FreeCol 0.9.0 (Colonization Strategy Game Clone) Released [Windows, Linux, Mac OS X]

After several months of development, the FreeCol developers have finally released version 0.9.0.

FreeCol is a clone of Colonization, a turn-based strategy game themed on the early European colonization of the New World, starting in 1492 and lasting until 1850. However, Freecol has a new set of redesigned graphics and with time, it also incorporated ideas that didn't make the final version of Colonization, as well as requests by fans and original concepts like new European players and race bonuses.

Released under the GNU General Public License, FreeCol is free and open source software, running on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.


Improvements in FreeCol 0.9.0:

• AI breeds horses more effectively
• AI uses pioneers more effectively
• AI distributes workers more effectively
• AI creates and assigns soldiers more effectively
• AI constructs more advanced buildings
• building graphics (thanks to NewCol and the defunct SweCol project)
• new images for forests and beaches
• redesigned panels and dialogs using MigLayout
• the colony panel, colopedia panel and report panel now remember their size
• more useful for small displays (1024×600)
• the map shows national borders
• stockades no longer prevent abandoning a colony
• together with a custom house, de Witt circumvents boycotts
• the Treaty of Utrecht

Downloading and running FreeCol 0.9.0

Freecol requires Runtime Environment (JRE) at least version 1.5.0. You can get it from HERE.


Then, Download FreeCol 0.9.0 (packages available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X).

To download FreeCol 0.9.0 in Linux, you can alternatively simply run this command (it will download and extract it):

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/freecol/freecol/freecol-0.9.0/freecol-0.9.0.tar.gz -O - | tar zxvf -

Then, for any OS, run FreeCol like this (firstly navigate to the folder where you extracted it):

java -Xmx256M -jar FreeCol.jar

Windows users may need to use this command:

java -Xmx256M -cp . -jar FreeCol.jar

For more help, see the README file inside the downloaded archive.