Players take the role of tribal leaders in 4000 B.C. who must guide their peoples 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 diplomatic relationships.
The game ends when one civilization has eradicated all others or accomplished the goal of space colonization, or at a given 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.
History
At the computer science department at Aarhus University, three students, avid players of XPilot and of Sid Meier's Civilization, which was a stand-alone PC game for MS-DOS, decided to find out whether the two could be fused into an X-based multiplayer Civilization-like strategy game.[4] The students—Peter Unold, Claus Leth Gregersen and Allan Ove Kjeldbjerg—started development in November 1995;[5] the first playable version was released in January 1996, with bugfixing and small enhancements until April.[6][7] The rules of the game were close to Civilization, while the client/server architecture was basically that of XPilot.[citation needed]
A Freeciv game with full world map revealed (Freeciv version 1.11.5, GTK+ client, tinydent tileset, islands map generator)
For the developers, Freeciv 1.0 was a successful proof of concept, but a rather boring game, so they went back to XPilot.[8][5] Other players and developers took over; they made the game available on many other operating systems, including Linux, Solaris, Ultrix, AmigaOS, and Microsoft Windows. Linux distributions started to include Freeciv.[9]
The main development goal remained to make a Civilization-like game playable over the Internet, with participants on different continents, even when connected with 14400 bit/smodems. Freeciv achieved this by using an asynchronousclient-server protocol: during each turn, human users play concurrently, and their actions are sent to the server for processing without awaiting the results. This kept the game playable with network latency up to a few hundreds of milliseconds.[citation needed]
In 1998, computer players were added;[10] they could soon beat newcomers to the game with ease, using only minor forms of cheating. Computer players are implemented directly in the server; they do not play concurrently with human players, but separately, in between turns.
The game grew in popularity. A public server was installed on which games could be played around the clock; it retained the games and published a post-game analysis webpage with per-player statistics and an animated map replay.[11][12][13]
Subsequent 1.x releases improved the GUI, improved the gameplay, optimized playability over poor connections, and added many small features. Over time, the winning strategy proved to be city smallpox, i.e. sprawling the map with many small cities as fast as possible; whoever could develop fastest would win the game, and growing and developing individual cities was not worthwhile.[14]
In practice, from around 2002, experienced players would form teams at the start of the game; a fork of Freeciv included specific features for team play.[citation needed]
Version 2.0, released in 2005, introduced several important changes. New team playing features and advanced diplomacy made cooperative gaming more attractive. Adjustments to various costs and benefits put an end to the dominance of the city smallpox strategy that left many of the game's features unused; developing one's empire now necessitated a careful plan for city development, including the used of trade routes and phases of rapture, in which city populations grow quickly, under relatively peaceful conditions. As a result, multiplayer games were almost always played in teams and typically took longer to finish when compared to 1.x games.[15]
In 2000, CNN placed Freeciv among the "Top 10 Linux games for the holidays".[18] In 2005, in an O'Reilly article on "Open Source Mac Gaming", Freeciv was recommended.[19] In 2008, APC named Freeciv among the "Top 5 best (free) open source games".[20]Linux Format selected it as "HotPick" in April 2010 and in October 2014.[21][22]
Freeciv is very configurable, down to the specific rules, so it can be played in Freeciv (default) mode, Civilization mode, Civilization II mode, or a custom mode. One or several players act as game administrators and can configure the game rules. Typically modified rules are:
Number of players required before the game can be started. The maximum number of players is 126 in the latest version of Freeciv.
Speed of technological development
Whether there should be computer controlled players
Whether (computer controlled) barbarians should invade player settlements
How close cities can be built to one another
How continents and islands are generated and distributed over the map
The map size, where the maximum map size is 2,048,000 map tiles (128,000 before 2.4.0)
Map topology (rectangular or hexagonal tiling; whether it wraps horizontally and/or vertically)
In order to play a game of Freeciv, a user must start up a Freeciv client and connect it to a Freeciv server. Initially, the server is in pre-game phase; in this phase, clients can connect and game configuration parameters can be changed. At some point, the server may be ordered to start a game; in response, it creates game players (nations) and the game map, and assigns every player to either a Freeciv client or a computer player, as specified by the configuration. From that point on, the game will run until it ends or is terminated; the server can never get back into pre-game state. The user can also start a game directly from the client: this automatically starts a Freeciv server, connects to it and starts the game.
Freeciv's graphics system is configurable: originally, map display was always in overhead mode (like in Civ I).[29]Isometric mode (like in Civ II and III) and optionally hexagonal tiling (like in Civ V and VI) were added later. In both modes, look can be further customized by switching to an alternative set of graphics (called a tileset). The sounds can be replaced as well. Freeciv supports human-to-human multiplayer gameplay and artificial intelligence (AI) computer players. While the game is turn based, human players move simultaneously. The AI players move separately, partly at the start of a turn, partly at the end.
