Game options

If you decide to start a single-player game or a game server, you will be able to choose which nation to play and which colour to use. If you join a multi-player game, you can also choose a nation and colour, but another players might already have selected your preferred nation. See the chapter on your Home Country for further information on the national advantages of various European nations.

The map generator options allow you to import a map, and to set several parameters that influence the size and terrain of a randomly generated map. FreeCol includes several hand-made maps, which can be selected by clicking on the map icon.

To import a map, either select one of the maps in the shortcut panel, enter the name of a file in the import field, or click on the browser button in order to select a file via a file browser. You have the choice to import terrain, bonuses, rumors and settlements. At the moment, the map editor does not provide all these options, however.

The map generator tab allows you to select the size of the map, as well as the amount and the general shape of the land on the map. The terrain generator tab allows you to select the number of rivers, mountains, lost city rumors, native settlements, forests, and bonus tiles on the map, as well as the humidity and temperature of the map. The latter settings will influence the terrain.

The game options proper allow you to select several parameters that influence game play, such as non-standard rules, victory conditions and the difficulty of the game. The initial values tab allows you to set the amount of gold available to the players at the start of the game. This is zero by default.

The map tab allows you to select whether to use the Fog of War, whether to hide enemy units in settlements and carriers, and whether to award exploration points for regions discovered by the players. By default, exploration points are only awarded for the discovery of the Pacific Ocean.

The colony tab allows you to enable custom houses to ignore boycotts. This means that custom houses will be able to export boycotted goods. This does not apply to carriers, however, and does not prevent further boycotts by the Crown. This feature of the original game is considered a bug by the FreeCol team and is therefore disabled by default. You can also allow experts to ``have connections'', which means that experts working in factory-level buildings will be able to produce a small amount of goods even if the necessary raw materials are not generally available. This alleged feature of the original game is also disabled by default. Finally, you have the choice to save production overflow, which means that new buildings, for example, will not use up all available hammers, but only the exact number required. The remaining hammers will remain available for the next building project.

The victory conditions tab allows you to choose among three possible victory conditions. The game will be won by the first player to achieve independence, the player to eliminate all other European players, or the player to eliminate all other human players.

Finally, the difficulty tab enables you to select a difficulty level between very easy and very hard. The difficulty level influences various prices and probabilites in the game, such as amount of gold required to buy Indian land, and the probability of converting natives.