Talk:Freeciv

Learning freeciv

I find learning freeciv somewhat difficult for a beginner. Should a section be there on how to start, and proceed with the game? --Phoe6 20:52, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

No. This isn't a manual - that should be done by interested parties at either Wikibooks, the Internet in general, or the Freeciv project. --Gwern (contribs) 21:14 17 November 2006 (GMT)

I agree. A manual and several beginners' guides are available at www.freeciv.org. Rp 17:49, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Freeciv vs. Civ: copyright issues?

If anyone knows the answer, I think it would be very valuable (and encyclopedic) if this page explained the copyright issues involved in Freeciv.

Currently this page simply says:

Freeciv is a multiplayer, turn-based strategy game for personal computers inspired by the commercial Sid Meier's Civilization series. Released under the GNU General Public License....

I think this sentence makes two claims that may be false, and certainly need some sort of justification to avoid being POV:

Name

"Inspired by"??? No, Freeciv is Civ. In fact, I would argue that Freeciv is closer to Civ 1 than Civ 2 is to Civ 1, and nobody says that Civ 2 is merely "inspired by" Civ 1.

Edit: I have changed it to say Civ 2. This is as Civ 1 uses a top down view and Civ2 and freeciv use isometric

Freeciv's default tileset is indeed isometric, but it fully supports both top-down and hexagonal layouts as well. Fact is, before v2.0 the default and only view was the top-down one. I for one still prefer playing the game with this view. --Himasaram 01:09, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I understand that some of you may be Freeciv players with a vested interest in Sid Meier not suing for money from Freeciv. But if such a lawsuit happened, any court in the world would rule that Freeciv was not merely "inspired by" Civ, but copied almost all of its details, usually quite literally.

It's unclear to what extent making use of another game's rules and conceptual elements constitutes copying in the sense of copyright law. Freeciv is most certainly free of literal copying: all source code and data elements (e.g. artwork) was created specifically for Freeciv. Some additional material available on the website does reuse pre-existing material, but always with the explicit permission of the original creator. Rp 12:00, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Licence

"Released under the GNU GPL..." By what right? If Sid Meier owned the original copyright, then he would have had to relinquish these rights in order for Freeciv to be under copyleft.

What I am writing here is partially speculation (and that's why I haven't edited the main page). Can someone who knows the true story please clarify?

And one final nitpick. The opening sentence says that Freeciv is "for personal computers". As someone who spent three years in grad school playing Freeciv on the Unix machines in our math department, let me assure you that Freeciv is far more widely used than just on the PC market. This probably needs to be revised as well. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 07:58, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

The first question is very complex and has been discussed for over a decade with no definite answer so far (search the mailing lists or the web forums for old discussions). As for the second question: The source code and artwork that are released under the GPL are all original, created by the Freeciv developers. It is completely unrelated to Meier's work. --Himasaram 09:08, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

In general I think games are not covered by US copyright, except for the verbatim copying of text or pictures: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html Thue | talk 09:41, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. The government website you linked to says that a particlar part of a game "may be subject to copyright if it contains a sufficient amount of literary or pictorial expression." I'm now very curious what "sufficient amount" means. Freeciv copied all the names of things from Sid Meier's Civilization.

Those names are all real-life historical concepts. Hardly copyrightable. --Himasaram 00:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course, Meier's Civilization copied a number of basic concepts and names from the Avalon Hill Civilization board game, but the strategy details are all different. Freeciv has identical strategic details to Civ. I have seen players who are experts in Civ join a Freeciv game, having never played it before, and implement their usual Civ strategies with perfect results. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 21:48, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Meier's and Avalon Hill's Civilizations are two radically different games. What got Meier into trouble was IIRC only the use of the trademark Civilization. --Himasaram 00:34, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Notability

Someone has added a notability tag to this article but hasn't explained his reasons for doing so. I just found this article but I can't seem to figure out why that tag was put there, since there seems to be plenty of third-party documentation of this game (one source I just added). What do you all think? If he (or someone else) doesn't explain his reasoning within the next few days, the tag should be removed.71.231.87.53 (talk) 16:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Less advanced graphics?

"The graphics in Freeciv are in some respects less advanced than in Civilization II" I for one really doubt this, at least judging by screenshots. The source linked refers to some old version of freeciv(download-link is to 1.81 or something), and I dont believe that it is appliable to current versions.