Windows 64-bit executable. OpenCiv3 will look for a local installation of Civilization III in the Windows registry automatically, or you may use an environment variable to point to the files.
- Download and extract the zip file
- Double-click
OpenCiv3.exe - If it is blocked, you may need to unblock it by
- Right click
- Click on Properties
- Check the “Unblock” checkbox near the bottom buttons in the “Security” section
- Click OK
- If your Civilization III installation is not detected, you can set the environment variable
CIV3_HOMEpointing to it and restart OpenCiv3
Linux Installation
This is an x86-64 Linux executable. You may use an environment variable to point to the files from a Civilization III installation. You can just copy or mount the top-level “Sid Meier’s Civilization III Complete” (Sans “Complete” if your install was from pre-Complete CDs) folder and its contents to your Linux system, or install the game via Steam or GOG.
- Download and extract the tgz file
- Set the
CIV3_HOMEenvironment variable to point to the Civ3 files, e.g.export CIV3_HOME="/path/to/civ3" - From that same terminal where you set
CIV3_HOME, runOpenCiv3.x86_64 - To make this variable permanent, add it to your
.profileor equivalent.
Mac Installation
This is a universal 64-bit executable, so it should run on both Intel and M1 Macs. You may use an environment variable to point to the files from a Civilization III installation. You can just copy or mount the top-level “Sid Meier’s Civilization III Complete” (Sans “Complete” if your install was from pre-Complete CDs) folder and its contents to your Mac system, or install the game via Steam or GOG.
- Download the zip; it may complain bitterly, and you may have to tell it to keep the download instead of trashing it
- Double click the zip file, and a folder with
OpenCiv3.appand a json file will appear - If you try to open
OpenCiv3.appit will tell you it’s damaged and try to trash it; it is not damaged - To unblock the downloaded app, from a terminal run
xattr -cr /path/to/OpenCiv3.app; you can avoid typing the path out by typingxattr -crand then dragging theOpenCiv3.appicon onto the terminal window - Set the
CIV3_HOMEenvironment variable to point to the Civ3 files, e.g.export CIV3_HOME="/path/to/civ3" - From that same terminal where you set
CIV3_HOME, runOpenCiv3.appwithopen /path/to/OpenCiv3.app, or again just typeopenand drag the OpenCiv3 icon onto the terminal window and press enter
Known issues
- OpenCiv3 uses many primitive placeholder assets; loading files from a local Civilization III install is recommended (see platform specific setup instructions above)
- Support for playing Civ3 BIQ or SAV files is incomplete; some files will not load correctly and crashes may occur
- For Mac:
- Mac will try hard not to let you run this; it will tell you the app is damaged and can’t be opened and helpfully offer to trash it for you. From a terminal you can
xattr -cr /path/to/OpenCiv3.appto enable running it. - Mac will crash if you hit buttons to start a new game (New Game, Quick Start, Tutorial, or Load Scenario) because it cant find our ‘new game’ save file we’re using as a stand-in for map generation. But you can Load Game and load
c7-static-map-save.jsonor open a Civ3 SAV file to open that map
- Mac will try hard not to let you run this; it will tell you the app is damaged and can’t be opened and helpfully offer to trash it for you. From a terminal you can
- Other specific bugs will be tracked on the GitHub issues page.
© OpenCiv3 contributors. OpenCiv3 is free and open source software released under the MIT License.
Read the original article
Comments
“Mac will try hard not to let you run this; it will tell you the app is damaged and can’t be opened and helpfully offer to trash it for you. From a terminal you can xattr -cr /path/to/OpenCiv3.app to enable running it.”
How far OSX has come since the days of the “cancel or allow” parody advert.
By rpdillon 2026-02-0715:14 The lockdown has been slow and steady. Slow enough that at every juncture, apologists point out that it is still possible to run software you choose. I think we enjoy freedom that people do not appreciate because they never had to earn it. Gaining it back will require extraordinary effort.
By WildWeazel 2026-02-072:489 reply Mac support is the bane of my existence. It doesn't help that none of us core contributors have one, so if anyone is willing to be a lab monkey...
