Freeciv

Last updated

Freeciv
Original author(s) Peter Unold, Claus Leth Gregersen, Allan Ove Kjeldbjerg
Developer(s) The Freeciv project
Initial release5 January 1996;28 years ago (1996-01-05)
Stable release
3.1.2 / 5 July 2024;2 months ago (2024-07-05) [1]
Repository https://github.com/freeciv/
Written in C, Lua, JavaScript
Engine
  • Simple DirectMedia Layer
  • GTK
  • Qt
OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Operating system Unix-like, Windows, more
Available in33 languages (some incomplete)
Type Turn-based 4X strategy video game
License Freeciv: GPL-2.0-or-later [2]
Freeciv-web: AGPL-3.0-or-later
Website https://www.freeciv.org

Freeciv is a single- and multiplayer turn-based strategy game for workstations and personal computers inspired by the proprietary Sid Meier's Civilization series. It is available for most desktop computer operating systems and available in an online browser version. [3] Released under the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later, [2] Freeciv is free and open-source software. The game's default settings are closest to Civilization II , in both gameplay and graphics, including the units and the isometric grid. However, with a lot of multiplayer games being played in longturn communities, rulesets and additional variants have evolved away from the original ruleset. Freeciv is playable online at Longturn.net, fciv.net, freecivweb.org and some temporary private servers.

Contents

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. [8]

A Freeciv game with full world map revealed (Freeciv version 1.11.5, GTK+ client, tinydent tileset, islands map generator) Bigshot.png
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. [9] [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. [10]

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/s modems. Freeciv achieved this by using an asynchronous client-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; [11] 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. [12] [13] [14]

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. [15]

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. [16]

In 2006, TCP and UDP port number 5556 was assigned to Freeciv by IANA. [17] In 2017, after being hosted on Gna! for 15 years, Freeciv moved its source repository to GitHub. [18]

Reception and impact

In 2000, CNN placed Freeciv among the "Top 10 Linux games for the holidays". [19] In 2005, in an O'Reilly article on "Open Source Mac Gaming", Freeciv was recommended. [20] In 2008, APC named Freeciv among the "Top 5 best (free) open source games". [21] Linux Format selected it as "HotPick" in April 2010 and in October 2014. [22] [23]

Freeciv was described as an example in The Art of Unix Programming by Eric S. Raymond. [24] Studies and courses have used Freeciv as a platform for experimenting with the design and programming of intelligent agents. [25] [26] [27] [28] [29]

Design

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:

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.

Features

Simplified Chinese in version 2.1 Freeciv2 1-beta1-zh.png
Simplified Chinese in version 2.1

Freeciv's graphics system is configurable: originally, map display was always in overhead mode (like in Civ I ). [30] 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. [31] Version 2.3 increased the limit of players from 30 to 126.

Dawning fanfare

There are different clients available SDL, GTK+ (version3) and Xaw3D [32] A Qt client was added in version 2.5. The Freeciv interface is available in over 30 different languages. [33] The addition of Gaelic was covered on BBC TV. [34]

Ports and variants

Originally developed on IRIX, Freeciv has been ported to many different operating systems: it is distributed with many Linux distributions, offers installers for Microsoft Windows, and has been known to run on Mac OS X, MorphOS, Solaris, Ultrix, QNX, OS/2, Cygwin, AmigaOS, AROS, RISC OS, Maemo, ZETA, SkyOS, various BSDs, and smartphones and tablets running Android. [35]

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. [36]

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. [37] [38] 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 unit Fciv-trireme.png
Screenshot of FCIV.NET of a trireme unit
Screenshot of FCIV.NET 3D version at www.fciv.net Fciv-caravel-2023-04-09.png
Screenshot 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 (site no longer working). It uses the Three.js 3D engine. [39]

Freeciv-web

Screenshot of Freeciv WebGL 3D running on play.freeciv.org Freeciv-webgl-3d-screenshot.jpg
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 [40] 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. [41] 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. [42] Freeciv-web was originally created by Andreas Røsdal, but is now maintained by several Freeciv developers on GitHub. [43]

Freeciv-web is free and open-source software. The Freeciv C server is released under the GNU General Public License, while the Freeciv-web client is released under the GNU Affero General Public License. Freeciv-web supports human-to-human multiplayer gameplay and artificial intelligence (AI) computer players. Its features are similar to the Freeciv C client, although not all of the user-interface has been ported from the C client yet.

