Freeciv
Shares rank 9 of 24 strategy games by recommenders
Free, open-source Civilization-style strategy game that people enjoy and play online with friends. Critics note slowdowns on large maps with many AIs and higher memory use.
Free, open-source Civilization-style strategy game that people enjoy and play online with friends. Critics note slowdowns on large maps with many AIs and higher memory use.
21 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 9
- approval share
- 57%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Online play with friends and reconnects
“the beauty of being able to disconnect and reconnect with backups taken every 5 mins from the server”
Comment from 19 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Playing LongTurn FreeCiv with Friends” “online Nethack/Wesnoth/FreeCiv gameplays over it”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “US Bill Mandates On-Device Age Verification” Nostalgia for early Civilization games
“playing Freeciv with XaW in my early Linux days”
Comment from 23 Sep 2026 in “What Sun got wrong” “Freeciv was what brought me too the civ world”
Comment from 7 Feb 2026 in “OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III” Enjoyable, fun free game
“The Free Civ and Free Colonization games are good.”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Battle for Wesnoth: open-source, turn-based strategy game” “That was such a great game!”
Comment from 19 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Playing LongTurn FreeCiv with Friends” Recommended alongside other free games
“Supertux2, Crispy Doom, SDLQuake, FreeCiv-SDL”
Comment from 17 Apr 2026 in “FIM – Linux framebuffer image viewer” “if you want to play those, hit up freeciv”
Comment from 6 Feb 2026 in “OpenCiv3: Open-source, cross-platform reimagining of Civilization III”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Newer version uses more memory and CPU
“the newest version of it requires much much much more memory and cpu, despite being the same game”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “0 A.D. Release 28: Boiorix” “the newest version of it requires much much much more memory and cpu”
Comment from 23 Feb 2026 in “0 A.D. Release 28: Boiorix” Weak client and fiddly UI
“all these fiddly and very fickle UI toolkits”
Comment from 29 Mar 2026 in “OpenCiv1 – open-source rewrite of Civ1” “the FreeCiv client sucks (it really does)”
Comment from 18 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Playing LongTurn FreeCiv with Friends”
Other strategy games people recommend
The four most recommended other strategy games, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battle for Wesnoth | 39 | 4 | 91% | 4 | 10 yrs5 owners | Approved |
| Sid Meier's Civilization | 25 | 9 | 74% | 10 | — | Approved |
| Sid Meier's Civilization III | 20 | 10 | 67% | 3 | — | — |
| Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri | 16 | 0 | 100% | 7 | — | Approved |
| FreecivThis page | 12 | 9 | 57% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
17 of the 23 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“playing Freeciv with XaW in my early Linux days”
“online Nethack/Wesnoth/FreeCiv gameplays over it”
“Supertux2, Crispy Doom, SDLQuake, FreeCiv-SDL”
“The Free Civ and Free Colonization games are good.”
“all these fiddly and very fickle UI toolkits”
“the beauty of being able to disconnect and reconnect with backups taken every 5 mins from the server”
“That was such a great game!”
“FreeCiv does make more sense.”
“the FreeCiv client sucks (it really does)”
“the newest version of it requires much much much more memory and cpu, despite being the same game”
“the newest version of it requires much much much more memory and cpu”
“The latter has more, like Multiplayer 2.4 Dragoon, and Multiplayer 2.5 Elephant”
“does not slow down so much when playing larger maps with many AIs, like both FreeCiv and FreeCivWeb tend to do”
“Freeciv was what brought me too the civ world”
“Freeciv unfortunately has none of the charm of Civ1.”
“Freeciv's point of interest is that it's not trying to exactly replicate any one of the original Civs”
“if you want to play those, hit up freeciv”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.