NOTE: This is The Column, a regular feature on Apolyton where anyone can write about anything to do with Civilization or the gaming industry as a whole. If you feel like writing, please visit the article submission page.

PREVIOUS ARTICLES

#212 FOUR YEARS AND SIXTY EIGHT MILLION HITS PASSED DanQ reviews the 4th year of Apolyton #211 CIV3: THE LAST GLASS OF WINE The eternal issue: exactly how much does civ3... ;) #210 EDITING RULES FOR EXPERIENCED PLAYERS Peter shares his suggestions for more interesting games #209 THE CURSE OF CIVILIZATION The full feature of Jonathan Speelman on his experience with Civ and his meeting with Sid Meier and Soren Johnson #208 LOST CIVILIZATION Duckman expects more from the future civ3 #207 A BOLD STEP FORWARD INTO THE PAST It's never to early to start discussing Civ4, Ron argues COLUMN ARCHIVE

Editor's note: the column is in response to following article
http://diabloii.net/garwulfs/garwulfs-no45.shtml

Freeciv, the open source variant of Freeciv, isn't well known in the gaming world. Even in the civ community Freeciv is rather obscure, except for the Linux users. So when someone outside the civ community mentions Freeciv it's always interesting to hear it from their perspective. This time its in a column by Garwulf (Robert B. Marks) from the Diablo community.

Except that the column doesn't have much to do with Freeciv per se, more with the originality of mods and clones in general.
I will however respond to the points made about Freeciv and make a short comment about the issue of originality in games.

The main conclusion about Freeciv in relation to Civilization is as follows:
"Civilization was made great partly because of its diplomatic model, and partly because of clear graphics that leave no ambiguity whatsoever as to what is happening on the screen (among many other things)."

So, two points are made about Freeciv: (A) graphics and (B) Diplomacy. I'll adress those point before moving to the real issue at hand.

Point A is about the general look of units and the flag graphics in Freeciv. According to Garwulf they tend to obscure. I don't know what tileset Garwulf played with but I'm guessing it's either Hires or the NeoTrident set. The first is very detailed but ambiguous. The 2nd is functional but not exactly an eyecatcher.

This issue is easily solved when you take a look at the Freeciv site. There's a fair number of Freeciv mods (tilesets) available if you check out the screenshots. If you own the original you can even convert Civ2 graphics to a Freeciv mod with a special utility called civ2gfx. The reason why we just don't provide a Civ2 mod on the site has to with copyright. For legal reasons there are no mods allowed which creatively 'borrow' from their commercial counterparts. Quite recently a particular mod was dumped for this exact reason.

So say what you say about the Freeciv graphics. There's plenty of choice and it's all original...

Point B is more valid, Freeciv doesn't have AI diplomacy at the moment so that's a minus. But I should point out that the Civ2 AI really doesn't have that much diplomacy either. It's more of a nuisance that has to be dealt with. Whether you're a wargamer or a civilization builder.

The Civ2 AI isn't that smart when it comes to diplomacy. It will declare ware at a whim, even when it's outnumbered and will continue to do so even when it's in a losing position. When you are a friendly builder you constantly have to keep the AI appeased by trading a steady stream of new techs or gold, otherwise it's back to war. Add to that the fact that the AI that doesn't know how to effectively plan attacks and we find ourselves in Civ2 outnumbered 7 to 1 by some rather lame computer opponents.

The problems with Civ2 AI become more evident once you start playing in MP. The Civ2 AI was originally designed for SP, never for MP. MP games tend to resolve into quick civ wargames like. It's highly improbable that a SP AI could be successful opponent in a human MP match. Unless the AI receives some generous 'advantages'( read: "cheat like hell!").

So where does Freeciv enter into this? Well, Freeciv was designed for MP so it's optimized for that. The AI knows that it will have to fight and it will give the players everything it's got once the situation arises. There's no AI diplomacy, it knows only to attack and when to wait before an attack. Somewhat akin to the world in Hobbes "Leviathan" where there is no relationship between states except war and conquest, with occasional interludes. So in that sense Freeciv is more of a wargame than a civilization builder game. At least for the moment...

Point B is valid. I also believe that at a point in time Freeciv should start to focus on a sort of SP AI beside the MP one. One which does use diplomacy. If and when that situation will come about I don't know. I'm an organizer, not a programmer. But someday it will. Because Freeciv continues to be improved, year after year while its commercial cousins come and go.
Like empires...


Now back to the main point...
From there on Freeciv is off the table and Garwulf resorts to a bad analogy to prove his point. Apparently Freeciv has something to do with copying videotapes from television and ends up with us watching cable television. Whether this has something to do with the signal quality or the actual programming isn't made clear.

I really don't know what to make from this analogy: Is it bad to copy succesful ideas and try to improve them? Is it bad to take inspiration from other games? Is it bad if your game is a well done clone? Like Warcraft 3 for instance? Which is simply another sequel in the Warcraft series. Warcraft got it's inspirations from Dune 2. Dune2 in turn seems to be similar to an old RTS Megadrive game called Herzog Zwei. So actually Warcraft is just another ripoff of Herzog Zwei! If we needed to prove that the spirit of originality is dead this must be it.

Except that originality is very well alive.

There are plenty of commercial, freeware and open source programs to choose from. A few might, just perhaps, inspire a new genre. A few will be one day wonders. Most of them won't even make it mainstream or simply fade away. Others will persevere and continue thanks to their zeal. And if you know where to look and be ready to experience one of them you could be in for a surprise.


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About the author: CapTVK is a Civ2/Freeciv fan and organizer of FUADEC. The first international Freeciv developers conference. In real life he likes to work with statistics and economics.

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