Freeciv
Encyclopedia
Freeciv is a multiplayer (or single player), turn-based strategy
game for workstation
s and personal computer
s inspired by the commercial proprietary
Sid Meier's Civilization
series. The game's default settings are closest to Civilization II
, in both gameplay and graphics (including the units and the isometric
grid).
Freeciv is available for most desktop computer operating system
s. Released under the GNU General Public License
, Freeciv is free and open source software
.
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.
department at Aarhus University, three CS students, avid players of XPilot
and of Sid Meier's Civilization, which was a stand-alone PC game for DOS
, decided to find out whether the two could be fused into an X
-based multiplayer Civilization-like strategy game. The students—Peter Unold, Claus Leth Gregersen and Allan Ove Kjeldbjerg—started development in November 1995; the first playable version was released in January, 1996, with bugfixing and small enhancements until April. The rules of the game were close to Civilization, while the client/server architecture was basically that of XPilot.
For the developers, Freeciv 1.0 was a successful proof of concept
, but a rather boring game, so they went back to XPilot.
But Freeciv was already playable and addictive enough to pick up other students as players, bugfixers and feature extenders.
It was useful enough to be picked up by popular Linux distributions, e.g. Debian.
Designed to be portable, it was ported to many platforms, which helped its survival. Freeciv playing and development continues to the present day, although the spells with little development activity have grown longer and more frequent over time. The development history is strictly incremental: while there have been many serious improvements, the basic design and architecture have not changed since the early versions.
From 1998, the game grew in popularity: a public server was installed that hosted games permanently, archiving them and showing an animated gif replay of each game on its website.
Over the following years before the release of version 2.x in 2005, the game remained largely unchanged. As many regular players reached excellent gaming skills, diplomacy became essential, so team games slowly started to replace free-for-all games from around 2002.
The release of version 2.x in 2005 changed the game significantly, new tweaked rules favoured large cities with full trade routes as well as wars with more advanced technologies, necessitating a distinct phase of rapturing which required relatively peaceful conditions; so games were almost always played in teams and typically took longer to finish compared to 1.x games.
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.
), which many players found rather crude; isometric
mode (like in Civ II
) and optionally hexagonal tiling (like in Civ V
) 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 release, AI players will engage in a very predictable, rules-based diplomacy.
Freeciv version 2.2.0 includes 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.
Version 2.3 increases the limit of players from 30 to 126.
, Freeciv has been ported to many different operating systems: it is distributed with many Linux
distribution
s, offers installers for Microsoft Windows
, and has been known to run on Mac OS X
, Solaris, Ultrix
, QNX
, OS/2
, Cygwin
, AmigaOS
, RISC OS
, Maemo
, ZETA, SkyOS
and various BSD
s. Freeciv.net
is a version of Freeciv playable online in any modern web browser
; it was available from the Chrome Web Store
until its author abandoned it in August, 2011.
Turn-based strategy
A turn-based strategy game is a strategy game where players take turns when playing...
game for workstation
Workstation
A workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems...
s and personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s inspired by the commercial proprietary
Proprietary software
Proprietary software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder. The licensee is given the right to use the software under certain conditions, while restricted from other uses, such as modification, further distribution, or reverse engineering.Complementary...
Sid Meier's Civilization
Civilization (series)
Civilization is a series of turn-based strategy, 4X video games produced by Sid Meier. Basic gameplay functions are similar throughout the series, namely, buiding a civilization on a macro-scale from prehistory up to the near future...
series. The game's default settings are closest to Civilization II
Civilization II
Sid Meier's Civilization II is a turn-based strategy computer game designed by Brian Reynolds, Douglas Caspian-Kaufman and Jeff Briggs. Although it is a sequel to Sid Meier's Civilization, neither Sid Meier nor Bruce Shelley was involved in its development.Civilization II was first released in...
, in both gameplay and graphics (including the units and the isometric
Video games with isometric graphics
In video games, "isometric" refers to some form of parallel projection where the viewpoint is rotated slightly to reveal other facets of the game environment than are visible from a top-down perspective or side view, thereby producing a three-dimensional effect...
grid).
Freeciv is available for most desktop computer operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s. Released under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
, Freeciv is free and open source software
Free and open source software
Free and open-source software or free/libre/open-source software is software that is liberally licensed to grant users the right to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code...
.
Description
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
Space colonization
Space colonization is the concept of permanent human habitation outside of Earth. Although hypothetical at the present time, there are many proposals and speculations about the first space colony...
, 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 DAIMI, the CSComputer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
department at Aarhus University, three CS students, avid players of XPilot
XPilot
XPilot is a multiplayer computer game. It is open source and runs on many platforms. Although its 2D graphics have improved over time, they still resemble the style of Thrust. Gameplay includes Capture the Flag, base defense, racing and deathmatches...
and of Sid Meier's Civilization, which was a stand-alone PC game for DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
, decided to find out whether the two could be fused into an X
X Window System
The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
-based multiplayer Civilization-like strategy game. The students—Peter Unold, Claus Leth Gregersen and Allan Ove Kjeldbjerg—started development in November 1995; the first playable version was released in January, 1996, with bugfixing and small enhancements until April. The rules of the game were close to Civilization, while the client/server architecture was basically that of XPilot.
For the developers, Freeciv 1.0 was a successful proof of concept
Proof of concept
A proof of concept or a proof of principle is a realization of a certain method or idea to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle, whose purpose is to verify that some concept or theory that has the potential of being used...
, but a rather boring game, so they went back to XPilot.
But Freeciv was already playable and addictive enough to pick up other students as players, bugfixers and feature extenders.
It was useful enough to be picked up by popular Linux distributions, e.g. Debian.
