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FreeCiv 1.12.0 Released
wmulvihillDxR writes "For you Civilization addicts, check out FreeCiv. They have just released version 1.12! Highlights of changes include the isometric view we all know and love. You can download here(gz) or here(bz2). This project is a great example of the things open source can accomplish."
GZIP and BZIP2 are two different types of compression. The two files are the same. The BZIP2 version is smaller, but you will need bzip2 in order to uncompress it.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
So go grab the tarball directly!. 0.tar.bz2
0 .tar.bz2
ftp://ftp.freeciv.org/freeciv/stable/freeciv-1.12
Or a UK mirror on a big uni pipe:
http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/ug/cs00/pjw/freeciv-1.12.
When I bought RedHat 7.1 a couple of months ago, I was entranced by FreeCiv 1.11.4. This really turned my thinking around on open-source/free software games. Previously, I had thought games were a good place to make an exception to the free software philosophy, but FreeCiv changed my mind.
I think the community should try to win over proprietary software lovers by cloning games right and left. Yes, this means imitation instead of innovation for awhile. Guess what? Richard Stallman did the same thing when he decided to copy UNIX for GNU. Eventually, the free software/open source community will reach a critical mass and innovation will begin to outpace the imitation.
So, speaking of imitation, what are the odds I might see an open source game like XCOM some time soon? I also understand Linus Torvalds really loved Prince of Persia. Either of these would be great to clone.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Look: Civilization is considered 15 most influential games says GameSpot. So, whether it's ported 2100 or 2500, it is still a precious timeless treasure for all of us gamers.
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
no, fool! they're using sid meier's graphics. the graphics look exactly like they did in '96 for Civ2.
i could live a little longer in this prison
This project is a great example of the things open source can accomplish.
/.]
Fatal error: out of dynamic memory in yy_create_buffer() in Unknown on line 0
[Moderator, if you miss the humour, you are obviously not smart enough to read
If you had worded that a little better, your (-1, Troll) could have been a (+5, Funny).
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
Infact it does use hexagonal plots of land, it just doesn't look like it :)
You can press 7, 9, 1 or 3 and your unit will make a hexagonal move at the price of one movement.
Doesn't that make it octagonal (8 possible directions)? Hexagonal would be more in accordance with many of the more 'serious' board-based wargames...
deus does not exist but if he does
What is Sid Meier's role in the making of Civilization III?
Sid is the Director of Creative Development at Firaxis Games. He is overseeing the project, making game play and design decisions.
I see you have mastered the skills of cut and paste. Hope you didn't waste a college education figuring that out.
Like anyone would prefer B&W over Civilization (no matter whether in 2001 or 2034)
I would. I'm still miffed that I'm forced to buy a new Win box just because I can't run Black and White under WINE.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Still no linux version on the cards though :( At least, officially.
You do (at startup time).
All the others that do better? I don't think bind should be in that list at all - Apache - hmmm - barely - postgres - barely. Are there any others on the 'almost as good list' ? I can't think of any.
All in all, FreeCiv is currently the best Civ clone in existance, at least until Civilization III is out.
You can find the following at this Civ review at ign.com.
The quote is from halfway down the page in the section titled E3 2001. There's no anchor tag I can link directly to... won't XPointer support be nice some day?.
You can't study the darkness by flooding it with light. --Edward Abbey
In many ways, this is really Civilization IV, as both Sid Meiers and Brian Reynalds (one of the main guys behind Civilization II) developed "Alpha Centauri" for Firaxis Games. Quite a few of the "new features" for Civilization III (like borders, for one) made their debut in Alpha Centauri.
The cake is a pie
And I'd finally broken my addiction...
Well, there go my plans for the weekend.
Feel the fear and do it anyway.
Yeah. Wholesale copying of an idea thought up by someone else.
That's a PHP error, BTW.
I bought AC at linux expo London, Wasnt too impressed with the lack of nice box && manual though. It is better then nothing, but no where near as good as the SidCiv, or even CTP1 (out of print for lnux now as far as I can tell)
Since the main page of the english site is broken, visit the Italian site to get the name of the pages:
http://www.freeciv.it/
For example, the quick start guide there is:
http://www.freeciv.it/startguide.html
Use:
http://www.freeciv.org/startguide.html
For the English version.
First they burn books, then they burn people.
Is there a .deb around for the new version?