By AceJohnny2 2026-02-073:072 reply Apple has been slowly tightening the screws on app notarization (code signing) requirements for running apps on macOS. To do it properly you need to be a registered developer ($100/year), and they're certainly not making it easy if you don't have access to a Mac.
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.
By hellzbellz123 2026-02-0712:411 reply The whole sdk has a restriction that you can't use it off platform. The code signing thing is just a tax on ios devs
You need an apple ID. You cannot create one without using an apple device.
By Forgeties79 2026-02-080:062 reply You can absolutely make an appleID without an Apple device. You can make one in-browser right now. https://account.apple.com/account?create
Have you actually tried it? Because I did some months ago to setup an AppleTV and it just does not work. It just hangs at the last step without telling you anything. If you inspect the server response it just says "Your account cannot be created at this time.".
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.
By Forgeties79 2026-02-0815:401 reply Use the link in my comment, it takes you straight to their signup page.
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.
By cstdr 2026-02-0816:11 Did you even read what I wrote? It did not work. Apple even has an FAQ page for that error (without any useful solution). The suggestion to create an account via Apple Music app is useless since all it does is create an account which must be migrated via browser first (with the same problem). You can also find large threads on Reddit about the problem. Of course the availability of such a sign-up flow suggests it should be possibly, but having it broken for months is not a good look.
By eptcyka 2026-02-089:09 I stand corrected.
By direwolf20 2026-02-0812:072 reply Needing an apple device to compile for an apple device is not an unreasonable requirement. Paying $100 every year is.
By intothemild 2026-02-0812:291 reply No, sorry, but it is unreasonable.. Why should I need an apple device to compile my code for 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)
By direwolf20 2026-02-0813:391 reply For decades, Microsoft only made Visual C++ for Windows, and alternatives like DJGPP weren't very good. This isn't unreasonable, it's just how programming works when you target a platform. Visual C++ relies on Windows because it's a Windows program, and Xcode is written for MacOS, not for Java or Electron.
What is stopping you from writing an open source alternative to Xcode that runs on Linux?
By colonwqbang 2026-02-0911:381 reply ...The code signing requirement?
By direwolf20 2026-02-0911:561 reply Why can't code be signed with open source tools?
By AceJohnny2 2026-02-0919:051 reply you can code-sign with open-source tools. That's not the hard part. Signing with a certificate trusted by macOS , that's where there's no avoiding having to go to Apple.
By direwolf20 2026-02-101:33 Of course, but that wasn't the complaint, was it? The complaint was having to build on an apple device
By butvacuum 2026-02-0812:45 If you only publish free apps... you only pay $100 once.
I have a Macbook Pro M4 Max, an Apple Developer account, a bit of time, and some enthusiasm. Would love to help!
By als0 2026-02-079:19 Notarize it.
By darthcircuit 2026-02-073:034 reply You can run macOS in a docker container. There’s no hardware acceleration for gpu, but works well enough.
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.
By hellzbellz123 2026-02-0712:441 reply But you can't distribute whatever you build legally as far as im aware. The apple sdks prevent you from shipping legally.
The only way atm is installing homebrew and using a gnu tool chain if I understand the license of the official sdks correctly?
By tomrod 2026-02-0716:28 Tangible thing versus conceptual thing. License never stood a chance.
By mherrmann 2026-02-075:33 quickemu [1] is good at running macOS VMs.
By WildWeazel 2026-02-075:52 My only experience with docker is headless in CI. I do have AMD. I'll have to look into this. Thanks
Emulating mac or using mac SDKs on non apple devices is against apple's bullshit license though.
By sagarm 2026-02-0719:57 Best way to reject it is to ignore macOS.
If Apple finds out they’ll ban your developer certificates and then all installed copies of your app will stop working.
By Wowfunhappy 2026-02-0714:432 reply Has this ever happened? Not revoking certificates, which they've certainly done for malware or e.g. iOS "signing services", but because a developer used non-Apple hardware.
By rayboy1995 2026-02-0721:131 reply I am the dev of Pocket Squadron (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bombsight....) and a few years ago I tried to make a build for iOS due to many player requests. I did not have a mac so I setup a mac VM and a dev account to start making builds and see how big of a lift it would be. My account was banned unfortunately. Still no iOS build to this day, I'm probably missing out on a good bit of money.
