OpenCol 0.6.0

OpenCol 0.6.0: the first rule options, saved games and maps with room to grow, a map editor that places everything, and a lot more comfort on the map: edge scrolling, wheel zoom, Quick Save, the go-to route drawn as you drag.

OpenCol is Sid Meier's Colonization for DOS (version 3.0, February 1995), decompiled and rebuilt as a modern program that plays exactly like the original unless you turn on a rule option. You need your own copy of the DOS game (as sold by GOG and Steam): OpenCol contains nothing of the game.

Play #

1. Download the zip for your system below and unpack it.
2. Start the program from anywhere:
   • Windows 10 or later: opencol.exe (windows-x64; windows-x86 is the 32-bit one).
   • macOS 11 or later, Apple silicon and Intel: opencol.
3. The first time, OpenCol asks for the folder of your copy of the game: the one with VICEROY.EXE (in the GOG version, the COLONIZE folder), or any folder above it. It remembers it.

macOS asks first, because OpenCol is not signed by Apple: right-click opencol and choose Open, or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine . in the folder.

What's new #

Rule options. Fixes for the original's bugs and changes to its rules come as options, each off unless you turn it on. There is no menu for them yet: name them on one line of OPENCOL.CFG, in OpenCol's folder, while OpenCol is closed:

rules=custom-house-obeys-boycotts:1,ai-loads-what-it-plans:1

• custom-house-obeys-boycotts (#19): a Custom House keeps a boycotted good in store and sells it again once the boycott ends.
• ai-loads-what-it-plans: a computer player's ship or wagon train loads what its plan says, not up to 100 of a good whatever it planned.

A new game takes the options on that line and keeps them to its end, in its saved games too. A 1994 saved game plays by the original's rules.

Saved games and maps. OpenCol now saves games as .SVX and maps as .MPX, with room for what the 1994 files cannot hold. It still loads every 1994 saved game and map: they are in the list marked (1994), and Import 1994 save... loads any other .SAV. A slot that cannot be loaded says why. The 1994 game cannot load the new files.

On the map

• The map scrolls when the pointer rests at the window's edge, follows the middle button when you drag, and the wheel zooms.
• The go-to route is drawn while you drag a unit: the squares it will step through, where each turn ends, and where it would stop short. A unit already on its way shows its route when the pointer rests on it.
• Quick Save and Quick Load: Ctrl+S and Ctrl+L. Keep the last 10 turns' autosaves lets you go back up to ten turns.
• Exit to Main Menu in the GAME menu, and on Esc: exit without saving, save first, or keep playing.
• Village notes (first version): the sidebar shows what you have learned about a village, what it teaches, sells and wants, and REPORTS > Village Adviser (Shift+F9) lists them all.

Settings has five pages now: Display, Sound, Input, Interface and Saves. New in them: Music and Sound volume sliders, the edge scroll, middle-button drag and wheel zoom switches, and Stretch to fill a large window. The first window is as large as fits your display, sharp on high-DPI screens.

The main menu is New Game, Load Game, Settings, Map Editor, Hall of Fame and Exit. New Game > America starts the America map at once; Custom Scenario plays the maps you make or download.

The map editor

• A Place menu puts resources, rumours, villages and each nation's start square on the map, not only terrain; From a Seed... fills resources and rumours as the game would.
• More steps of Undo and Redo, a check of the map before saving, and Export Map as PNG.
• Play This Map in Game, and Return to Map Editor from that game.
• It starts with a choice: a new empty map, an existing one, or a random New World.
• Maps may be larger than the original's 12,000 squares, up to 228 squares a side. OpenCol plays them; the 1994 game cannot.

When something goes wrong, OpenCol now says so. Every run is logged in OPENCOL.LOG, in OpenCol's folder, and a stop on an error writes a CRASH-...txt report and offers to open the folder. Attach both to an issue, with a saved game from just before.

Fixed #

• A map that does not load says why, in the game and in the editor.
• Three places where the 1994 code relied on what its own compiler happened to do (text shifted over itself in menus and popups, among them), found by playing long games under sanitizers, now do what the original did on every compiler.

For contributors: the code has typed accessors for units, nations and the map in place of raw masks, a typed API for new features (src/port/api.h), a README in every source folder, a gettext text catalogue, and a contributor guide that needs only your copy of the game. The tests check every change against the original turn by turn, now also through golden hashes anyone can run.

Without rule options, the rules stay the original's. The tests replay the computer-only games, the War of Independence and the scripted sessions, and every turn and every saved game is identical to the original's.

Limits of this release #

• Sound Blaster and AdLib sound only: the Roland MT-32 and General MIDI drivers are not supported.
• The colony screen, Europe and the reports keep the original's 320 x 200: their pictures were drawn at that size.
• Two rule options so far, and no menu for them yet.
• On Linux (built from source), choosing the folder needs xdg-desktop-portal or zenity; without them, start OpenCol in the game's folder or with --game FOLDER.