FreeCol: Turn-based strategy game based on the old game Colonization
github.com
github.com
I always wonder if such content (and no functional improvements) would even be welcome in a pull request, not to mention how controversial adding slavery to a game might be.
By the other hand - to facilitate contributions - using Java is not optimal but it certainly made sense at the time, this is already an old project.
On the contrary many open source games use Java (or CSharp) and it helps them be moddable, discoverable and testable in ways that JavaScript would not give you for free. Additionally, the web ecosystem is built around a marketplace of external services and opaque, bundled offerings, which makes people not paying those bills (ie modders, open source contributors) second class citizens in the development process.
I like the idea of morally ugly things in games, but often they minmax away or are forced on you by great difficulty. For instance, in Bioshock it's optimal to be nice to the little girls. The bad option is minmaxed away. And in Frostpunk it's kind of forced on you since the tech tree is all authoritarianism.
I wonder what it would be like if in the same game I could end up either the North or the South and still put up a good fight.
I like how Witcher series does it. You have established character presented with hard dillemas with no obvious good option, implied bad side effects, and the actual effects are only seen after hours of gameplay, so you can't just reload.
And it's not "pat the puppy or kill it", because the character wouldn't kill the puppy and it makes no sense, it's "feed this puppy or save the food because you have long way to the next city".
The fact that you don't have perfect knowledge+delayed effects make all the difference. But it's best suited for story-heavy games like RPGs, I'm not sure it would work as well in mechanics-based game.
If you're talking about the Book of Laws, you get different endings depending on what laws you enable like "we didn't cross the line" or "we went too far", or something like that.
I think also that depending on the scenario you can avoid most of the "ugly laws", with the notable exception of child labour, because it gives a boost in manpower at the beginning of the game, and that makes really a difference.
If you prefer, choosing a single ugly law lets me avoid all the others.
But allmost everything is authorian in the book of laws. Even if you play soft - you play a soft dictator. But this is the game mechanic, and to play as a anarchistic syndicate would be hard to implement, or rather impossible, as you are indeed the only human.
But sure, if we were talking about historical games set in europe, there would probably be things missing that paint europe in a bad light... But that's not what we (or atleast I) are talking about here.
The game did feature a form of slavery with indentured servants from Europe, many of those ended up being literal slaves with no end to their contract once in the new World.
Regarding the issue of slavery, Colonization would have been criticized both ways: had they included it, they would have seen as condoning it. Removing it makes it seem like they did not care or are trying to hide it from History.
There's no good solution that will satisfy everyone.
But having read several books on what colonisation actually means I would be reluctant to play it again.
For some reason for me Civilisation the game keeps it at a fictional enough level that you are not re-enacting whereas colonisation does not keep that level of separation.
The big question in the room is should you be re-enacting historical slavery for fun?
I could probably play a game where it wasn't historical and feel ok with it like a science fiction game but when it's something as insanely terrible as the trans-atlantic slave trade and you want to 'play' that game it feels morally wrong to me.
The same is true (if not worse) for murder. Should war be allowed?
For some reason I would want to show some reverence for historical events. It probably comes down to whether I have emotional connection to the event.
I wouldn't feel comfortable carrying out atrocities in a war video game for entertainment but the unrealistic killing that is depicted in video games and Hollywood is not the same calibre. But you are right to ask the question it's an interesting topic.
Is that glorification of murder and violence a positive thing? What do you think about it all?
That is allmost never the case. It is important to keep this in mind. I for once want a historical game to be trul historical. As close to the facts as possible.
I don’t disagree with you wholly because I think a video game that didn’t have slavery as a subject but did educate about it in this kind of way would be very effective at for example teaching kids and adults about things like Juneteenth or the only coup to ever happen on US soil. But unless the game is on rails, the historical facts will always be just one of the possible choices.
Sure. Thats why I am talking about the general setting. I start at a time, which I like to be somewhat historical correct. And from there it is free playing. Otherwise those strategygames would not be possible.
So in the example of collonization, there definitely should be the option of slaves, as it was done. But there should also be the option of avoiding it. Basically, playing nice, without the game mechanics pushing you to be a slaver. (I do not remember how it was actually implemented)
But I would not mind the game to be harder playing it nice. Which is probably more to historical truth.
What I'm trying to say is that I can see why americans see it as a sensitive issue, but as a non-american it would makes as much sense to remove indians or the parent country from the game.
Anybody remembers the GTA hot coffee mod? It was a mini sex game, added by a mod, or rather, unlocked by the mod. And it caused an outrage. Because, the whole game was about killing and stealing and exploiting. No problem. Just violence.
But having sexual content? No way. That goes too far.
Things are not compared rationally and emotionally on the same level.
[0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeIsASpecialKi...
I tried FreeCol a few years ago, when I had a free afternoon. It was kind of ok, but not particularly attractive. Most likely, I got older :)
I still praise the efforts of developers that, mostly for free, try to replicate great games from the past.
I even gave a look at FreeOrion, because Master of Orion 2 was my favorite game ever. Not as great. I think there's an easy option to play MoO2 if you buy if for a few bucks online, e.g. on Steam [0]
There's also the great Master of Magic. A developer from Japan created a complete overhaul of the game, and published it for free as a patch. I remember reading that someone bought the rights of the game from... Atari? ... And they're now developing a new version of it, and the Japanese guy is involved. Nice way to end the story :)
Strategy games are a ton of fun. A pity that I mostly played them alone, when I was a kid. Today I guess it's all about social, like Fortnite?
[0]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/410980/Master_of_Orion_2/
For all other things about Master of Magic, Blake's website [2] has a good curated list. Warning: Blake took 90's website design & styling very seriously :)
[0]: http://seravy.x10.mx/Wordpress/
Edit: from Blake's sanctum, I had no idea this existed!!
> I recently and excitedly discovered that Simtex and Micropose did indeed do a followup MoM game called Civizard - Majutsu no Keifu, a PlayStation remake of Master of Magic with totally new graphics and a remastered soundtrack. Sadly the game was only released in Japan hence why most of the western world have no idea this even exists.
so long since i played that!
Anyway, I hadn't heard about FreeCol before and it looks to be a very good effort. I'll definitely take a look at it, but, I find nostalgia usually gets the best of me and none of these remakes ever seem to scratch the itch like the originals.
Screenshots are here, http://www.freecol.org/more-screenshots.html
Another good timewaster is https://7kfans.com/ But you'll probably only enjoy it if you played the original in your youth.
Based on a open source engine, the devs have been busy remaking things to use all original assets and improving the interface. The game it self is based on another open source project called Balanced Annihilation that aimed to make TA a much more competitive game while preserving the original feel.
I have tried freecol a few times and never could muster myself to do more than a few moves. It's something about the graphical style, I guess.
It has been in development since 2002.
Some tips for those unfamiliar with it or the original:
* Stable release is rather dated, content-wise. Nightly includes good maps and mods. OTOH, nightly build has bugs and annoyances (like randomly changing some preferences and UI layout)
* The community is almost dead, you're on your own mostly.
* It's a really, really long game, prepare for months (which spans 200 years in game time). The first 10% is exploration, the last 10% is action, the rest are resource management, planning and logistics.
* If you're trying to play optimally on hard difficulty (which is kind of the point of the game), each turn in mid-game and later could easily take 20-30 min. Also you might want to have Excel around. :)
The four main arrow directions work consistently (although it's weird that they're each diagonal on the map). But Fn+arrow seems to behave inconsistently - I have a lot of trouble moving my units where I expect them to go.
Just me?