Not to mention that the original comment conveniently forgets that a lot of amateurs were churning out games know as "freeware" long before the term "Open Source" was even invented [and many came with source code, but it was below the GNU scale it terms of readability!]
- Elvises
- Scientists
- Taxmen
Elvises?! This game has gotten... a little silly it seemsAs a game? Nothing.
As an example of open source, a clone of a game that's quite old may be seen as not a great example.
I used 'serious' more to imply that several hundred pages of singly typed rules, etc. are an integral part of the game, as well as a board at least two dining-room tables wide :) That's one of the reasons I used the quotes... I was also pointing out to the person I replied to had the wrong idea about hexagons. (Civ/FreeCiv is by no stretch of the imagination based on a hexagonal map).
deus does not exist but if he does
isometric view looks like shit.
Stop imitating and start innovating.
xconq features a hexagonal grid and a Civ-like mode. I have never played it, though.
Freeciv's AI players are much smarter than Civ II's. But diplomacy with AI players isn't implemented yet.
I have to disagree. I'd take freeciv or freecraft (hell, even Xbill!) over some of the skydive!s and Extreme Paintbrawls. I've seen some commercial games that made me want to cry because they were far worse than their free counterparts, and because I had to dish out the cash for the privilege to play these vomit inducing horrors!
Perhaps, you're just too used to the 'Quake III is shitty/UT is shitty' style arguments to recognise a truly bad game when you see it?
It's been a long time.
This isn't really an open source issue, as a w hole software industry issue. Most software has a crummy UI, not just the open source version. Look at one of the most ubiquitous programs out there: Explorer (the file manager and desktop, not the web browser) on Win9x. I don't think I've seen anything as weird and counter intuitive as that since my C64 days. Another horrible UI: Symantec's PCAnywhere. I could go on for days about how much this piece of shit has confused my users.
It's not that good UIs don't exist, but they are rare both in the commercial and open source worlds.
But what about things like first-person shooters? These games are always pushing the boundaries of hardware, and so it needs a lot of time and effort just to keep up. Can open source keep up with this?
I can't keep up with the technological advances. Doesn't really matter, though, as they don't do shit for gameplay.
Ok, now who is going to make the first Master of Magic mod for it? Man I loved that game.
I'll have to agree here. Age hardly matters with classic vintage games, they're still very fun. It's just that the graphical technology for older games are quite dated and make the games feel old. There's nothing better than seeing a new face on such games.
One of my favorite games is StarFlight, made back around 1986. The universe was quite expansive, and you could literally spend months just exploring it and figuring out how to interact with all the races. For a very long time, I've been wishing that someone would make a new StarFlight, with modern graphical interfaces, sound, and all the other good multimedia stuff we've come to enjoy in current games (and for heavens sake, fix that horrible save game system!). It seems that my prayers are partially being answered:
www.starflight3.com
In other news, Civilization 3 is due October 17.
It is true that FreeCiv is more a clone of Civilization II than Civilization I these days, but it still hasn't really hit that mark yet. Certainly not in the AI.
The cake is a pie
Help!!
Ah, good ol' irony.
Like anyone would prefer B&W over Civilization (no matter whether in 2001 or 2034)
I know, I know! I have spent way too many nights riding your mom... She fucks!
It was released in 1995. And yes, it is multiplayer.
Open Source version: 2001
I know it's a troll, but I'll bite:
Civilization II Gold (first multiplayer version): 1999
Freeciv multiplayer: 1998
To within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff
Microsoft "innovates" and that is bad.
/. do your thinking for you any more.
Open Source "innovates" and that is good?
Don't let
..blows. Seriously, what's this maddness of isometric view? Does it really make nicer to play? Not for me, it's just more fuzzy.
I'd love to have the option to chose between normal "top" view, and Isometric.
Sigged!
anti-karma
********************
I object to Intellect without Discipline.
haha
Damn. I just searched the web for 30 minutes trying to find a confirmation of the story.
How the hell are open source programmers going to get the appearance of the game right when they can't even get their own appearance right!?! Here's a clue guys...shower! It'll change your whole perspective on the world...and mine when you're within smelling distance.
What is it about the interface that bothers you? I'm sure the people that write the game would love your constructive feedback.
You can reach them at freeciv-dev at freeciv dot org, or check out their website at http://www.freeciv.org
for archives.