In releases before 2.0, AI players could not engage in diplomatic relationships with human players. Under the current releases, AI players will engage in a very predictable, rules-based diplomacy. Version 2.2.0 included a map editor, termed Civworld. It can create new scenarios, as well as edit the map currently being played. Basic scripting is available with Freeciv, but is not available in Civworld.[30] Version 2.3 increased the limit of players from 30 to 126.
Dawning fanfare
There are different clients available SDL, GTK+ (version3) and Xaw3D[31] A Qt client was added in version 2.5. The Freeciv interface is available in over 30 different languages.[32] The addition of Gaelic was covered on BBC TV.[33]
As of version 2.4, Mac OS X, and as of version 2.3, Windows versions older than Windows XP SP3 are no longer supported. Freeciv is available in the PortableApps format.[35]
Freeciv21
Freeciv21 is a fork of the original Freeciv project started with the intention of modernizing the code and the client interface, and also adjusting the software more to the needs of multiplayer longturn variant.[36][37] It was started by enthusiasts within the Longturn.net community. As of January 2023 it is in late developing stage. The first standard Longturn game played on Fc21 software was LT75, started in November 2022.
FCIV.NET
Screenshot of FCIV.NET of a trireme unitScreenshot of FCIV.NET 3D version at www.fciv.net
FCIV.NET is a variant of Freeciv which focuses on 3D graphics and is playable for free on www.fciv.net. It uses the Three.js 3D engine.[38]
Freeciv-web
Screenshot of Freeciv WebGL 3D running on play.freeciv.org
Freeciv-web is a version of Freeciv playable online in any modern web browser. It supports 2D isometric graphics or 3D graphics using WebGL. The game is a fork of the Freeciv project, with the goal of redesigning the desktop game into a version which can be played online. Freeciv-web introduced several new features, such as play-by-email support[39] freely available to anyone online, and support for playing the game on any real-world map location by choosing a map using Mapbox, which is not available in commercial games in the genre.[40] The game's default settings are closest to Civilization II, both in gameplay and graphics (including the units and the isometric grid). The proposal to create a web-version of Freeciv was made 6 April 2007 on the Freeciv mailing lists, and documented on the Freeciv.org wiki.[41] Freeciv-web was originally created by Andreas Røsdal, but is now maintained by several Freeciv developers on GitHub.[42]
The Freeciv-web server on play.freeciv.org was shut down in March 2018, but the project was revived by a group of volunteers on freecivweb.org.[43] Freeciv-web can be played online at a number of servers such as freecivweb.org.[3] All the features required to play a full game of Freeciv are in place. Most servers offer multiple varieties of the game: single-player, multiplayer free-for-all, play-by-email and longturn.
Longturn variants
Greatturn Earth World rendering – match GT05
Freeciv Longturn is a specialized large-group-multiplayer-online-strategy variant of Freeciv featuring daylong game turns with large amounts of human opponents per map, allowing for optimal timing to build up strategic plans and readapt them to the circumstances of each turn. Matches can last anytime from a few weeks to months, and commonly involve 20 to 30 players in each one.[44]
Longturn's first game, now called LT0, started around 2004 on the Polish Civilization fanpage civ.org.pl and is now conducted at Longturn.net. It was decided that the game is a bit too slow-paced, so a new "3X movement" ruleset was devised – basically, all units had their movement points and vision radius tripled.[45] As of December 2022, the latest game was LT76.[46] Changes to settings or rulesets are discussed in the Longturn forum.[47] and, recently, Longturn Discord server where the community is currently centered. There is ongoing development of a few non-standard rulesets specifically adjusted for longturn multiplayer games, diverging from the rules of the original Civilization which was created as a single-player game.
Greatturn was a similar concept on another server.[48][49]FreeCivWeb.org[3] also offers longturn games (more than fifty have been played before mid-2021) with a multiplayer ruleset which is documented in great detail.[50]
Power of Planets – Earth (formerly known as GaCivs) is a free-to-play MMO-RTS variant based on FreeCiv. The ruleset was devised to support long-term time-based gameplay instead of turn-based strategy.[51]
Quake II is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the Quake series, following Quake. The game's storyline is continued in its expansions, including one tying in Quake II and the first game, and Quake 4.
Quake is a first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by GT Interactive. The first game in the Quake series, it was originally released for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows and Linux in 1996, followed by Mac OS and Sega Saturn in 1997 and Nintendo 64 in 1998. In the game, players must find their way through various maze-like, medieval environments while battling monsters using an array of weaponry. Quake takes inspiration from gothic fiction and the works of H. P. Lovecraft.
