page_title: Freeciv
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Freeciv / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A screenshot of a Freeciv game, taken using Freeciv version 1.11.5 and the tinydent tileset.
context_page_description: 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 based version. Released under the GNU General Public License, 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.
  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.
context_section_description: 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. 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.
  Other players and developers took over; they made the game available on many other operating systems, including Linux, Solaris, Ultrix, Amiga OS, and Microsoft Windows.
  Linux distributions started to include Freeciv.
  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.
  In 1998, computer players were added; 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.
  Subsequent 1.x releases improved the GUI, improved the gameplay, and added many small features.
  Over time, the winning strategy proved to be city smallpox, 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 wasn't worthwhile.
  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.
  Version 2.0, released in 2005, introduced several important changes: it became beneficial to develop only a few large cities, full trade routes, and advanced technologies by re-balancing various costs and benefits; and the introduction of team playing features and advanced diplomacy made coop gaming more attractive. Developing one's empire now necessitated a careful plan for city development, including phases of rapture, in which city populations grow quickly, under relatively peaceful conditions; hence, games were almost always played in teams and typically took longer to finish when compared to 1.x games.
  In 2006, TCP and UDP port number 5556 was assigned to Freeciv by IANA. In 2017, after being hosted on Gna! for 15 years, Freeciv moved its source repository to GitHub.
caption: A Freeciv game with full world map revealed (Freeciv version 1.11.5, GTK+ client, tinydent tileset, islands map generator).
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