This "common open source software problem" is more likely that there's not enough feedback regarding what would improve the UI, and/or not enough people or time to do it. It's really difficult for most people to provide a nice UI to software they spend a lot of time working on. FreeCiv has 4 clients in the code base now, and different people work on different parts. There are several nice pending patches that we'll probably see in later days as the source base was being stabilized for the 1.12.0 release. FreeCiv dev people are constantly trying to improve the user's experience, just look at the changelog, almost everything there is for usability or a gameplay enhancement. Many users also contribute new parts for the GUI when they have an approach they like better, like the new city dialog patch for the gtk client(don't know what the current status is, but it doesn't look like it got in 1.12.0). The feelings you have shared would be the most productive if you used them to motivate yourself to do something similar.
Users are the most important part of usability and when you don't know what they want or how they think it should work then it's pretty difficult to give them what they want.
The command line interface on the server makes perfect sense. Are you always going to be wanting to run the server on a machine you have a GUI on? I sure don't. It's better than requiring a GUI to run the server... I'd rather there was more focus on improving the clients than the server UI, but perhaps you could write a little shell script or some server gui add-on that would simplify or render transparent setting up the game environment for single and possibly multiplayer games. That would likely be quite well received.
You can complain, you can contribute. You can even complain while you contribute, but contribution is the only way to get it done the way you want it to be done.
Me, and obvoisly many others too.
I want to be able to interface my PowerGlove to Black & White. Screw "gestures" with a mouse! I want the whole thing, the hand of god! Reach, grab, squeeze and toss the villager. Hahaha!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Yep probably so.
Also shows that you HAVE to resort to static pages to handle any kind of web site traffic with MySQL as a backend.
http://www.microsoft.com/sql http://www.tpc.org
The clone of Civ was Master of Magic and it kills FreeCiv in every way.
This project is a great example of the things open source can accomplish.
This is fine for games like freeciv, where the game is mainly gameplay and not fancy graphics; the goalpost isn't being moved.
But what about things like first-person shooters? These games are always pushing the boundaries of hardware, and so it needs a lot of time and effort just to keep up. Can open source keep up with this?
Another issue is with map design; in a game like Half-Life (for example), a huge amount of effort has to go into designing the story, and you can only play it once, unlike freeciv. This means that there would be have to be a single point where the game would be considered complete and released; otherwise both the designers and the gameplayers would lose interest.
So games like freeciv are fine, but what about the rest of the computer game market? Is it practical for open source development to continue? Or are companies like Loki going to be producing most of our decent games?
There is some hope. The Sid Meier's game "Alpha Centauri" is available for Linux, though it did take Loki forever to get it out.
The cake is a pie
> "user experience people"
/. a few weeks ago).
The problem with that is the people dont stay "user experience people" for very long. If you put someone who has never used a computer before in front of a *nix machine running Gnome it wont take long before the accept its idosyncracies.
The number of times i have heard MSWindows users complain about how "unusable" the Mac is just because they are used to MSWindows. Ive seen new users who dont know a damn thing about computers: "What do you mean Double-Click?". If some one has to ask what kind of computer they should get then they should probably get a Mac. (If they want my help with maintainance they had better buy a Mac or use Linux).
Studying Usability is more about being able to empathise, being able to look at things in a different way, to be self-aware. My English teacher always warned us that us that our writing had to be understood by others not just the writer, the same advice should be taken by programmers. It is also very important to be able to listen to user feedback, and give users a chance to criticise before you explain. Many interfaces are not immediately obivious but perfectly workable if you have been lead through, and had it explained once.
If you have not already read it i strongly recommend you read the Gnome Usability Study done by Sun Microsystems (its somewhere on Gnome.org under Usability or possibly recent news, and was featured on
I've mirrored the latest release to:
http://planetmirror.com/pub/freeciv/stable/
ftp://planetmirror.com/pub/freeciv/stable/
this mirror is located in australia and is provided by http://planetmirror.com
cheers,
-jason
It's a nice toy, but it's a toy none the less.
--
You sure got a purty mouth...
I recommend people try starting the client with --tiles=trident, to get the old view. It would be nice someone should draw some new, improved isometric graphics.
Why does all open source software tend to have bad user interface?
Two reasons: First, because most folks *capable* of _creating_ a decent GUI are by definition competent enough to use the command line interface. Second, because people who are *that* dependant on the _graphical_ interface are too damn freaked by the commandline nature of compilers that they don't do anything about it.
Short answer: Either get used to the commandline or be friggin' brave enough to make the GUI better.
