OpenCol 0.7.0

OpenCol 0.7.0: each copy of OpenCol keeps everything in its own folder, settings in a readable OPENCOL.INI, and the map tells you more while you drag a move: the pointer says what the move does, and the go-to route no longer gives away what the fog hides.

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 where you can write (not in Program Files).
2. Start the program:
   • 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.

Coming from 0.6 or earlier #

OpenCol now keeps your saved games, maps, settings and log in its own folder, beside the program, and no longer in %APPDATA%\OpenCol (Windows), ~/Library/Application Support/OpenCol (macOS) or ~/.local/share/OpenCol (Linux). Two copies of OpenCol can play two copies of the game, and a copy on a USB stick takes everything with it. If OpenCol cannot write to its folder, it says so and stops.

To keep playing your games, copy the COLONYnn.SVX files (and your maps, and OPENCOL.CFG if you like) from the old folder into OpenCol's folder. The first start turns an OPENCOL.CFG into an OPENCOL.INI and leaves the old file as it was.

What's new #

OPENCOL.INI. The settings are now a text file in sections ([Display], [Sound], [Interface]...), one name = value a line, each explained by the comment above it. Change it while OpenCol is closed: your comments and spacing are kept. The rule options are the rules line of [New Game]:

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

The pointer says what a move does. While you drag a unit, the pointer over the square next to it shows talk (a scout at a village or a foreign colony, or a battle the game opens with a question), attack, or landfall (a ship carrying passengers onto the shore) in place of the original's "TO". Settings > Interface > Action Cursors turns it off.

The go-to route

• Tells nothing of what the fog hides. Into unexplored land, the route drawn is the one you would plan from what your nation has seen, grey where the fog lies, with a "?" on the target. It used to show a hidden lake by bending round it.
• Marks in yellow where something happens: boarding or leaving a ship, a Lost City Rumour, a village, a foreign unit or colony. A land unit dragged onto its ship by the coast is now routed onto it.

Village notes: of the three goods a chief wants, the one he badly needs is drawn in full colour and the other two faded, in the sidebar and in the Village Adviser.

The rules stay the original's unless you turn on an option. The tests replay the computer-only games, the War of Independence and the scripted sessions, with the action cursors on too, and every turn and every saved game is identical to the original's. For contributors: every unit now lives in OpenCol's own memory, past the original's 1 MB (the original's 301 units kept as its view for the tests).

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: they are set in OPENCOL.INI.
• 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.

Open an issue for the fixes and features you want.