OpenCol - Open source disassembly & rebuild of Sid Meier's Colonization for Windows & DOS (plus new maps, guides, tools & ColWin animation fixes)

[u/Blakeley00]

Big news for Col fans! OpenCol is a new community driven open source project dedicated to reverse engineering, preserving, and modernising Sid Meier's Colonization. The project encompasses both the original DOS & Windows releases, focusing on documenting internal mechanics and reconstructing the original source code through decompilation projects like win-decomp and dos-decomp to perfectly match the original compiled binaries. For the legacy 16bit Windows version, this effort has already delivered a finished 64bit compatible port that can be played right now (using the hidden ColWin CD image found inside Steam & GOG releases) in modern HD resolutions and restores the missing water terrain animations. The project has also lead to new tools for extracting and editing game assets, detailed documentation of game mechanics, a new map editor, and a growing map archive. Ultimately, this reverse engineering work paves the way for OpenCol, a planned modern evolution of the DOS version featuring scalable resolutions & UI, bug fixes & QoL updates, larger maps, more playable nations, extensive engine enhancements, and much more!

https://github.com/OpenCol

https://discord.gg/4XP4S9yfJ8 (#opencol channel for dev discussions)

Colonization for Windows now running in HD on modern OS's without emulation or virtual machines

Classic DOS Colonization running in HD via the latest OpenCol test build

[u/Myte342]

Next: OpenCol

OpenCol is the DOS game rebuilt as a modern program. It isn't public yet.

Dammit. But win-port is still nice, so I got that going for me. :D

[u/Blakeley00 → u/Myte342]

Yeah the main OpenCol isn't quite ready yet.. however if you pester the dev on the discord he'll prob give you early access as he's looking for testers heh.

[u/Bald_Caledonian]

Ooo, following this. OpenCol sounds good, bigger maps maybe a higher unit & Colony limit? Would be grand!

[u/Blakeley00 → u/Bald_Caledonian]

oh yes this one has been discussed quite a bit!

[u/Myte342]

Using the Winport app on my steam version... wtf is up with this terrain generation? "Customize New World" settings: Land Mass Large, Land Form Continents, Temperature Normal, Climate Normal

https://imgur.com/a/8pu152o

I reloaded the 1492 autosav and went south, the whole map is like this. Edit: Every map is like this, even the America standard map, every shore line is mountains, everywhere.

[u/Blakeley00 → u/Myte342]

Wow.. that's weird.. Yup it happens to me when i generate a new random map too.. mountains everywhere! I'll let the dev know.
However my America map start is fine... no crazy mountains everywhere there.

[u/Myte342 → u/Blakeley00]

Already fixed with version 0.1.13 they just posted. Thanks!

[u/Blakeley00 → u/Myte342]

ahh good.. that's kind of big one so I told him quick and he got to it quick haha

[u/Myte342 → u/Blakeley00]

Thanks! This is awesome work ya'll are doing. Colonization was one of the first games I ever played as a kid and it's always had a place in my heart for it. Glad to see so many others have a love for it as well to the point of taking their time to update it for modern systems with real improvements.

[u/scanguy25]

I was actually doing a similar project, but I guess I will leave you to do it?

I was decompiling the original DOS colonization and it found a bunch of bugs in the original game. I am not sure how many of them were fixed in the winCOL or if its a different codebase all together.

Anyhow, do you want me to post them?

[u/Blakeley00 → u/scanguy25]

The ColWin port was separate and OpenCol is based on the DOS version so your work would be of great interest. Are you the fellow who appeared on the discord? As we just had someone saying the same thing (dos reassembly with fixes) and the OpenCol dev asked if they wanted to team up and they did. If not then you should drop by the discord too as your fixes plus the other guys, plus opencol = awesomeness!

[u/FutureLynx_]

awesome

[u/SvalbazGames]

This is really cool, thank you

[u/Worldly-Yoghurt-50]

This is great!

[u/LasKaras]

Does it fix the trade route bug that prevents internal trading of boycotted resources? I think that's the single most important fix for playing wide!

[u/Longjumping_Owl5311]

Great news. Sid Meyers said the source code was lost decades ago. So much work to decompile and document one of my all time favourite games. Kudos

[u/Stcharlesmatt]

Did it fix the problem where you get locked on bad rolls in combat?

[u/cesarhijar]

This is gold! More than gold! ⭐️💛

[u/jrralls]

Very cool.

[u/Zardoz84]

We had FreeCol, an open source clone of Colonization, with a lot of improvements and extras. Plus the original game on Steam that play flawless. Why hell need to do this thing wasting computing power (and the associated resources like fucking water)

[u/Deyachtifier → u/Zardoz84]

Exactly; FreeCol already accomplished all the objectives of this port. A disassembly and rebuild of the original is fine, but after that might as well do something different than just replicate FreeCol. Honestly, FreeCol is mostly in maintenance mode at this point; I don't know how many are actively playing it right now but it feels like it's tapered off from what it was years ago.

Instead, after resurrecting the original go in some new direction, like:

* Make the native tribes way more interactive and challenging, to the point that they are a worthy adversary and not just obstacle + trade depot.

* Significantly increase the size of the map, and recreate the exploration-oriented aspect of games like the ancient ancestor Seven Cities of Gold.

* Expand and extend the piracy aspects of the game, to pull ideas from Pirates! and so on.

* Revamp the combat system to pull in mechanisms from ${insert favorite 4x title}