By freakynit 2026-02-082:20 Could have just created a new account. As I said, BS needs to e dealt with rejection... rejection of their ban in this case.
I don’t know the answer to that but a quick search shows lots of examples of people complaining that their developer certificate has been revoked, demonstrating a willingness by Apple to revoke certificates if they believe the developer violated their terms of service. I doubt Apple would go out of their way to include language in the agreement that binds developers to their own sanctioned platform if they didn’t intend to enforce it.
By admax88qqq 2026-02-0716:551 reply I would wager all of those are distributing malware.
I would take that wager. I highly doubt Apple’s revocation team has a 0% false positive rate.
By Wowfunhappy 2026-02-0719:21 I agree, but I think a better wager (and what GP probably meant) would be that all of these developers had their certificates revoked because Apple thought they were distributing malware. That's what the system is for.
By zapzupnz 2026-02-080:50 Rather than making people run commands in Terminal, it would be more ideal to just tell people to try to run the app, then go to System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> scroll down until they see the Open Anyway button.
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.
By fragmede 2026-02-0713:10 By Catagris 2026-02-0712:02 I have a MacBook m4 Pro, m3, mac Mini m3, an apple developer account and willing to help.
By tclancy 2026-02-0710:24 I volunteer.
By fullstackwife 2026-02-077:25 Why not build it as a web app and play via browser?
By philistine 2026-02-0813:08 Contact the maintainer of macsourceports. They do exactly what you despise for dozens of projects.
> How far OSX has come since the days of the “cancel or allow” parody advert.
In case you're wondering like me, this is the advert in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CwoluNRSSc&t=0
By ghostly_s 2026-02-0820:27 lol, I just assumed this was a reference to the old workflow for bypassing code-signing on OS X, which was you had to click 'Cancel' in the popup then right-click and select "open" (no indication in the UI that this did something different than double-clicking).
What is going on with this? I tried that and the alias I have built in for this problem, `make_safe() { xattr -d -r com.apple.quarantine $1 }`
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}}}
The situation is actually worse than it looks.
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
By bornfreddy 2026-02-077:335 reply Yikes. Why anyone would willingly develop for Apple platforms is beyond me. But then I also don't understand why some some people like using the crap^WmacOS. To each their own I guess. Hardware does look nice though, too bad about their software.
By spacedcowboy 2026-02-0710:404 reply Well, mainly because it's a better unix than Linux for the desktop, and I'd rather pull my eyes out of their sockets with a rusty screwdriver than use Windows.
Other than developing my own (without using any other OS...) which is a ... significant ... task, there's not much other option. YMMV.
It was a better linux for the desktop back during the snow leopard day but it's slowly gotten worse at the same time that linux became better. Now the only advantages they have is the hardware. The os is buggy doesn't respect apple's own human interface guidelines and is increasingly locked down. Gone are the days of simbl extensions, customizability and a clean nice coherent stable os with few bugs.
By stefanfisk 2026-02-0811:21 I switch between Tahoe, fedora and pop_os on a daily basis. Tahoe in its complete design madness is still in a league of its own when it comes to basic UX IMHO. Just the fact that the keymappings for undo/redo are consistent between apps puts it’s way ahead of Linux when considering the whole ecosystem. Linux is a clear winner in tech and tooling thought, which is why I use both.
MacOS is a better desktop in the sense that the desktop is locked down. GNOME trie to be the same as MacOS but being the default desktop for nerds and build for people who lives the Apple way makes it a bit schizofrenic.
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.
I don’t know anything about “hard/brittle” analogies for operating systems. What I do know is that Linux distributions don’t seem to have a coherent strategy for building an operating system with sensible defaults and a consistent design that makes it easy to use for non-technical users.
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).
By bornfreddy 2026-02-0721:201 reply Apple developers seem to almost-universally believe that if the user doesn’t like it or it doesn’t make sense then the user will... just have to learn to live with it.
By chongli 2026-02-080:15 I never said the Mac was perfect. Far from it. But it has sensible defaults which the vast majority of users find acceptable and easy enough to use.
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.
