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20 years later the open source Colonization game FreeCol hits 1.0

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Took a while huh? It's not quite as well-known or as loved as some other free and open source games, but worth pointing out: FreeCol 1.0 is out now. 20 years in the making for this Sid Meier's Colonization remake!

Even though it's technically finished, the team behind it say they plan to continue upgrading the game and FreeCol 2.0 will have many features added towards what they and players imagine "Colonization 2 would have been". Games are never actually truly finished huh?

Some of what's new in the 1.0 release include:

  • New nation specific colony graphics.
  • New forest graphics.
  • Major changes to the tile goods production so that the actual values matches the original game.
  • Greatly improved artificial intelligence (AI) for the computer players.
  • Much better stability (many bug fixes).

They did also have another release towards the middle of last year if you missed it that added in music, animated rivers, improved performance, plenty of art updates and more.

See more on the official site.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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pb Jan 10, 2023
> "Colonization 2 would have been"

Isn't this kind of Colonization 2?
Geppeto35 Jan 10, 2023
sounds good. Does it work on Steamdeck? did you try it Liam?
jordicoma Jan 10, 2023
Quoting: Geppeto35sounds good. Does it work on Steamdeck? did you try it Liam?
I'm sure it will, but it needs keyboard and mouse.
I'm sure that it has no controller support.
beko Jan 10, 2023
Played that a lot back in the days. That always felt complete. Very good clone that I enjoyed a lot.
Craggles086 Jan 11, 2023
Just out of interest, has FreeCiv been updated in the last 10 years.. the last 20 years?

Is FreeCiv seen as complete?
Just thought there were a few rough edges last time I played it.

Not that I don’t appreciate the work on FreeCol. :)
Phlebiac Jan 11, 2023
Quoting: Craggles086Just out of interest, has FreeCiv been updated in the last 10 years.. the last 20 years?

Looks like the latest release was on Dec 16th:
http://freeciv.org/


Last edited by Phlebiac on 11 January 2023 at 6:27 am UTC
Deleted_User Jan 11, 2023
Huge fan of the original game and even more of the Civ IV Dpin-Off, especially with the Alternative Colonization Mod. Unfortunally i couldn't manage to get the setup to Load/Save in my latest installation.

That being said i think that a Colonization Game should say a word or two about History of the Native Americans during the Colonization Era nowadays.


Last edited by Deleted_User on 11 January 2023 at 8:47 am UTC
GBGames Jan 11, 2023
Seeing 1.0 for FreeCol. Wow! That brings back some memories. I just checked my Projects/SourceCode directory, and I have fcca-0.8.0 in there (around 2008?), mainly to study. I never participated in the project, but I used to love Colonization back in the day, and this game was one I was excited about. I think I used to have an older version, like 0.1 or 0.3 probably from 20ish years ago, but I must have gotten rid of it or it is on an old hard drive.

Quoting: Deleted_UserThat being said i think that a Colonization Game should say a word or two about History of the Native Americans during the Colonization Era nowadays.

Totally agree.

I love playing older games, but Colonization was one of the only games I had trouble getting myself back to play due to the ick factor of playing as a colonizing power after learning more about how horrific that period of time actually was.
slaapliedje Jan 11, 2023
Quoting: GBGamesSeeing 1.0 for FreeCol. Wow! That brings back some memories. I just checked my Projects/SourceCode directory, and I have fcca-0.8.0 in there (around 2008?), mainly to study. I never participated in the project, but I used to love Colonization back in the day, and this game was one I was excited about. I think I used to have an older version, like 0.1 or 0.3 probably from 20ish years ago, but I must have gotten rid of it or it is on an old hard drive.

Quoting: Deleted_UserThat being said i think that a Colonization Game should say a word or two about History of the Native Americans during the Colonization Era nowadays.

Totally agree.

I love playing older games, but Colonization was one of the only games I had trouble getting myself back to play due to the ick factor of playing as a colonizing power after learning more about how horrific that period of time actually was.
History is filled with terrible things. We shouldn't shy away from such knowledge, and try to learn to not do horrible things in the future.

Side note; I have seen recently posts from native American ancestors who point out the tribes were constantly killing each other off. The colonizers simply sped up the process. Not sure why Colonization is any more violent and 'ick' as any other strategy game. They all include a virtual mass of casualties.

After playing Assassin's Creed: Odyssey for a few hours, I wonder how many people that were just guarding some random place I had murdered. Must be in the thousands at this point... but hey, I am doing it in a video game.
eldarion Jan 11, 2023
Great news! Time to check it out again. I hope they fixed the annoying issue of modal windows getting behind the main game window.
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