SCIFILIZATION

Getting started

Install

On an Apple Silicon Mac, download it and play. Everywhere else it builds from source with the free .NET SDK. Either way it needs no files from the original game.

The source is on GitHub: mwerneburg/Scifilization.

macOS

Download the .dmg from the latest release, open it, and drag Scifilization to Applications. Nothing else needs installing. It runs on Apple Silicon with macOS 12 or later.

The app is not notarized by Apple, so the first launch is refused with a warning. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down, and click Open Anyway. (On macOS 14 and earlier you can right-click the app and choose Open instead.) After that it opens normally.

Building on a Mac

For an Intel Mac, or to play the latest code. With Homebrew:

brew install dotnet sdl2 git
git clone https://github.com/mwerneburg/Scifilization.git
cd Scifilization
dotnet build runtime/sdl/CivOne.SDL.csproj -c ReleaseMacOS
runtime/sdl/bin/Release/net10.0/CivOne.SDL

If dotnet is not found after installing, add Homebrew's copy to your path: export PATH="$PATH:/opt/homebrew/bin".

Linux

Well tested, but not as thoroughly as on macOS. The game is plain .NET over SDL2, and the steps below are what it should take. If you try it, success or failure, please open an issue.

Install the .NET 10 SDK, then SDL2. .NET looks for libSDL2.so, which most distributions ship in the development package:

# Debian / Ubuntu
sudo apt install libsdl2-dev libgtk-3-0 git
# Fedora
sudo dnf install SDL2-devel gtk3 git
# Arch
sudo pacman -S sdl2 gtk3 git
git clone https://github.com/mwerneburg/Scifilization.git
cd Scifilization
dotnet build runtime/sdl/CivOne.SDL.csproj -c ReleaseLinux
runtime/sdl/bin/Release/net10.0/CivOne.SDL

Where things live

Saves, settings and logs go in the game's data folder, which it creates on first launch:

The folder still carries the project's old name. Saves are in saves/, and they survive updates.

To update, download the new .dmg and replace the app, or, if you built it, pull and rebuild:

git pull
dotnet build runtime/sdl/CivOne.SDL.csproj -c ReleaseMacOS   # or ReleaseLinux

First game

Start on the Earth map if you want to know where you are, or a generated world if you don't. The Civilopedia in the game is the same book as the one on this site. Read the wonder entries before you build.