By pastage 2026-02-0722:26 You are encouraged to play with footguns on Linux, I do not do it and none of my family do it works fine for us. On "Linux desktop" one of the things you are not encouraged to play with is installation of programs. The Linux way is preferable that is why Apple and all the other are walking down the same path.
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.
By spacedcowboy 2026-02-0817:33 you’re welcome to your opinion of course, mine differs.
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.
By bornfreddy 2026-02-0721:17 It might be "better unix" (whatever that means), but it sure as hell is not better. Locked down, buggy, and difficult / impossible to navigate by keyboard. And I need to install (and trust) a 3rd party app to get a multi value clipboard? Yeah right, better. I'd prefer Windows, and I'm not fan of the ad-OS either.
By pimeys 2026-02-0711:03 Better is subjective.
By philipallstar 2026-02-0714:21 The advantage is you can just develop it once and publish, rather than pushing things through multiple different packaging processes, and a MacOS person might be more likely to spend money.
By rjh29 2026-02-077:42 Because they "have" to have the nice display or good battery life I guess. Everyone has different priorities. Personally for me it's Linux or nothing.
By freakynit 2026-02-077:43 Well, gotta sell wherever the customers are, unfortunately.
By dmitrygr 2026-02-079:30 Because that is where the users with the money are.
By consp 2026-02-0716:02 > It affects many developers, has been known for years, and Apple still hasn't fixed it.
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.
By Wowfunhappy 2026-02-0714:471 reply Can't you (as in the user) still just type `sudo spctl --master-disable` to get rid of the nonsense?
By noname120 2026-02-0723:27 Yeah but this command sucks because AFAIK then it doesn’t even verify notarized apps anymore (for example if the certificate is invalid, if it was revoked, etc.)
By tclancy 2026-02-071:42 And it inspired me to buy it for $0.99 and that doesn't work on Mac either. The [your least favorite tribe] really are revolting.
By DeathArrow 2026-02-077:57 I got a Mac only because of the excellent battery life. But I dread Os X. Not only it is dumbed down and it is harder to accomplish what is trivial in other operating system, but I have to actively fight against it if I want to run software that is not downloaded from the app store or I want to open files with apps I downloaded from elsewhere. And the UI is broken.
Not terribly fair. When Windows decided running everything as administrator was bad and to add a visual sudo-like prompt, Apple made fun of them for it, but it was Microsoft reacting to a changing threat landscape then too.
Vista gets maligned but UAC is a good feature to have around, and Vista introduced it.
My first thought was "But back then those prompts were constant, making them almost useless", though maybe that did actually help by making software vendors rely less on admin rights?
By klodolph 2026-02-0719:46 It was a big mess, because users didn’t expect it, developers wanted users to just have everything run as admin, and the UAC user experience wasn’t polished yet. But that’s what you expect from new security features being introduced.
By pjmlp 2026-02-077:27 That was the whole point.
By charcircuit 2026-02-076:471 reply UAC is not a security boundary. Malware can bypass it if it wants.
It helps to actually enable having to type a password instead of clicking on Yes.
However yes, security is much more than an UAC dialog.
By pjmlp 2026-02-0714:32 Additionally, just remembered, recently there is an additional option on Windows 11 that the UAC generates a temporary admin user and then throws the security token away.
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2025/05/19/enhanc...
I mean it has, but the situation is getting ridiculous, I'm at the point where I'm honestly not sure what special set of magical incantations and rituals I need to do to get this process to work, it seems to change between different bits of software and get more complex with time as if Apple keeps finding proverbial bigger fools who can get through this mess without intending to and so they're solution is to keep making it increasingly more Byzantine
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“
You shouldn't need the company's permission to run whatever you want on your machine.
It's not an issue of permission, it's an issue of trying to make a computer that's safe for grandma to use. Criminals can and will convince grandma to navigate a byzantine labyrinth of prompts and technical measures in order to drain her bank account. That's the threat model we're dealing with here.
At a certain point you have to let adults be adults and make adult mistakes.
By bigstrat2003 2026-02-0722:11 It went just fine. But more importantly, it's completely immoral to treat adults as if they were children.
By NewsaHackO 2026-02-0719:19 >make a computer that's safe for grandma to use
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.
