OpenCol 0.9.0

OpenCol 0.9.0: the World View. The map is drawn whole and shown through a camera: it pans by the pixel, zooms by any amount at the pointer, and fills the window to its edges. Also the full Combat Analysis, and three of the original's trade-route and colony bugs fixed.

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.

Coming from 0.8: unpack 0.9.0 over your 0.8 folder. Your saved games, maps and settings stay as they are.

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.

New #

• World View (Settings > Display, on at first): the map pans by the pixel (the middle button, the window's edge, two fingers on a Mac) and zooms by any amount at the pointer (the wheel, a pinch), filling the window to its edges, half squares included. The game underneath still moves its view by squares, so the rules see nothing new. Outside the Map shows the original's wood past the map's edges, or black.
• The map fills the window at first: a wider or larger window shows more of the map, not black bands. Until you choose a UI Scale, OpenCol picks the largest that leaves the screen at least 360 game pixels tall.
• Combat Analysis in full (Settings > Interface): every step of both strengths in the order the game applies it, the hidden ones too (the difficulty level's bonus and handicaps, a colonist's halving against soldiers, the Crown's regulars), then each side's combat strength and the attacker's chance to win. Combat Difficulty hides the difficulty level's lines.
• Edge scroll speed: a slider in Settings > Input, 1 to 10.
• Longer map names: up to 31 characters in the editor, Custom Scenario and Import 1994 save, where DOS allowed 8 and an extension.

Fixed (for everyone, not rule options) #

• Trade routes deliver boycotted goods. After a Tea Party, a wagon or ship on a route never unloaded the boycotted good and carried it for good. Now it unloads at a colony stop, as unloading by hand does; in Europe it stays aboard, unsold, while the boycott lasts. (#4)
• 100 trade routes, not the original's 12; past 12 the list scrolls.
• Ships leave an abandoned colony. When a colony was abandoned, starved or was disbanded, its ships were left on the land, where they vanished. Now they sail out to the sea beside it with their passengers.

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.

Every difference from the DOS game, by part of the game and by release, is in CHANGELOG.md. Open an issue for the fixes and features you want.