And for GOD sakes, some of the BEST software has ONLY a commandline interface, so NEVER equate commandline interfaces with commandline interfaces. Hmph!!!!!
After this major open source break through why don't you get started on a OpenWindows-3.1-project.
If you don't know how to code for high traffic... yeah.
/code runs on MySQL but uses caching. I'm sure the freeciv coder doesn't know how to optimize for traffic, so his db connections are cornholing him right now!!!
PS -
by evil_spork
What?!? Someone explain this to me.
How can a comment simultaneously have a -1 rating and a "Funny" designation, and it hasn't even been modded at all yet?
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
I liked freeciv, but I liked the civ 1 interface a lot. The amount of info they were able to cram into a few oversized pixels was cool. :)
Freecraft is my fave GPL'd game though. Even if the graphics aren't the best, it runs well under BEos!
It's been a long time.
I'd say it doesn't make much sense to have the server run on a machine that doesn't also run the client. Now if this was some huge cpu intensive server, things would be different.
Just to try it out, I've run the FreeCiv server on my headless Pentium, and it worked fine. But then X, GTK+ and the client all require so much power that if you need (well, not need, but want) a P2 to run the client, running the server on the same machine doesn't slow it down noticeably.
I think part of the problem is not so much UI design (although that is a big issue), but a lack of graphic artist in these open source projects.
Open Source just doesn't seem to attract the kind of artistic talent needed for help with interface asthetics, and game graphics.
- sigs are for wimps.
Infact it does use hexagonal plots of land, it just doesn't look like it :)
You can press 7, 9, 1 or 3 and your unit will make a hexagonal move at the price of one movement.
Will work for bandwidth!
Hope that they don't close the source like TuxRacer :)
Hmm... I'm not scared of the command line. I know exactly what it does and how to use it.
My point, however, is that I (and many others) are much more efficient working in a proper GUI. That's all.
It seems that in much open source software, the programmers do the bare minimum in order to get the program to work, then stop.
This is release 1.12.0.
Thanks again to all our developers, who continue to work so hard.
This release includes lots of changes, outlined below. Those who
are interested in seeing the detailed changes should check the
ChangeLog file.
WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.11.4
- Internationalization extended. Still needs improvement.
Current localizations: de en_GB es fr hu it ja nl no pl pt pt_BR
ro ru sv.
- Isometric view in gtk and amiga clients using the mostly civ2-
compatible HiRes tileset. This is on by default, but the old non-
isometric tiles are still available by giving a --tiles argument to
the client, fx "civclient --tiles trident".
- While planning a goto (after hitting "g") a line will be displayed
showing the route from the selected unit to the mouse pointer.
Hitting "g" will insert a waypoint at the mouse pointer.
- The server now has readline completion. This works at all levels,
fx "cu" completes to "cut", and if there exist a player named
"paulz" "cut pau" will complete to "cut paulz".
- Players can agree to give shared vision, which means that you
automatically see everything the other player sees.
- Layer view menu items allow you to only display some map info on the
main map. Fx you can choose to not show roads.
- The server will ping all connected clients and cut off those too slow
to respond.
- Smarter placing of partisans.
- The server no longer automatically starts when the maximum number of
players have been reached.
- If commandlevels are used and the controlling player disconnects a
connected player can assume the "first" level with the "/firstlevel"
command.
- "Restrictions and Limitations" section added to the README.ruleset
- Caravans, diplomats and spies can move into allied cities.
- Elephants, Crusaders and Fanatics activated in civ 2 ruleset.
- The size of the city foodbox is now controlled by the ruleset
variables "granary_food_ini" and "granary_food_inc".
- Limit on number of improvement types in rulesets removed.
- Capitalization is available from the start of the game in the default
ruleset. (renamed coinage)
- Cities can have 0 trade. (used to be at least 1)
- Settlers can only be added to cities less than size 8, as in civ 2.
- If you paradrop a unit into unknown terrain and the terrain contains
an enemy unit the paradropping unit is lost. If you drop into terrain
you thought was land, but which has changed to water, the unit is
also lost.
- diplomats/spies can't take action from a ship.
- Refueling air units at turn update will refuel units with only 1 fuel
first. Secundary criteria is unit cost.
- Trireme loss percentage depends upon known technologies.
- Leonardo's workshop will upgrade a random unit each turn, and not
just the next one.
- Allied cities count as friendly when determining whether a unit is
being agressive. (gives unhappyness under some govs.)