Is that really true though? It kinda just feels like a way to force people to have to pay $100 per year, own Apple hardware, etc.
By chongli 2026-02-0714:10 How else are you going to have the ability to revoke malware’s signing keys to get it to stop running on every machine immediately?
I think a time-lock feature to enable “I know what I’m doing mode” for a year, after a 48h delay would be ok.
Or something like that
By miki123211 2026-02-078:371 reply I like Chrome OS's approach where you essentially choose your security level at initial setup, and need to wipe your machine if you wish to change it.
By fc417fc802 2026-02-0714:04 But what if a scammer walks grandma through backing everything up, unlocking the machine, installing a rootkit, and then restoring from backup? /s
(Joke is on you. You thought you'd be given access to app data to back it up? That's against the security model.)
By Gud 2026-02-078:45 No, that would still suck.
By anthk 2026-02-0711:45 Any inmutable distro with Flatpak will solve this forever. No need to restrict anything.
By Der_Einzige 2026-02-074:076 reply [flagged]
By fsiefken 2026-02-077:39 I helped my mother out with a computer, gave her a mac after she called twic a wee about a windows popup. Eventually she became a grandmother, and later in old age, with dementia she stlll using the mac more or less successfully to google and e-mail. Intentionality, coordination are important for keeping cognitive faculty. It all sounds so easy, but letting her send e-mail through voice could create confusing situations.
By skeltoac 2026-02-075:19 We are all creeping toward old age. Let’s be kind to our future selves.
Who's to say the criminals won't use a genAI agent to call grandma and social-engineer her so they can drain her bank account?
By apothegm 2026-02-075:14 They pretty much already are.
By lostlogin 2026-02-074:17 This attitude is worse than Apple’s.
By Gud 2026-02-079:03 No thanks.
By anthk 2026-02-0711:47 Apple is the personified Enshitification among Microsoft.
By klodolph 2026-02-072:32 …you don’t, just like you don’t need the bank’s permission to withdraw funds… but they will still try and stop you pulling out $10,000 so you can buy iTunes gift cards to pay off your taxes.
By miki123211 2026-02-078:36 And you don't. THIs is not iOS, gatekeeper can be bypassed if you know how.
IIRC everything you compile on macOS yourself, possibly only when using Apple’s llvm toolchain, already gets the proper bits set to execute just fine. This also seems to work for rust and go binaries. I’m not sure whether that is because they replicated the macOS llvm toolchain behaviour for the flag or whether another mechanism is at play.
By wtetzner 2026-02-0713:48 I don't know about Go, but I think Rust uses the system linker by default.
By BirAdam 2026-02-0714:49 You used to be able to boot into the rescue mode and disable their security system. Is that not a thing anymore?
The command line incantation is just a convenience. You can unblock the app that you just tried to run by going to Privacy and Security in system settings and clicking around a bit.
By fragmede 2026-02-0711:58 You used to be able to, but not anymore.
By SomeHacker44 2026-02-0715:44 Yes. The threats are now from Apple and other vendors who increasingly want, build and enforce lock in.
By heavyset_go 2026-02-072:162 reply This is the reason I dropped macOS as a platform target. Apple will make users think you're a hacker trying to trick them, because macOS acts as if your app is radioactive if you don't pay the Apple tax, and refuses to let users run the apps they want.
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.
By xpe 2026-02-0715:04 Taking a legitimate concern (which of course does factor into the overall trade-offs) but exaggerating it into a tirade is uninteresting. Trade-offs are complex. There is more than one sensible mix depending on one’s values and position.
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.
> Apple will make users think you're a hacker trying to trick them
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.
How does paying $100 per year to sign your binary ensure it's not malicious?
By llm_nerd 2026-02-0714:03 It doesn't ensure anything. But it does force an identity trail (you have to prove your identity), and more importantly allows Apple to have a rapid kill switch: If a developer uses their account to distribute malware, Apple revokes the cert and those apps will no longer run on user devices (as soon as the revocation hits).
Should it be $100 per year? No, that is ridiculous and usurious.
By heavyset_go 2026-02-083:351 reply Users shouldn't need permission from trillion dollar corporations looking for a source of recurring revenue to be able to run the software they want.
