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FreeCiv Game Manual
Overview Terrain Cities Economy Units Combat Government Technology Wonders Index

Terrain

The FreeCiv world is made of squares arranged in a rectangular grid whose north and south edges end against the polar ice, but whose east and west edges connect, forming a cylinder that can be circumnavigated. Each square contains some kind of terrain, which together form larger features like oceans, continents, and mountain ranges.

Terrain serves three roles: the theater upon which your units battle rival civilizations, the landscape across which your units travel, and the medium which your cities work to produce resources. We shall consider each role in turn.

Combat. Terrain affects combat very simply: when a land unit is attacked, its defense strength is multiplied by the defense bonus of the terrain beneath it, if the terrain offers one. See the page on combat for details, and the catalogue below for which terrains offers bonuses.

Transportation. Sea and air units always expend one movement point to move one square — sea units because they are confined to the ocean and adjacent cities, and air units because they ignore terrain completely. Terrain really only complicates the movement of land units.

River
Road
Railroad

With the bridge building advance, roads and railroads can be built across rivers. Note that roads enhance trade for some types of terrain, as shown in the catalogue below, and railroads increase by half the production output of a square. Cities are always assumed to have roads inside — and railroads, when their owner has that technology — which will connect to roads built adjacent to the city.

Improving Terrain

When cities work terrain there are three products, described further in Working Land: food points, production points, and trade points. These three are so important that we specify the output of a square simply by listing them with slashes in between: 1/2/0 describes a square that each turn produces one food point, two production points, and no trade points.

The catalogue below lists the output of each terrain, both with and without special resources such as game or minerals. Special resources occur both on land and along coastlines. They are neither created nor destroyed during the game; even if the terrain beneath a resource is transformed, the resource will change to one compatible with the new terrain.

Irrigation
Mine
There are three ways to improve terrain. Both settlers and engineers can irrigate land to produce more food or build a mine to yield more production points. Terrain not suitable for irrigation or mining can often be altered to become more suitable — attempting to irrigate a forest, for example, creates plains which can then be irrigated. Once built, a mine or irrigation system is destroyed by further alteration of the terrain. To irrigate land there must exist a water source in one of the four adjoining squares, whether river or ocean or other irrigated land; but once irrigated, land remains so even if the water source is removed.

Only engineers can directly transform land, with the results detailed in the catalogue below.

Note that engineers have two movement points per turn to invest in their activities, and thus complete all improvements in half the number of turns specified in the catalogue. Several units working on the same square under the same orders combine their labor, speeding completion of their project. When a unit's orders are interrupted its progress is lost.

Villages

Village
The user who hosts the game has the option of including villages, primitive communities spread across the world at the beginning of the game. (Some users also call them huts.) Any land unit can enter a village, making the village disappear and deliver a random response. If the village proves hostile, it could produce barbarians or the unit entering may simply be destroyed. If they are friendly, the player could receive gold, a new technology, a military unit, or even a new city.

Terrain Catalogue

Terrain: the name of each terrain are the number of movement points required to move one square, and any defense bonus offered. Yield: the food, production, and trade that can be harvested from the land each turn, in the abbreviated format described above. The yield is also given for various resources that may be present. Improvement Options: lists each possible modification of the land, preceded by its cost in settler-turns and followed by its result.

Terrain Yield Improvement Options
Glacier
Move: 2
0/0/0
1/1/4 Ivory
0/4/0 Oil
4 Road
10 Mine: production +1
24 Transform: produces Tundra
Tundra
Move: 1
1/0/0
3/1/0 Game
2/0/3 Furs
2 Road
5 Irrigate: food +1
24 Transform: produces Desert
Desert
Move: 1
0/1/0
3/1/0 Oasis
0/4/0 Oil
2 Road: trade +1
5 Irrigate: food +1
5 Mine: production +1
24 Transform: produces Plains
Plains
Move: 1
1/1/0
1/3/0 Buffalo
3/1/0 Wheat
2 Road: trade +1
5 Irrigate: food +1
15 Mine: produces Forest
24 Transform: produces Grassland
Grassland
Move: 1
2/0/0
2/1/0 Resources
2 Road: trade +1
5 Irrigate: food +1
10 Mine: produces Forest
24 Transform: produces Hills
Forest
Move: 2
Defense: ×1.5
1/2/0
3/2/0 Pheasant
1/2/3 Silk
4 Road
5 Irrigate: produces Plains
15 Mine: produces Swamp
24 Transform: produces Grassland
Jungle
Move: 2
Defense: ×1.5
1/0/0
1/0/4 Gems
4/0/1 Fruit
4 Road
15 Irrigate: produces Grassland
15 Mine: produces Forest
24 Transform: produces Plains
Swamp
Move: 2
Defense: ×1.5
1/0/0
1/4/0 Peat
3/0/4 Spice
4 Road
15 Irrigate: produces Grassland
15 Mine: produces Forest
36 Transform: produces Ocean
Hills
Move: 2
Defense: ×2
1/0/0
1/2/0 Coal
1/0/4 Wine
4 Road
10 Irrigate: food +1
10 Mine: production +3
24 Transform: produces Plains
Mountains
Move: 3
Defense: ×3
0/1/0
0/1/6 Gold
0/4/0 Iron
6 Road
10 Mine: production +1
24 Transform: produces Hills
Ocean
Move: 1
1/0/2
3/0/2 Fish
2/2/3 Whales
36 Transform: produces Swamp
Next: Cities

Overview Terrain Cities Economy Units Combat Government Technology Wonders Index