- Deserts are created primarily 15 to 35 degrees off the equator.
- Only arctic tiles generated at poles.
- The server will report when a new government becomes available.
- Changed wording of message "famine feared" to "famine occured". New
"famine feared" message just before food runs out.
- "wonder soon build" message when another player is about to complete
a wonder.
- Players are notified when one of their wonders has become obsolete.
- In the players dialog it is now reported which nations have an
embassy with you. Your embassies are also listed.
- Wonders being built are listed in the "wonders of the world" popup.
- Server "save" command saves to m.sav[.gz]
if it is not given any arguments.
- "quitidle" server commandline option makes server quit if there has
been no connected players for the specified amount of time.
- When turning on the autotoggle option existing human nations without
a connected player will be put on AI.
- Server doesn't block as long when writing to a slow host, controlled
by variables "tcptimeout" and "netwait".
- "savename" server variable controls the prefix of autosaves.
- "allowconnect" server variable lets you control which types of
players (new players; human players; AI players; dead players;
barbarian players) can connect.
- More nations added.
- New maps in data/scenario: british-isles-80x76-v2.51.sav,
iberian-peninsula-136x100-v0.9.sav,
hagworld-120x60-v1.2.sav (earth map).
- Amiga internationalization/localization.
- Amiga client: history added to chatline.
- Lots of bug fixes and code cleanups.
why don't you get started on a OpenWindows-3.1-project.
WINE is not an emulator. It's a compatibility layer that lets Win3.1 and Win32 apps run on BSD and Linux systems on x86 processors and X11 displays.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You don't even need to change souce code in Freeciv to do mods. All the rulesets are in plain text.
Although, it would be great to get in there and change the source as well, I would like to see support for different topologies and seperate tech trees. But then I am just selfish and want to get my Middle Earth Modpack done.
Actually, they are using a tileset drawn by some of the Civ fans from the apolyton forum, and it is under the GPL IIRC. It looks rather similar to the Microprose Civ II Tileset, but there shouldn't be any copyright issues.
Besides, it's not so much just the fact that you can play Civilization for free that makes FreeCiv a triumph of the open source community. What really makes it great is that people who wouldn't normally have access to game source code can see inside the guts of the game, learn how it works, and make changes. The alterations could be as sweeping as an entire new ruleset which could be distributed over the net or as simple as altering a few #DEFINEs just to see what happens, but in any case, the ability to work with the source of a project like this is invaluable.
Hacking this sort of project is a big part of what the open source movement is all about: having a good time, growing intellectually, and inviting others to do the same.
This seems to be a recurring trend in open source software - it's very stable, low/no cost - all ideal qualities! Except the interface blows.
Something tells me that in the original "Civilization", the end user would not have to use a command line to configure and play the game. Why couldn't they "clone" the setup process?
Why does all open source software tend to have bad user interface?
By that logic, wouldn't something with a lot of sides be even more effective? Perhaps an octagon or something, using the eight most commonly used directions, so it makes more intuitive sense. Making a grid of octagons, though, a fully interlocking grid, would be impossible, wouldn't it? I suppose that's why more "serious(in your opinion)" games use hexagons instead. Easy enough to make a grid of those, bees do it all the time. Hey, you can reach an understanding of someone else's point by randomly babbling!
Thing is people use squares because they are, by far, simpler to deal with than hexagons. Thinking about setting up something with hexagonal units makes me shudder, but then again, I've never seriously done any game programming either. And imagine writing an AI that utilizes it..
Because performance sucked BIG time, compared to MySQL when the slashcode project was started. I'm sure the slashcode peeps are working on making it DB-independant (eventually) (wouldn't you think ?) SourceForge already runs on PostgreSQL now, even RedHat is gonna sell it commercially I hate benchmarks, but there is a benchmark that says PostgreSQL won from the biggest commercial providers of Databases too I don't really believe much of it though, I'll rather use what works best for me, then some very specific tests (yes I know standard tests where used).
New things are always on the horizon
http://www.civ3.com
this game looks incredible! god i can't wait
i could live a little longer in this prison
AI players still pollute, but at least they try to clean it up now.
I've always preferred Freeciv's interface to Civ II's. What's wrong with it?
It runs out of memory.
Easier to make the graphics and much easier to program the map. Faster to display the graphics as well.