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.
>Users shouldn't need permission from trillion dollar corporations
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.
By RalfWausE 2026-02-096:59 Down with the Corporations and their minions!
By jmspring 2026-02-083:49 It gets a bit old and sad when this topic and macOS processes dominate the comments section.
Like windows complainers, most of us do not care.
By neocron 2026-02-0714:59 And yet people still support it by finding ways around it instead if just leaving mac in the dust, simply not supporting it. Worked for Internet Explorer, will work the same dor mac
By adarsh2321 2026-02-072:02 [dead]
By miki123211 2026-02-078:342 reply "cancel or allow" (which Microsoft still does) makes no sense, it just trains user to click "allow" every time. Users don't know what they should allow or not.
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.
Civ III is still my go-to activity for long flights with no internet - I've yet to find a better way to instantly time-travel forward 12 hours.
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 like Civilization games but they make 4hrs feel like 30min, so I can’t play them. Otherwise it would be the year 2060 already
By huevosabio 2026-02-073:39 Yes, exactly I had to stop myself starting the game after 7 else I don't sleep
where do people derive replay value in factorio? I found It got entirely formulaic after my first run, and with SPM as the common measuring stick- its just "who sank the most time into a map."
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
For me its optimization and scale. Make resources farther, recipes 8x or whatever scale, try and make a factory that can eat and spit out insane amounts of materials. Try to keep up with the expanding need for raw ore and power against the increasingly powerful biter raids. Also there are some achievements for like not using lasers or using mostly solar, or go all out with the technically optional nuclear power plants.
By butvacuum 2026-02-1121:36 1) getting enrichment spun up stings a bit.
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.
By brobdingnagians 2026-02-0721:39 Slightly tangential but recently I've gotten into the Ilwinter Game Design games Dominions 6 and Conquest of Elysium 5. I was surprised how similar but how different they are to Europa Universalis and Civilization respectively. Very interesting studies in horizontal game design where every faction has dramatically different gameplay strategies.
It used to be Factorio for me (I live in Australia, so long flights happen a lot). The problem with Factorio the flight isn't long enough! and the game bleeds into 100+ hours post-flight.
Dwarf Fortress. That's really how to suddenly say "Oh, how did it get to 4am already?"
DF gets all the news (rightfully so, it's an epic game that I've dumped a ton of hours into) but if you haven't already, consider checking out Songs of Syx. It's like DF but multiplied by 100. You can have tens of thousands of citizens, doing most of the things they do in Dwarf Fortress, and a lot more, including waging huge wars against the neighbors. The limits of DF kinda made me sad, actually, that you are limited to so few Dwarves (and don't say it's because you want to know the story of all of them, because after 30 or so you lose track of who is who anyways, so might as well up the limit from 100 to 50K, or more? ;) Songs of Syx has also routinely been getting massive updates since 2020 and I have a feeling the code is a bit cleaner so the solo dev can add features faster (unlike DF's code base which is, according to one of the new devs a nightmare to work with). It's a game that is never talked about but deserves a whole lot more love from gamers.
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.
By AngryData 2026-02-110:36 As a long time DF veteran who has installed but never played Songs of Syx, you convinced me to boot it up.
By bpye 2026-02-0711:48 I lost the best part of a week of my Christmas break to it when the Steam version was released a couple years back...
By SilverElfin 2026-02-072:461 reply > I've yet to find a better way to instantly time-travel forward 12 hours
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.
It amazes me that high paid SV techies won’t pay more to fly in premium or business
By dbetteridge 2026-02-0710:171 reply Not everyone on hackernews is paid SV salaries?
That plus flights from Australia are expensive enough in economy, business class is easily 4-10x that cost.
By fc417fc802 2026-02-0714:142 reply Aren't there any airlines traveling to and from Australia that offer something midway in between sardine and business class?
By dbetteridge 2026-02-084:39 Premium economy is a thing, but debatable on the sardine thing.
Basically closer to "old economy", where you have leg room and real utensils
By hdgvhicv 2026-02-089:56 Qantas offer premium economy, about 39” leg room and a few extra inches of width.
