Freeciv

Freeciv is a 2D turn-based strategy game, inspired by Sid Meier's Civilization series, where players control an empire to "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate" (4X). Both code and media are licensed under the GNU General Public License. Freeciv is mostly written in the C programming language. This game does not require 3D hardware acceleration. The game is also playable as an HTML5 Web game.

Clients
Freeciv can be played via different clients, the majority of which are in an early stage of development.
 * Freeciv-gtk3.22, currently the official and most stable client.
 * Freeciv-sdl2, also official, but yet unstable.
 * Freeciv-QT
 * freeciv-web, an online version of Freeciv playable in a web browser.

Gameplay
There are several ways to win a Freeciv game. The simplest is to wipe out all the enemy players. Another option is to become the first to colonize space. There is also a time limit, so if after a certain amount of time has gone by and no one has won, the player with the highest score wins by default.

Freeciv can use various sets of rules: the standard Freeciv rules, the Civilization II rules, and the Civilization I rules. However, the basic gameplay stays the same.

Development history
On November 14, 1995, the Freeciv project started, to replace the broken Openciv. The original developers were Claus Leth Gregersen, Allan Ove Kjeldbjerg, and Peter Joachim Unold. Gregersen coded the game mechanics, Unold wrote the client architecture, and Kjeldbjerg provided the graphics.

However, when the game approached playability, they lost interest and moved on to playing the game XPilot. Since then, a great number of new developers and contributors have allowed the project to grow. In May 2017 Gna! was closed and the Freeciv code repository moved to Github.

Version history
We have documented that The Freeciv project have a long and extensive release history.

Freeciv supported online play via the GGZ Gaming Zone from version 2.1 until 2.5.

A version was included on the 100 Great Games for Linux shovelware collection.

Receptions
As of April 27, 2012, Freeciv received 4.63 points out of 5 based on 125 votes on the now-defunct Linux Game Tome.

Freeciv on the web
Freeciv can also be played online on sites hosting freeciv-web. This project, created by Andreas Røsdal, has developed a rich web client using AJAX, JavaScript and the HTML5 standard based on the existing Freeciv C codebase. It is playable on most modern web browsers which support HTML5. The project was shut down in July 2011, but resurfaced in May 2013.