This is a great example of what open source can accomplish? A (not-quite-primetime) clone of a decades-old game that's already been re-implemented several times commercially with better graphics and gameplay?
No, I don't think so. This may be nice to have around in the game-poor Linux world, but it's not an example of what open source can do. For that you'll want to look to Apache, to Postgres, to BIND, and to any of the other programs that do what they do _better_ than the comparable commercial alternatives.
Freeciv seems to have a lot of the look-and-feel of xconq (with lots more detailed city development and unit types) - and that was available at least back in 1988 when I recall wasting hours on it - actually the first version came out even before X was synonymous with X version 11 (we ran version 10 for a while...).
So, I think the OSS version actually came first...
Energy: time to change the picture.
It doesn't help that while all UI designers and graphic artists know that they shouldn't be writing code, many programmers don't have any such insight about their limitations.
In a previous thread, I asked that Bero guy from Redhat about this, basically "Does Redhat have a staff of user experience people?". I don't remember getting an answer, although he did write a nice reply to another post of mine.
I suspect the answer is no, because to my knowledge, there are few, if any, user interface people working on open source stuff. They are, however, desperately needed, and RedHat should be able to hire 2 or 3 to supervise the installer, contribute to Gnome, etc...
You mean that open source database MySQL pukes everytime it gets a little traffic?
Yes. And every once in a while, Slashdot and Everything really feel it. On the other hand, PostgreSQL (another free DBMS and the basis for Red Hat Database) supports proper ACID transactions and nested select statements and is known to lag quite a bit less in high-load situations.
<OT>
Also, the first seven initial caps on its web site spell "Pelt JTT" because he's a wooden actor.
</OT>
Will I retire or break 10K?
Actually, I don't know the original release of FreeCiv, but it's been around quite a while...
You most certainly do NOT need to pay people to make good maps! When team Fortress was initially released it didn't come with ANY maps. Someone made 2fort4, shared it, and made history. The best part of TF was trying out new maps!
Making a single player campaign, on the other hand, is much harder, but who wants to buy a game that they can only play through once?
Travis
Chess is a board game.. chess is also considered a game related to war. It doesn't use hexagonal units, and yet it's far more "serious" than any video game in the minds of most..
You may or may not be right about hexagonal units, but your opinion does not make them superior.
TimeLine
Ahh, obviously you are equipped with advanced optical implants which compare images by doing a correlation after doing a Fourier transform on the original picture. This results in perfect equivalence of the Sid Meier graphics and the freeciv graphics since both are designed to be equivalent in the Fourier-transformed space. Right?
In Civilization II, the only pollution that has any effect on the world is that generated by the player....the AI doesn't make any. In FreeCiv, the rate of pollution seems to be about the same....but now its counted for each player, human and AI! So if you're playing with 5 AI's, you have 5 times as much pollution, so you tend to get massive global warming by the 1950's.
You mean that open source database MySQL pukes everytime it gets a little traffic?
Yeah, gotta hate those commercial apps, like Red Hat Linux and Zope...
I believe the word you're loooking for is closed source, proprietary or non-free. Many Open Source projects are commercial in nature and both the FSF and OSI and any dictionary (combined with some logic) will tell you that whether soemthing is commercial or not has no bearing on whether it is Open Source or Free Software.
Error 666: Slashdoted
True, chess is a board game and it is considered to be a game related to war. More specifically, it is an abstract game of strategy and tactics. It does not use a hexagonal grid. However, the movements of it's pieces are also abstract with no attempt to mimic realism. When playing strategic and tactical board games that seek to model realistic troop movements, it is generally agreed that a hexagonal grid more closely approximates this goal than does a square grid.
I wonder if Loki's Alpha Centauri sold well. A couple months ago, I bought some games from Loki, and there was a bundle where Alpha Centauri was available for something like $10 or $20 extra, so I bought it even though it didn't really look very interesting to me. But what happened is that I ended up getting temporarily addicted to it and played it exclusively for several weeks, while Tribes and Mindrover just sat idle on my disk. I'm just now starting to get back into Mindrover...
the miracle of open source and LEENUCKS grows ever more pathetic each passing day.
ps: stop masturbating, you'll feel like more of a man.
I could, if I were a programmer, I suppose. However, like 99% of software users, I am not. I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to start the game with one executable, and setup the game and start if from there.
I could describe the changes I perceive to be necessary to someone in ten minutes - but maybe it's difficult to implement? Seems like if it was easy, someone would have done it already.