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.
By SilverElfin 2026-02-078:361 reply It’s incredibly expensive on international flights, right? A 12 hour flight sounds like something that would cost thousands for business class.
By hdgvhicv 2026-02-089:57 I consider SV property incredibly expensive but people pay it.
I remember being a high paid techie getting 19 hours of paid work done between Melbourne and New York, on a laptop in economy (and a long layover in LAX due to a storm). It was fricking glorious, most productive day of my life.
By pintxo 2026-02-0710:43 Not everyone on here is necessarily from SV?
By bpye 2026-02-0711:50 When I fly transatlantic I don't mind paying to get an exit row or bulkhead seat, but even just premium economy is a much more significant increase in cost over economy, at least flying from Canada.
Business class flights from Sydney to San Francisco cost A$6k, 6-10x as much as economy. Flights from Sydney to Europe are more like 3-4x (A$7k vs A$2k) but still ludicrously expensive. Good luck convincing your company to expense that for work trips, and most of us don't have SV salaries. Honestly, I still manage to get some work done on long flights, the more annoying thing is flights which don't have power outlets or WiFi.
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.
By bpye 2026-02-0711:51 > flights which don't have power outlets
Or ones which do but the outlets are so loose they are practically useless.
By colechristensen 2026-02-0623:261 reply The key here is seeing this mentioned and not time traveling forward until 6 AM Saturday morning.
By kilroy123 2026-02-070:37 How did I not ever think to do this? Such a good idea.
By felixthehat 2026-02-075:31 Yeah civ VI on my iPad with an apple pencil kills flights
By tfehring 2026-02-0718:53 13" Macbook Air, I rarely use a mouse to begin with. Trans-Pacific flights usually have a few extra inches of legroom compared to domestic flights, so it's not that cramped even in economy (and obviously a non-issue in premium economy or business).
By Gud 2026-02-079:10 track point
By Der_Einzige 2026-02-074:092 reply The total war games are like civilization but with actually good combat. Especially if you get mods like DEI for Rome 2, RTR for Rome 1 remastered, etc. It's regrettable that we let the grimdark warhammer crowd define the series.
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.
By wewtyflakes 2026-02-078:252 reply I have found paradox games to have uneven game mechanics; some run miles wide, some of them run deep, and many others are just very superficial, and there is no reliable indication which will be which when you are playing fresh.
By jjmarr 2026-02-079:14 Check out Terra Invicta.
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.
By izacus 2026-02-0714:59 There's no better story generators than those games though, even Civs don't quite compare.
By chongli 2026-02-082:51 I've put a lot of time into the Total War series. My favourite is probably Shogun 2. I will say that the combat is quite fun at first but once you learn ranged combat, artillery, and the "sweet spot" it falls apart.
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.
By mikeaskew4 2026-02-070:28 There goes my weekend…
By WildWeazel 2026-02-0623:197 reply Hi all, OpenCiv3 founder here. Thanks for the support! Check us out on Civfanatics or Discord to keep up with the project.
Any interesting insights about using Godot with C#? I love C# and I'm happy using it in Godot even though it's not as seamless as in Unity: in Godot 4 we still can't export to Web if the project is C#, and there's the whole conversion between C# types and Godot types that adds inefficiencies and extra allocations, etc.; it feels like it's a second-class language in Godot.
I'm always interested in seeing what people find when developing larger projects in C#.
By WildWeazel 2026-02-075:27 The founding developers were all software engineers with .NET experience, so it was the natural choice even though at the time it was Godot 3.x with Mono. I had used Unity before but not Godot. The project is structured as mostly plain C# DLLs with a relatively thin Godot UI layer controlling it, so the Godot type system is fairly encapsulated. We haven't really seen any issues with those decisions beyond just working out the communication between Godot and DLL. But again we were just working from what we knew so I can't really say if this was the best way to go about it.
By huevosabio 2026-02-072:28 We were building on C# Godot and I think it is a second class citizen in the sense that 1) you can't export to wasm and 2) they are moving the interface to be handled by gdextension.
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.
By Arwill 2026-02-0711:59 I have this principle of "5% scripting". If the high level scripting on top of C++ consumes about 5% of frame time, then the language of the script does not matter.
