Take MobyGames with NaCl: while it ought to work on a 286, I can tell immediately there is no way Civilization had a CGA-supporting variant because in 1991 MicroProse was actively phasing out of EGA [and Tandy] which Civ was among the last to support natively (special EGA editions of simulators F-117A Stealth Fighter 2.0 & Gunship 2000 were produced that year for those with legacy hardware).

Oh I know for a fact there is no CGA version of MicroProse strategies. The CGA entry is "Civilization & Colonization" tho both games don't support it. It's just these compilations on Moby get tagged with all PC graphics standards, I don't know why.

I was looking into games V20 with 640kB can play, that 8088 cannot, that still run on CGA. So 186/CGA games and since 286 games don't use protected mode, these are kind of 286/CGA games.

Per Moby Keen 5,6 and Jills of the Jungle are 286 games, but they do work on V20 640 kB. And have CGA versions which aren't hard to get.

According to my spreadsheet, the list of games I have listed that require a V20 or 286 that have CGA support are as follows:

V20:
Moraff's Revenge
Overkill

286:
Bargon Attack
Conflict: Korea - The First Year 1950-51
Conflict: Middle East
Electro Man
Eye of the Storm
Korean Dungeon Boy
Loopy
Robbo
Silent Service 2

All Keen games and Jill of the Jungle run on a 8088 without issues.

DEAT wrote on 2025-08-04, 22:55:

All Keen games and Jill of the Jungle run on a 8088 without issues.

I second that! Tried them on a Siemens Nixdorf 8810 and Commodore PC 10! 😀
Both games can even run with AdLib/Sound Blaster at 4,77 MHz! In both CGA (on-board) and VGA (tested PVGA1C).
Though depending on the type of version, Jill of Jungle maybe wants a genuine SB card, such as SB 2.0 CT1350B.
That's because some versions have a finicky Creative sound driver built into the executable.

zb10948 wrote on 2025-08-04, 15:54:

Oh I know for a fact there is no CGA version of MicroProse strategies.

For the sake of historical note: Railroad Tycoon does, but it was from 1990 which was the final year the MicroProse catalog supported CGA; Covert Action, Lightspeed & Silent Service II, among others, likewise had the option.

DEAT wrote on 2025-08-04, 22:55:

According to my spreadsheet, the list of games I have listed that require a V20 or 286 that have CGA support are as follows: […]
Show full quote

According to my spreadsheet, the list of games I have listed that require a V20 or 286 that have CGA support are as follows:

V20:
Moraff's Revenge
Overkill

286:
Bargon Attack
Conflict: Korea - The First Year 1950-51
Conflict: Middle East
Electro Man
Eye of the Storm
Korean Dungeon Boy
Loopy
Robbo
Silent Service 2

All Keen games and Jill of the Jungle run on a 8088 without issues.

Thanks for info. So Moby is wrong. I couldn't tell because I tried both after upgrading my XT to V20.

PSA: Moby, like Wikis, is often wrong because that is an inherent trait of community-maintained content.

But unlike Wiki Moby sells API access so one could assume the data is under scrutiny.

Point taken, but proof (in this case how much on Moby is verifiably wrong) is in the pudding. I use both it and wikis as a starting reference only; no substitute for actual research.

SkyRoads - must be a mistake, even its prototype "Kosmonaut" needs at least EGA

Electroman - CGA is only supported by the original Polish version named "Electro Body"

Gobliiins - the original version with CGA support is common

Battle Chess - the original version with CGA support is common, and doesn't require 286 - I used to play it on a V20

BaronSFel001 wrote on 2025-08-06, 17:10:

PSA: Moby, like Wikis, is often wrong because that is an inherent trait of community-maintained content.

zb10948 wrote on 2025-08-12, 00:50:

But unlike Wiki Moby sells API access so one could assume the data is under scrutiny.

To be slightly fair towards Moby, publishers themselves were lying about minimum requirements especially in the case of games requiring a 386 CPU. Some examples I can think of from the top of my head are Master of Magic and 1830: Railroads and Robber Barons (runs on at least a 286, most likely a V20 if you have a >=2.7MB EMS card), Hexx: Heresy of the Wizard, X-Wing and Master of Orion (runs on a V20), and Lords of Realm (runs on a 8088!) - there isn't an image of the spine on Moby, so I attached one from an eBay listing (and there's a second listing at this moment that confirms the specs).

A bizarre example is the budget release of Arnie 2 which states that EGA is supported, when it's a VGA-only game!

Grzyb wrote on 2025-08-12, 16:23:

Gobliiins - the original version with CGA support is common

Gobliiins runs fine on a 8088.

In the case of games like X-Wing, I can understand why they stated 386 minimum - trying to play that on a 286 is an exercise in frustration, and they probably just wanted to minimise the complaints from AT owners who would have gotten a horrible experience.

Whilst there are plenty of 286 owners here with hot rod systems that can easily give low-end 386 systems a run for their money (or even comprehensively beat them), that wasn't the case back when X-Wing came out - the majority of 286 systems would have been relatively standard 12 or 16MHz jobs with basic, slow VGA cards.... and really not up to the task.

There's technical specifications and marketing specifications intended to make the publishers helplines/forums/BBS a little easier!