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. [44] 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. [45]

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. [46] As of December 2022, the latest game was LT76. [47] Changes to settings or rulesets are discussed in the Longturn forum. [48] 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. [49] [50] 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. [51]

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. [52]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Quake III Arena</i> 1999 video game

Quake III Arena is a 1999 multiplayer-focused first-person shooter developed by id Software. The third installment of the Quake series, Arena differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing primarily on multiplayer gameplay. The single-player mode is played against computer-controlled bots. It features music composed by Sonic Mayhem and Front Line Assembly founder Bill Leeb.

<i>Quake II</i> 1997 video game

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.

<i>Quake</i> (video game) 1996 video game

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 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.

<i>Civilization II</i> 1996 turn-based strategy video game

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yellow Dog Linux</span> Linux distribution

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 last 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tenés Empanadas Graciela</span> Open-source turn-based strategy game

Tenés Empanadas Graciela (TEG) 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 strategy board game Risk but differs in many aspects of the rules.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Damn Small Linux</span> Lightweight, desktop-oriented Linux distribution

Damn Small Linux (DSL) is a computer operating system for the x86 family of personal computers. It is free and open-source software under the terms of the GNU GPL and other free and open-source licenses. It was designed to run graphical user interface applications on older PC hardware, for example, machines with 486 and early Pentium microprocessors and very little random-access memory (RAM). DSL is a live CD with a size of 50 megabytes (MB). What originally began as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full Linux distribution. It can be installed on storage media with small capacities, like bootable business cards, USB flash drives, various memory cards, and Zip drives.

<i>BZFlag</i> Video game

BZFlag is an online multiplayer free and open-source tank game. In the game of BZFlag, players drive around tanks, viewed from a first-person view, in a server-defined world, which can be modified.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TORCS</span>

TORCS is an open-source 3D car racing simulator available on Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, AmigaOS 4, AROS, MorphOS and Microsoft Windows. TORCS was created by Eric Espié and Christophe Guionneau, but project development is now headed by Bernhard Wymann. It is written in C++ and is licensed under the GNU GPL. TORCS is designed to enable pre-programmed AI drivers to race against one another, while allowing the user to control a vehicle using either a keyboard, mouse, or wheel input.

Cube 2: Sauerbraten is a first-person shooter released for Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Mac OS X using OpenGL and SDL.

<i>Alien Arena</i> 2004 video game

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xconq</span> 1987 open-source strategy video game

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, software, and programs, such as Wine, Cedega, DXVK, 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.

<i>Civilization V</i> 2010 video game

Sid Meier's Civilization V is a 4X turn-based strategy video game in the Civilization series developed by Firaxis Games. The game was released for Windows in September 2010, for Mac OS X on November 23, 2010, and for Linux on June 10, 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Widelands</span> Open-source real-time strategy video game

Widelands is a free and open-source, slow-paced real-time strategy video game under the GNU General Public License. Widelands takes many ideas from and is quite similar to The Settlers and The Settlers II. It remains a work-in-progress game, with development still required in graphics and bug-fixing. The game runs on several operating systems such as AmigaOS 4, Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, and Windows.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TripleA</span>

TripleA is a free and open-source turn based strategy game based on the Axis & Allies board game.

<i>Civilization VI</i> 2016 video game

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.

