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Game · Strategy

FreeCol

FreeCol is a turn-based strategy game, available on Linux: turn-based play.

  • Completely free
  • Linux
  • Open source

Overview

FreeCol is a turn-based strategy game, available on Linux.

Gameplay elements described in its Flathub listing and on its official website: turn-based play.

Overview written by LicitPro from the documentation published by the authors and the cited sources; we have not tried the resource ourselves.

Excerpts that establish this information
  • “FreeCol - a turn based strategy game” — official website, 10 November 2026
  • “FreeCol - a turn based strategy game” — official website, 10 November 2026

At a glance

All of FreeCol is free: no feature is locked behind a paid plan, and its code is open.

Its licence (GPL-2.0) is a copyleft open source licence: you may use, study, modify and redistribute it, including commercially; modified versions must keep the same licence.

Strengths

  • Open source code
  • Commercial use allowed

About

The FreeCol team aims to create an Open Source version of Colonization (released under the GPL). At first we'll try to make an exact clone of Colonization. The visuals will be brought up to date with more recent standards but will remain clean, simple and functional. Certain new 'features' will be implemented but the gameplay and the rules will be exactly the same as the original game. Examples of modern features are: an isometric map and multiplayer support. This clone will be developed incrementally and result in FreeCol 1.0.0 which will be an almost exact Colonization clone. Incremental development basically means that we'll add features one at a time. This allows us to have a running program at all times and also to release an unfinished but working game once in a while. Once FreeCol 1.0.0 is finished we'll start working towards FreeCol 2.0.0. FreeCol 2 will go beyond the original Colonization and will have many new features, it will be an implementation of our (and our users') image of what Colonization 2 would have been.

Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

Sources and checks

  • Facts collected from Flathub (credit card, publisher, licence, free status, platforms, commercial use, version) —
  • Last technical check: 7 November 2026
  • Description from Flathub — AppStream (Flathub)

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