Freeciv
Lead a civilization from the Stone Age to the Space Age in turn-based strategy
- Genre
- Strategy
- Plays on
- A session
- 45 min
- Price
- Free
- Made by
- The Freeciv Project
- Published by
- Cassette Classics
Gameplay
About
Freeciv is a free and open-source turn-based 4X empire-building strategy game inspired by Sid Meier's Civilization. Founded in November 1995 by Peter Unold, Claus Leth Gregersen, and Allan Ove Kjeldbjerg, Freeciv has been refined continuously for 30 years by an international community and is included across major Linux and BSD distributions.
Guide one of dozens of historical nations from 4000 BC nomadic settlers to the Space Age. Found cities, irrigate plains and road mountain passes, research nearly a hundred technologies from Alphabet and Iron Working to Robotics and Space Flight, construct Wonders of the World, negotiate treaties, or wage combined-arms wars across land, sea, and air.
Key Features
- Full Freeciv 3.2.6 SDL2 desktop client paired with an embedded Freeciv server running inside a Web Worker over MessageChannel.
- Classic and modern rulesets (civ2civ3, classic, multiplayer) and isometric/hex tilesets (Amplio2, Hexemplio, Hex2T, Trident).
- Deep city management (citizens, specialists, buildings, Wonders, trade routes, governor automation) and multi-era tech tree advisor.
- Six AI skill tiers (Handicapped, Novice, Easy, Normal, Hard, Cheating) and customizable world generation.
Controls & Devices
- Desktop (Full) & Tablet (Playable) in landscape; Mouse required, Keyboard & Touch supported.
- Left-click: select units or open City Dialog. Right-click: center camera. Keys: B (Found City), R (Road), I (Irrigate), M (Mine), F (Fortify), G (Go-To), Space (Wait), W (Next unit), C (Center), F1 (Cities), F2 (Units), F3 (Nations), F6 (Science), Shift+Enter (End Turn).
Save Behaviour
- Automatic per-turn saves, manual savegames, and client options persist automatically to Cassette cloud storage.
Credits, Licence & Source
- Original Makers: The Freeciv Project, GriffonSpade & Freeciv Artists, Cullam Bruce-Lockhart & StdSounds Contributors.
- WebAssembly Port: wasmga-me (freeciv-wasm @ a71651063b3d).
- Licence: GPL-2.0-or-later (engine, rulesets, tilesets & audio); Bitstream Vera / Public Domain (DejaVu Sans font).
- Upstream: github.com/freeciv/freeciv (v3.2.6) | Web Port: github.com/wasmga-me/freeciv-wasm/tree/a7165106…
Credits
- Original game and engine (GPL-2.0-or-later)
- The Freeciv Project
- Hexemplio, Amplio2, Hex2T & Trident tilesets (GPL-2.0-or-later)
- GriffonSpade & Freeciv Artists
- Key art: Freeciv 3.1 Amplio2 tileset & flags (GPL-2.0-or-later)
- Hogne Håskjold, Tim F. Smith, Daniel Speyer & others
- Key art logo: Freeciv logo (GPL-2.0-or-later)
- James Blewitt
- Music and sound effects (GPL-2.0-or-later / Public Domain)
- Cullam Bruce-Lockhart & StdSounds Contributors
- DejaVu Sans UI font (Bitstream Vera / Public Domain)
- Bitstream & DejaVu Fonts Project
- WebAssembly Emscripten port
- wasmga-me (freeciv-wasm @ a71651063b3d)
Links
- Website
- freeciv.org
- Community
- github.com/freeciv/freeciv
- Licence
- GPL-2.0-or-later
Accessibility
- Difficulty options
- Reduced motion
- No time pressure
- One-handed play
Fully turn-based with no real-time pressure, full mouse-driven interface, and multiple AI skill levels (Handicapped, Novice, Easy, Normal, Hard, Cheating).