In computing, cross-platform software is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software requires a separate build for each platform, but some can be directly run on any platform without special preparation, being written in an interpreted language or compiled to portable bytecode for which the interpreters or run-time packages are common or standard components of all supported platforms.
Sid Meier's Civilization II is a turn-based strategy video game in the Civilization series, developed and published by MicroProse. It was released in 1996 for PCs, and later ported to the PlayStation by Activision.
Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) is a discontinued free and open-source operating system for high-performance computing on multi-core processor computer architectures, focusing on GPU systems and computers using the POWER7 processor. The original developer was Terra Soft Solutions, which was acquired by Fixstars in October 2008. Yellow Dog Linux was first released in the spring of 1999 for Apple Macintosh PowerPC-based computers. The most recent version, Yellow Dog Linux 7, was released on August 6, 2012. Yellow Dog Linux lent its name to the popular YUM Linux software updater, derived from YDL's YUP and thus called Yellowdog Updater, Modified.
Tenés Empanadas Graciela is a turn-based strategy game distributed by several popular Linux distributions. The idea for this free and open-source software program came from the board game TEG, which itself is based on the popular Risk game but differs in many aspects of the rules.
Crossfire is a free and open source software cross-platform multiplayer online role-playing video game. Crossfire features a tile based graphic system with a pseudo-isometric perspective. All content is licensed under the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later. The client and server will run in Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, IRIX, and an array of other platforms.
The Battle for Wesnoth is a free and open-source turn-based strategy video game with a high fantasy setting, designed by Australian-American developer David White and first released in June 2003. In Wesnoth, the player controls a particular faction/race and attempts to build a powerful army by controlling villages and defeating enemies for experience. The game is loosely based on the Sega Genesis games Master of Monsters and Warsong.
Music Player Daemon (MPD) is a free and open source music player server. It plays audio files, organizes playlists and maintains a music database. In order to interact with it, a client program is needed. The MPD distribution includes mpc, a simple command line client.
Cube 2: Sauerbraten is a first-person shooter released for Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Mac OS X using OpenGL and SDL.
Alien Arena is an open-source, stand-alone first-person shooter video game. Begun by COR Entertainment in 2004, the game combines a 1950s-era sci-fi atmosphere with gameplay similar to the Quake, Doom, and Unreal Tournament series. Alien Arena focuses mainly on online multiplayer action, although it does contain single-player matches against bots.
The Spring Engine is a game engine for real-time strategy (RTS) video games. The game engine is free and open-source software, subject to the terms of the GNU General Public License v2.0 or later.
Xconq is an open-source computer strategy game. This multiplayer video game was first posted to comp.sources.games on 9 July 1987. Xconq is released as free and open-source software under the terms of the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later.
Linux-based operating systems can be used for playing video games. Because many games are not natively supported for the Linux kernel, various software has been made to run Windows games, such as Wine, Cedega, and Proton, and managers such as Lutris and PlayOnLinux. The Linux gaming community has a presence on the internet with users who attempt to run games that are not officially supported on Linux.
Sid Meier's Civilization V is a 4X video game in the Civilization series developed by Firaxis Games. The game was released on Microsoft Windows on September 21, 2010, on OS X on November 23, 2010, and on Linux on June 10, 2014.
Teeworlds is a free, open-source sidescrolling multiplayer shooting game originally created by Swedish developer Magnus Auvinen and now maintained by the community. It features simple cartoon-themed graphics and physics and relies heavily on classic shooter weaponry and gameplay. Currently there are official versions for Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS and it has been available via digital distributor Steam since 2015. The source code is publicly available.
PlaneShift is a cross-platform 3D Online Multiplayer Role Playing Game in a fantasy setting. The framework is open source with the server and client released under the GNU General Public License v2, while the artistic content is covered under a proprietary license. All content, however, is available free of cost. The game requires client software to be installed on the player's computer. The project is no-budget and produced by a group of developers guided by the Atomic Blue organization. The development team comprises volunteers from mostly European countries and North America.
TripleA is a free and open-source turn based strategy game based on the Axis & Allies board game.
BrowserQuest is a free massively multiplayer online role-playing game created by French developer Little Workshop and the Mozilla Foundation.
Sid Meier's Civilization VI is a turn-based strategy 4X video game developed by Firaxis Games and published by 2K. The mobile and Nintendo Switch port was published by Aspyr Media. The latest entry into the Civilization series, it was released on Windows and macOS in October 2016, with later ports for Linux in February 2017, iOS in December 2017, Nintendo Switch in November 2018, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November 2019, and Android in 2020.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