Of course it makes tracking down definitive answers 30+ years later a little tricky when the specs on the box/manual/website doesn't actually reflect the reality!

Mobygames is not always reliable when it comes to technical details. As DEAT pointed out, some games' official requirements are wrong, and I don't think moby staff actually require proper testing. Sometimes they simply approve the wrong info by mistake. They also have rules like if a game has a DOS executable but only a windows installer, then it is listed as being only available for windows, meaning you cannot really rely on moby to tell if a game runs under DOS or not.

zb10948 wrote on 2025-08-12, 00:50:

But unlike Wiki Moby sells API access so one could assume the data is under scrutiny.

Back when Moby was founded as a database solely for PC games over 25 years ago, there was no sourcing required, so game entries in particular that are really old need to be taken with a grain of salt.
Otherwise, data is probably either just missing (e.g. Bargon Attack), or it was taken from the cover (e.g. Silent Service 2.).

megatron-uk wrote on 2025-08-14, 08:03:

In the case of games like X-Wing, I can understand why they stated 386 minimum - trying to play that on a 286 is an exercise in […]
Show full quote

In the case of games like X-Wing, I can understand why they stated 386 minimum - trying to play that on a 286 is an exercise in frustration, and they probably just wanted to minimise the complaints from AT owners who would have gotten a horrible experience.

Whilst there are plenty of 286 owners here with hot rod systems that can easily give low-end 386 systems a run for their money (or even comprehensively beat them), that wasn't the case back when X-Wing came out - the majority of 286 systems would have been relatively standard 12 or 16MHz jobs with basic, slow VGA cards.... and really not up to the task.

There's technical specifications and marketing specifications intended to make the publishers helplines/forums/BBS a little easier!

Of course it makes tracking down definitive answers 30+ years later a little tricky when the specs on the box/manual/website doesn't actually reflect the reality!

There are other rules/metrics: CPU clock speed, and cga vs. mcga, year of your computer vs. year of game(not including new ones in your assumption?! ); another any other huge factors on game working wrong? See D-fend reloaded as examples given... Booter games and memory management, monitor latency, input lag, sound card vs pc speaker.... How could you tell if it ran poorly if that was the only computer you ever ran it on?

zb10948 wrote on 2025-08-02, 11:01:

Hi guys,

I'm trying to verify existence of titles that Mobygames browser gives out as 286/CGA compatible such as Championship Manager, Skyroads, Civilization and so on. The list is not long -> https://www.mobygames.com/game/attribute:1/at … t:-date/page:1/

Does anyone have any rare original CGA version for such 'modern' games?

2 games that got remade: North and South , which later had a cd version North and South: The south will rise again (debated); Gold Rush, Now called gold rush classic, Sierra, on steam. I think Police quest 1: Pursuit of the... but will check, maybe manhunter

rico001 wrote on 2025-08-19, 18:44:

megatron-uk wrote on 2025-08-14, 08:03:

In the case of games like X-Wing, I can understand why they stated 386 minimum - trying to play that on a 286 is an exercise in […]
Show full quote

In the case of games like X-Wing, I can understand why they stated 386 minimum - trying to play that on a 286 is an exercise in frustration, and they probably just wanted to minimise the complaints from AT owners who would have gotten a horrible experience.

Whilst there are plenty of 286 owners here with hot rod systems that can easily give low-end 386 systems a run for their money (or even comprehensively beat them), that wasn't the case back when X-Wing came out - the majority of 286 systems would have been relatively standard 12 or 16MHz jobs with basic, slow VGA cards.... and really not up to the task.

There's technical specifications and marketing specifications intended to make the publishers helplines/forums/BBS a little easier!

Of course it makes tracking down definitive answers 30+ years later a little tricky when the specs on the box/manual/website doesn't actually reflect the reality!

There are other rules/metrics: CPU clock speed, and cga vs. mcga, year of your computer vs. year of game(not including new ones in your assumption?! ); another any other huge factors on game working wrong? See D-fend reloaded as examples given... Booter games and memory management, monitor latency, input lag, sound card vs pc speaker.... How could you tell if it ran poorly if that was the only computer you ever ran it on?

Oh my! MCGA is a whole story on its own! 😥
The lines between MCGA and VGA are somewhat blurred, even here on Vogons and other forums.
While someone could say that MCGA simply is mode 13h (320x200 pixel at 256c), not all mode 13h games will run on real MCGA hardware.
Some do re-program the palette or tweak the timings, making themself a VGA game rather than a pure MCGA game.
How is Mobygames.com supposed to get that detail right if even we throw MCGA/VGA in same pot so often? 😟

BaronSFel001 wrote on 2025-08-05, 14:43:

zb10948 wrote on 2025-08-04, 15:54:

Oh I know for a fact there is no CGA version of MicroProse strategies.

For the sake of historical note: Railroad Tycoon does, but it was from 1990 which was the final year the MicroProse catalog supported CGA; Covert Action, Lightspeed & Silent Service II, among others, likewise had the option.

Rich or poor, you are? knowing weather a game is first edition or not... same game other name: example: ra.exe and ra95.exe... tetris ... Europe vs Russia release... cd-rom vs 5.25 floppy simcity... ...oregon trail vs. .bas version... ......zzt, tmnt vs tmnt hero turtles pc... mobygames... full of it...opinio FAKE LIST!!