You're assuming that the machine which runs the client isn't firewalled and blocked off.
I'm guessing that Open Source project are only populated by programmers, and don't have either UI designers or graphic atrists on board. For a good game you need all three skills well prepresented.
It doesn't help that while all UI designers and graphic artists know that they shouldn't be writing code, many programmers don't have any such insight about their limitations.
Just as an anecdote I talked to someone at a major game company last week, and they have less than 10 programmers out of over 50 people working on building their current next big game.
I have spent way too many nights playing this game... It rocks!.
I never understood why Civ didn't use hexagonal plots of land. All distances would be nicely evened out...
Nice coding and all, but don't you need an artist to make it look better!
Let's see, Civilization (Sid Meyers) release date: 1991
Open Source version: 2001
So, I should see an Open Source clone of Black & White by around 2034.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
Slashdotted already.. Fatal error: out of dynamic memory in yy_create_buffer() in Unknown on line 0
http://www.gnomeliberation.cjb.net/
they were liberated from jenna's panties... those panties can hold a whole lot of gnomes...
jenna is a gnome loving lesbian drunk!
Open source works fine for the scaffolding that holds games up. Things like SDL, OpenGL, various other APIs, rendering and logic engines are all things that open source can work very well for. The maps on the other hand are pretty much going to have to be developed by paid artists and it will require profit to pay them. For instance, there are all sorts of nifty projects that have been made out of the Doom and Quake source but the maps are not free. You will have to find an old copy of Quake to obtain them legally.
And yes, some fairly innovative things are being done with this old source. prboom.sourceforge.net seems to have merged many of the independent improvments to Doom into one place:
Game engine
* Player bobbing improved, optional (BOOM, MBF)
* Friction effects (BOOM), affecting players and monsters (MBF)
* Wind, current, conveyor effects (BOOM)
* Far more flexible scrolling wall/floor types (BOOM)
* Always run (BOOM)
* Weapon change logic overhauled and improved (BOOM)
* Support for friendly monsters, helper dogs (MBF)
* Monster target finding code improved (MBF)
* AI improvements (MBF)
* Bouncy and touchy things (MBF)
* New code pointers (MBF)
* Per-level and animated skies (MBF)
* Generalised line types system gives complete flexibility (BOOM)
* Elevators (BOOM)
* Translucent sprites, walls (BOOM)
* Independent floor and ceiling lighting (BOOM)
* Silent teleports (BOOM)
* Deep water, true underwater areas (BOOM)
* Icon of Sin telefragging made more consistent (MBF)
* Fix large numbers of game bugs (BOOM, MBF, LxDoom)
* Support arbitrary texture heights (BOOM)
Screen
* High resolution support (PrBoom)
* Optional message console, multiple message lines (BOOM)
* Status bar shows health/armour/ammo in colours (BOOM)
* Heads up display, showing ammo, health, keys overlayed on view (BOOM)
* OpenGL renderer which renders as original to software Doom as possible while greatly
improving the visual quality (PrBoom)
To be sure, most `big' games for Linux will come from porting houses like Loki but Loki has to use most of the same tools everybody else does. Healthy contribution to those `scaffolding' API will make it easier and quicker for those porting houses to get the game to us.
For a very promising (if unfinished) public domain alternative, try Civ Evolution. It's gradually evolving away from its Civ II inspiration, to focus more on the strategy and AI aspects of the game. It also looks very pretty, if somewhat Civ II-like: shot1, shot2, shot3. At the moment it's Windows only, but the source is out there...
...I'm playing Alien Crossfire right now ;)
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
My wife is only a gamer in the winter months, but when she's willing (and we have time) it's great fun to search the FreeCIV metaserver for a game that is forming and join up with some good players. It usually doesn't take me long to get schooled, but I always have a blast anyway. I never did miss the eye-candy and ear-candy from CivII...I do look forward to the isometric view, among other things in the list. Oooh, I'm ready for "make install". I'm outta here.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
www.civ3.com
Freeciv is great, don't get me wrong (it's much better than CivII IMHO), but I'm drooling just by thinking of a new version of the classic we all know and love.
-Earthling
"I'm sorry, I had to; the irony was just too thick."
Hrm. That's strange.
:)
Bug in slashcode? Hoax? CmdrTaco moonlighting as evil_spork? You decide.
I know it says "Sid Meier's Civ 3," but is Sid Meier actually involved with the project?