Designed to be portable, it was ported to many platforms, which helped its survival. Freeciv playing and development continues to the present day, although the spells with little development activity have grown longer and more frequent over time. The development history is strictly incremental: while there have been many serious improvements, the basic design and architecture have not changed since the early versions.
From 1998, the game grew in popularity: a public server was installed that hosted games permanently, archiving them and showing an animated gif replay of each game on its website.
Over the following years before the release of version 2.x in 2005, the game remained largely unchanged. As many regular players reached excellent gaming skills, diplomacy became essential, so team games slowly started to replace free-for-all games from around 2002.
The release of version 2.x in 2005 changed the game significantly, new tweaked rules favoured large cities with full trade routes as well as wars with more advanced technologies, necessitating a distinct phase of rapturing which required relatively peaceful conditions; so games were almost always played in teams and typically took longer to finish compared to 1.x games.
Design
Freeciv is very configurable, down to the specific rules, so it can be played in Freeciv (default) mode, CivilizationCivilization (computer game)
Sid Meier's Civilization is a turn-based strategy "4X"-type strategy video game created by Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley for MicroProse in 1991. The game's objective is to "Build an empire to stand the test of time": it begins in 4000 BC and the players attempt to expand and develop their empires...
mode, Civilization II
Civilization II
Sid Meier's Civilization II is a turn-based strategy computer game designed by Brian Reynolds, Douglas Caspian-Kaufman and Jeff Briggs. Although it is a sequel to Sid Meier's Civilization, neither Sid Meier nor Bruce Shelley was involved in its development.Civilization II was first released in...
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 128 in the latest version of Freeciv.
- Speed of technological development
- Whether there should be computer controlled players
- Whether (computer controlled) barbarianBarbarianBarbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
s 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 128,000 map tiles.
- 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
Client (computing)
A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....
and connect it to a Freeciv server
Server (computing)
In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
. 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
Freecivs graphics system is configurable: originally, map display was always in overhead mode (like in Civ ICivilization (computer game)
Sid Meier's Civilization is a turn-based strategy "4X"-type strategy video game created by Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley for MicroProse in 1991. The game's objective is to "Build an empire to stand the test of time": it begins in 4000 BC and the players attempt to expand and develop their empires...
), which many players found rather crude; isometric
Isometric projection
Isometric projection is a method for visually representing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions in technical and engineering drawings...
mode (like in Civ II
Civilization II
Sid Meier's Civilization II is a turn-based strategy computer game designed by Brian Reynolds, Douglas Caspian-Kaufman and Jeff Briggs. Although it is a sequel to Sid Meier's Civilization, neither Sid Meier nor Bruce Shelley was involved in its development.Civilization II was first released in...
) and optionally hexagonal tiling (like in Civ V
Civilization V
Sid Meier's Civilization V is a turn-based strategy, 4X computer game developed by Firaxis, released on Microsoft Windows in September 2010 and on Mac OS X on November 23, 2010...
) 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
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
(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 release, AI players will engage in a very predictable, rules-based diplomacy.
Freeciv version 2.2.0 includes 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.
Version 2.3 increases the limit of players from 30 to 126.
Compatibility
Originally developed on IRIXIRIX
IRIX is a computer operating system developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. to run natively on their 32- and 64-bit MIPS architecture workstations and servers. It was based on UNIX System V with BSD extensions. IRIX was the first operating system to include the XFS file system.The last major version...
, Freeciv has been ported to many different operating systems: it is distributed with many Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
distribution
Linux distribution
A Linux distribution is a member of the family of Unix-like operating systems built on top of the Linux kernel. Such distributions are operating systems including a large collection of software applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, media players, and database applications...
s, offers installers for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, and has been known to run on Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
, Solaris, Ultrix
Ultrix
Ultrix was the brand name of Digital Equipment Corporation's native Unix systems. While ultrix is the Latin word for avenger, the name was chosen solely for its sound.-History:...
, QNX
QNX
QNX is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market. The product was originally developed by Canadian company, QNX Software Systems, which was later acquired by Canadian BlackBerry-producer Research In Motion.-Description:As a microkernel-based...
, OS/2
OS/2
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
, Cygwin
Cygwin
Cygwin is a Unix-like environment and command-line interface for Microsoft Windows. Cygwin provides native integration of Windows-based applications, data, and other system resources with applications, software tools, and data of the Unix-like environment...
, AmigaOS
AmigaOS
AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International, and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000...
, RISC OS
RISC OS
RISC OS is a computer operating system originally developed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England for their range of desktop computers, based on their own ARM architecture. First released in 1987, under the name Arthur, the subsequent iteration was renamed as in 1988...
, Maemo
Maemo
Maemo is a software platform developed by the Maemo community for smartphones and Internet tablets. It is based on the Debian Linux distribution, but has no relation to it...
, ZETA, SkyOS
SkyOS
SkyOS was a prototype commercial, proprietary, graphical desktop operating system written for the x86 computer architecture. As of January 30, 2009 development has halted and no plans to resume its development have been announced.- History :...
and various BSD
Berkeley Software Distribution
Berkeley Software Distribution is a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995...
s. Freeciv.net
Freeciv.net
Freeciv.net is a multiplayer, turn-based strategy game playable online in a web browser. 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. Today, Freeciv.net is a separate project from the Freeciv.org project...
is a version of Freeciv playable online in any modern web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
; it was available from the Chrome Web Store
Chrome Web Store
The Chrome Web Store is an online store from Google. It was announced at the Google I/O conference on May 19, 2010 by Vic Gundotra and released on December 6, 2010...
until its author abandoned it in August, 2011.