Oh my, this brings me back! One of my fondest gaming memories involves a massive Civilization 3 PBEM match between a number of Civilization fan sites, where we all had private forums and ran these virtual nations against each other. This was way back in 2002 or 2003!
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.
By WildWeazel 2026-02-075:15 I was also there at Civfanatics watching from the sidelines. Fond memories indeed, and some of those same people laid the foundations for this project.
By Brendinooo 2026-02-074:56 I didn’t do that stuff but I remember…was it Kryten? Making a multi unit graphic utility, I used it to make and publish some multi units. Fun times. CivFanatics was great.
Would it be feasible to add an API to OpenCiv3 (or run it as an SDK) so we can script up actions?
By WildWeazel 2026-02-072:44 There will certainly at least be (technically already is) a Lua scripting interface for mods. We've hand-waved some talk of a proper C# SDK but have no concrete plans yet.
By genocidicbunny 2026-02-082:43 Good to see you around here! I remember some of your posts way back in the day. I don't recall, did you hang around the civfanatics IRC much back in the day?
By jcurbo 2026-02-0716:23 This is great stuff! Civ3 is still by far my favorite Civ. And a nice use of Godot.
By klaussilveira 2026-02-0718:55 Thank you for creating such a badass project.
By popalchemist 2026-02-070:164 reply Have you considered adding LLM features for the negotiations? Could be cool.
By anthonyIPH 2026-02-072:18 From what I've seen with projects like this, the successful ones do a good job of 'sticking to the mission' of faithfully recreating the original game in a modern engine (openMW, daggerfall unity, all my points of reference are TES related)
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.
you may be interested in https://www.paxhistoria.co/
By philipwhiuk 2026-02-0721:55 Bizarre that this got YCombinator funding. Not obvious how it scales.
By wewtyflakes 2026-02-070:432 reply You are getting downvoted, but this is a cool idea. Diplomacy has historically been a weak part of the series, and being able to shore that up may be a lot of fun to play against.
I would say diplomacy is the most misunderstood feature of the series. Players constantly say they want a stronger AI that's smarter at diplomacy. But whenever they have built an AI like that, their play testers complained that it doesn't behave like a real world leader (too ruthless).
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].
By Der_Einzige 2026-02-074:131 reply I am so tired of game designers/developers being so pathetically wrong about stuff like this. Modders have to CONSTANTLY fix these boneheaded, user hostile decisions in nearly every game. A lot of game developers are not the people actually loving/playing their games in the same way that the cello maker is usually not the cello player.
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.
It's not that hard to do this, the chess engine crowd figured it out back in 2001.
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!
By stevage 2026-02-0722:33 Yeah, the ability of chess engines to play like a human of a given rating is a pretty recent development.
And it's still a constant complaint that Stockfish suggests moves that no human could really play and follow up correctly.
By wewtyflakes 2026-02-073:43 That makes sense, but at the end of the day, it may be more fun to play around with opponents that act more relatedly. This could take the form of in-game/session-appropriate diplomatic responses that don't read like pre-canned text, or, having explanatory text for why the AI is acting perhaps in goofy ways (which comes up a lot).
Maybe ask Ghandi for his favorite scone recipe, so that he won’t nuke you.
By N_Lens 2026-02-071:29 Gandhi*
By WildWeazel 2026-02-072:402 reply not sure if serious...
By popalchemist 2026-02-075:49 Lifelong Civ player. I have always felt the negotiations part of the game is laughably bad, and a huge missed opportunity. The ability to use language as a tool -- diplomacy, but also rhetoric, veiled threats, etc -- is something I excel at, and I would love the chance to test my mettle against an enemy in an imaginary nuclear war context, because when else do you get to play high stakes games like that with words in real life? Civ is the perfect venue for it, but the game designers are extremely boneheaded about how they executed that particular part of the game.
By Marsymars 2026-02-074:07 Even if you don't want an LLM for the actual functionality of negotiations, LLM-generated text would be neat. As-is, the text becomes irrelevant, "Our words are backed with nuclear weapons" is just "nukes = true" - letting an LLM tell you the AI has nukes seems like harmless fun.
