For my friends, I’ve found a small treasure trove of free games (some) are of very high-quality & well tested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games
Most of the the games on this site are remakes of original games that you had to buy. If you don’t mind an occasional obscure bug during game-play you’ll probly find something you can enjoy. Another great thing about these games is that they were created under the concept of ‘Open Source’ where a group software writer created these games out of personal interest.
FreeCiv has been my bane for the last several weeks, sucking up all my free time. It took me ~600 turns to ‘win’ the space race. Now I can resume a normal life.
My basic tricks for improving game play:
- Economy vs Happiness… Simply keep this balanced, and attempt to get to a Democracy government A.S.A.P. The Democracy allows for the largest army when you have the JS Bach wonder & Cure for Cancer wonder.
- Building large cities is best by choosing the sequence of improvements:
(This is a highlights list) granary, market place, aquaduct, supermarket, mass transit, super highways, recycling center. Sprinkle in between these items manufacturing improvements.�
Another big action is ‘Transform’ the terrain around your city to 75% Grasslands with infrastructure of Farms. This will allow for the largest cities of size 27+. - War machine: Use a barrage of airplanes to remove all the city’s defending units. If there is a SAM present, use a spy to disable it first. Protect the spy with an entourage mechanized infantry.
I’m also looking forward to a production release of Free Orion. This is a remake of Master of Orion, that is in development. I played the game in its alpha stages, a limited tech tree and the war-machine was non-existant, however the look-n-feel is great. The graphics were beautiful & the management of the planets was easy, allowing for more of a macro-mangement approach. I hope they provide a better reports feature in future versions.
I’ve also got a small download section of my personal favorite games here, if you are interested.
Happy Gaming,
– JJ –