Freeciv

Freeciv CVS snapshot from September 27, 2005, with the new Amplio tileset.

Freeciv is a multiplayer, turn-based strategy computer game, inspired by Sid Meier's commercial Civilization series. It is free software under the GNU General Public License and developed collaboratively—code, graphics, sounds etc. have been contributed by many people from around the world. Its latest stable version is 2.0.8 with a beta version of 2.1 available. Freeciv is included with many popular Linux distributions.

Description

Players take the role of a tribe leader in 4000 BC and have to guide their people through the centuries. Over time, new technologies are discovered, which allow the construction of new city buildings and the deployment of new units. Players can wage war on one another or form complex diplomatic relationships.

The game ends when one civilization has eradicated all others, when one people has accomplished the goal of space colonization, or at a certain deadline. If more than one civilization remains at the deadline, the player with the highest score wins. Points are awarded for the size of a civilization, its wealth, and cultural and scientific advances.

Freeciv is quite configurable, so it can be played in Civilization I, Civilization II, Freeciv mode, or in a custom mode. Graphics and sounds can be replaced; there are isometric, two-dimensional and hex graphics packages (tilesets).

Freeciv uses TCP/IP networking. Players have to connect to a Server, which can be run locally but is usually remote. Freeciv can be played solo against AI opponents, or as a multiplayer game against other humans. Playing solo is done as a special case of multiplayer where only one human player connects to a locally run server; Freeciv 2.0 can automatically set up a server for solo games.

One or several players act as game administrator and can configure the game rules. Typically modified rules are:

Number of players required before the game can be started
Speed of technological development
Whether there should be computer controlled players
Whether (computer controlled) barbarians should invade player settlements
How close to one another cities can be built
How continents and islands are supposed to be distributed over the map

While the game is turn based, players move simultaneously. Computer players move separately.

In releases before the 2.0.0 release, AI players could not engage in diplomatic relationships with human players. Under the current release, AI players will engage in a very deterministic (not random) diplomacy.

Freeciv has a map and scenario editor called Civworld available as a separate download.

Freeciv runs on Unix variants with the X Window System and some other platforms, including Microsoft Windows, Amiga, and Apple Macintosh. Freeciv can be considered somewhat of a "low-end" game: it does not have very spectacular graphics or visual effects, but on the other hand, in the course of its existence has had excellent portability and very low requirements on systems resources. Originally developed on SGI IRIX, Freeciv has been reported to run on at least SunOS 4, Solaris, Ultrix, QNX, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS X, OS/2, Windows 95, Windows 98, Cygwin, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Amiga, and possibly more operating systems; its multiplayer mode was designed to be playable over standard modem lines.

External links

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has more about this subject:

Sid Meier's Civilization

Official series:
Civilization (MicroProse, 1991)
Civilization II (MicroProse, 1996)
Civilization III (Firaxis, 2001) + Play the World (2002) + Conquests (2003)
Civilization IV (Firaxis, 2005) + (in development)

Other games:
(Activision, 1999)
(MicroProse, 1999)

Related games:
Sid Meier's Colonization (MicroProse, 1994)
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (Firaxis, 1999) + Alien Crossfire (1999)
Call to Power II (Activision, 2000)
Freeciv (2006)
C-evo (2006)

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