The Freeciv Game User's Guide

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## 1.0 Overview of the Game

The game of Freeciv is played in turns, which begin at the dawn of civilization, the year 4000 B.C.E., and run to the space age. Each turn represents a varying number of years: 50 years per turn until 1000 B.C.E., then 25 years per turn until 1 C.E., and so on, up to one turn per year in 1900 C.E. Time advances even faster than that once any civilization achieves the technology to build spaceships.

In each turn, you, as the immortal, absolute ruler of your civilization, direct the movements and actions of your explorers, colonists, armies, and ships. You establish new cities and the construction of buildings within them, including the erection of Wonders of the World. You assign the workers in your cities to their tasks, working the land and sea or providing special talents. You command the economic priorities of your nation, dictate their form of government, and aim their research along the paths you choose.

Starting from a tiny band of colonists and explorers, able only to see a small portion of the world's surface, you discover and dominate more and more of the world. You build ships and send them across the oceans, discovering new lands with unusual, foreign people, to which you send your armies to crush them. You speak for your race to the leaders of the other civilizations you find (if they are human players) in the style you wish, whether it be warlike or peaceful.

The game ends when one civilization achieves one of the ultimate goals. You win when either:

- You have eradicated the last city and the last unit of every other civilization, leaving all of humanity under your domination; or
- Yours is the first race to discover space flight, build a starship, and use it to plant a colony on a world of Alpha Centauri.
- You have the highest score of all civilizations at the end of the game (by default, 2000 C.E.).

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