References

  1. ↑ "Freeciv homepage". Project news. Retrieved 21 September 2024.
  2. 1 2 "copying". github.com/freeciv. Retrieved 4 May 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 "Freecivweb.org". The Freeciv-web Project. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
  4. ↑ "Freeciv:In the Beginning". Freeciv.wikia.com. 19 January 2007. Retrieved 14 April 2009.
  5. 1 2 "Freeciv founded 20 years ago today!". Archived from the original on 10 February 2017. Retrieved 19 April 2016.
  6. ↑ "Freeciv 1.0a source code (1996); see DESIGN". Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 14 June 2009.
  7. ↑ "Freeciv 1.0k source code (1996); see CHANGES". Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 14 June 2009.
  8. ↑ "restsquared.blogg.se - Freeciv roads". restsquared.blogg.se (in Swedish). Retrieved 7 September 2024.
  9. ↑ Wen, Howard (21 November 2001). "Building Freeciv: An Open Source Strategy Game". Linuxdevcenter.com. Retrieved 14 April 2009.
  10. ↑ "freeciv_2.2.1-1_changelog" . Retrieved 18 May 2017.[ permanent dead link ]
  11. ↑ "README.AI (r4421)". Archived from the original on 3 September 2015. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  12. ↑ "Pubserver" . Retrieved 28 November 2011.
  13. ↑ "old snapshots of civserver.freeciv.org (archive.org Wayback Machine)". Archived from the original on 10 October 2006. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  14. ↑ "old snapshots of pubserver.freeciv.org archive (archive.org Wayback Machine)". Archived from the original on 5 February 2007. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  15. ↑ Houk, Philip A. (2004). A Strategic Game Playing Agent for FreeCiv (PDF) (Technical report). Northwestern University. p. 21. NWU-CS-04-29. Archived (PDF) from the original on 1 March 2022.
  16. ↑ "Freeciv – Freeciv". 1 March 2005. Archived from the original on 1 March 2005. Retrieved 2 February 2024.
  17. ↑ "Service Name and Transport Protocol Port Number Registry". IANA. January 2006. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  18. ↑ Freeciv project at Gna! (archived 3 March 2017)
  19. ↑ Lee Anderson (20 December 2000), "Top 10 Linux games for the holidays". CNN . Archived 6 December 2004 at the Wayback Machine
  20. ↑ Robert Daeley (2005), "Open Source Mac Gaming". O'Reilly Media, Inc. Archived 16 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine
  21. ↑ Sbarski, Peter (21 January 2008). "Top 5 best (free) open source games". APC. Archived from the original on 28 May 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2010.
  22. ↑ Linux Format 130, April 2010, p. 72
  23. ↑ Linux Format 189, October 2014, p. 65
  24. ↑ Eric S. Raymond (2003). Case Study: Freeciv Data Files. faqs.org. chapters 6+7. ISBN   0-13-142901-9. Archived from the original on 22 January 2014. Retrieved 26 January 2014.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  25. ↑ Ashok K. Goel; Joshua Jones (2011). "Metareasoning for Self-Adaptation in Intelligent Agents" (PDF). Metareasoning – Thinking about thinking. Yale Social Robotics Laboratory. Chapter 10. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 February 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  26. ↑ Patrick Ulam; Joshua Jones; Ashok K. Goel (2008). "Combining Model-Based Meta-Reasoning and Reinforcement Learning for Adapting Game Playing Agents" (PDF). Georgia Tech. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  27. ↑ Ian Watson; Damir Azhar; Yachu Yang; Wei Pan; Gary Chen (2005). "Optimization in Strategy Games: Using Genetic Algorithms to Optimize City Development in FreeCiv" (PDF). The University of Auckland. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 March 2013.
  28. ↑ Brian Schwab (2009). AI Game Engine Programming. Course Technology. pp. 234–240. ISBN   9781584506287.
  29. ↑ T. Lau (1999). "CSE 590AG: Applications of Artificial Intelligence". University of Washington. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  30. ↑ "a review on Free Games Net (1998)". Free-games-net.com. Archived from the original on 3 January 2009. Retrieved 14 April 2009.
  31. ↑ "Freeciv Editor Page". Wikia. Retrieved 23 February 2010.
  32. ↑ "Debian – Package Search Results – freeciv-client-".
  33. ↑ "Freeciv – Translations". Wikia. Retrieved 19 April 2016.
  34. ↑ BBC Naidheachdan (11 September 2011). Freeciv now available in Galic . Retrieved 19 April 2016.
  35. ↑ "Freeciv". Google play.
  36. ↑ "Freeciv Portable". PortableApps.com. 2014. Retrieved 13 February 2015.
  37. ↑ "Freeciv21". GitHub .
  38. ↑ "Welcome to the Freeciv21 manual — Freeciv21 Manual".
  39. ↑ "FCiv.net December 2022 showcase". 19 December 2022.
  40. ↑ "Freeciv-web play-by-email". The Freeciv-web Project. Retrieved 19 April 2016.
  41. ↑ "Freeciv-web real-earth map". The Freeciv-web Project. Archived from the original on 18 April 2018. Retrieved 19 April 2016.
  42. ↑ "Freeciv web client documentation on freeciv.wikia.org". The Freeciv Project. Retrieved 14 February 2010.
  43. ↑ "Freeciv-web on github". The Freeciv-web Project. Retrieved 19 April 2016.
  44. ↑ "Freeciv project news". Freeciv.org. Archived from the original on 5 March 2018. Retrieved 8 March 2018.
  45. ↑ "Longturn website".
  46. ↑ "Longturn introduction page".
  47. ↑ "Longturn games list".
  48. ↑ ""No more polls" – Longturn forum". Archived from the original on 21 October 2021. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
  49. ↑ "Greatturn presentation page". Archived from the original on 17 May 2014.
  50. ↑ ""Under New Management" – Civland Freeciv Forum". 10 September 2014. Archived from the original on 13 March 2016. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
  51. ↑ "FreecivWeb.org Multiplayer II: Caravel, Game Manual". Archived from the original on 29 July 2021.
  52. ↑ "Power of Planets – Earth". itch.io. Retrieved 20 February 2022.
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.