I played the original colonization, a few years after it came out (I used to play a lot of strategy videogames). It was a really nice game to play.

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/