OpenCol 0.8.0

OpenCol 0.8.0: long lists scroll in place of the original's pages, the colonies' start-of-turn messages come on one Turn Report in place of a popup each, Congress shows a card for each Founding Father, and the map editor makes scenarios: roads, units, a start year and each nation's gold, tax and Founding Fathers.

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 0.7 #

Unpack 0.8 over your 0.7 folder, or copy 0.7's files into the new one. Your saved games now go in a saves folder and your maps in a maps folder, beside the program: the first start moves 0.7's there. The rules = ... line of OPENCOL.INI becomes a [Rules] section, a line for each option with its description.

Coming from 0.6 or earlier: copy the COLONYnn.SVX files from %APPDATA%\OpenCol (Windows) or ~/Library/Application Support/OpenCol (macOS) into saves, and your maps into maps.

What's new #

Long lists scroll, smoothly, with the wheel, the scroll bar and the keys, in place of the original's pages: the Naval, colony, trade and labor reports, the Village Adviser, the long popups (the map list, Go to, the trade routes past the original's 12), and the sidebar's units on a square, every one listed in place of "+ More +". Esc leaves a report; OK or Enter goes on to its next part. The labor report's page for a specialty lists every colony, not the first 30.

Turn Report (off at first, Settings > Interface): the colonies' start-of-turn messages on one page, the worst first, in place of a popup each. A click opens the colony; Shift+F10 shows it again.

Founding Fathers: when Congress chooses the next one, a card for each candidate with his face, what he does, and for eight of them what he would change for you now.

On the map

• The go-to route is exactly the one the unit will take, and keeps off other nations' units.
• Village notes: a faded good is one the village would refuse today.
• Village Adviser: the scouted villages first, each drawn as the map draws it.

The map editor

• Scenarios: the Place menu places Roads (and plowing) and Units; Start Year... and Nations... set the year and each nation's gold, tax and Founding Fathers. A new game on the map makes them.
• A new map's width and height, Generate's size, Resize Map... with Undo, and a typed seed.
• The mouse as on the game's map: the wheel zooms at the pointer, the middle button drags, the edge scrolls; Paint Without Shift.

A third rule option, colonists-may-leave-stockades: colonists may leave a colony behind walls, and the last one abandons it, as in FreeCol; the original keeps 3 behind a stockade, fort or fortress. Like the others it is off at first; turn it on in the [Rules] section of OPENCOL.INI.

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, and every turn and every saved game is identical to the original's. For contributors: the game record, the nations, the settlements, the counts and the map's planes now live in OpenCol's own memory, as the units did in 0.7.

Every difference from the DOS game, by part of the game and by release, is in CHANGELOG.md.

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.
• The rule options have no menu yet: they are set in OPENCOL.INI.
• No Linux download: build it from source. Choosing the folder there 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.