FreeCol 0.11.6

 

FreeCol 0.11.6 has been released. All 0.10.x and 0.11.x games should continue to work with 0.11.6, with the exception of games generated with 0.11.4 which are badly broken. For more details on the changes since 0.11.5, see the release notes.

We hope this time you get to enjoy the new FreeCol release. Onward to 1.0.

The FreeCol Team

 

FreeCol 0.11.5

 

FreeCol 0.11.5 has been released with one critical bug fix from the withdrawn 0.11.4. All 0.10.x and 0.11.x games should continue to work with 0.11.5, with the exception of games generated with 0.11.4 which are badly broken. For more details on the changes since 0.11.3, see the release notes.

We hope this time you get to enjoy the new FreeCol release. Onward to 1.0.

The FreeCol Team

 

FreeCol 0.11.4

 

FreeCol 0.11.4 was released on Friday, but found to generate broken maps. It has been withdrawn. 0.11.5 will be released soon.

FreeCol 0.11.3

 

The FreeCol team are vaguely pleased to announce the release of FreeCol 0.11.3. This is a bug fix release to clean up yet more annoying problems in version 0.11.0/1/2. See the release notes for more detail. All 0.10.x and 0.11.x games should continue to work with 0.11.3.
 

We hope you enjoy FreeCol 0.11.3.  Onward to 1.0.

The FreeCol Team

 

FreeCol 0.11.2

 

The FreeCol team are mostly pleased to announce the release of FreeCol 0.11.2. This is a bug fix release to clean up yet more annoying problems in version 0.11.0/1. See the release notes for more detail. All 0.10.x and 0.11.x games should continue to work with 0.11.2.
 

We hope you enjoy FreeCol 0.11.2.  Onward to 1.0.

The FreeCol Team

 

FreeCol 0.11.1

 

The FreeCol team are sort-of pleased to announce the release of FreeCol 0.11.1. This is a bug fix release to clean up some annoying problems in version 0.11.0. See the release notesfor more detail. All 0.10.x and 0.11.0 games should continue to work with 0.11.1.
 

We hope you enjoy FreeCol 0.11.1.  Onward to 1.0.

The FreeCol Team

 

FreeCol 0.11.0

The FreeCol team are pleased to announce the release of FreeCol 0.11.0.  This release is mainly an opportunity for the developers to fix some difficult structural problems that were blocking progress. That said, there are many useful new user visible features, listed in the release notes.  And lots of bugs were fixed.

In particular, we had an intractable cluster of bugs that could not be fixed without making an incompatible change to the saved game format and dropping the 0.9.x compatibility code.  Therefore, this is 0.11.0, not 0.10.8, and 0.9.x games will no longer load correctly.  The hope is that this is the last save-format break before 1.0.

 

Given the large changes and long gap since the last release, the next release is likely to be a maintenance/bugfix release to tidy up problems that were missed in testing.  More people testing the git/trunk would be most welcome.

 

We hope you enjoy FreeCol 0.11.0.  Onward to 1.0.

The FreeCol Team

 

FreeCol 0.10.7 has been released.  This is a bug fix release to correct some serious gameplay problems in 0.10.6.  The only new feature present is some improvements to the graphics.

Since FreeCol 0.10.6 was released there have been 18 new bug reports, of which 8 are fixed in 0.10.7, one (roads are sometimes ignored) is partially fixed, 4 were invalid, 3 can not be reproduced or are otherwise awaiting clarification, one was a duplicate and one was a content contribution.  Two other pre-0.10.6 bug reports were also fixed.  Bug reports remain crucial to improving FreeCol.  When reporting please try think about what the developers would need to reproduce the bug.  Very few bugs are easily reproducible from just a textural description.  Too many bug reports get stalled, sometimes indefinitely, because of a missing log file (which is almost always needed in the case of a crash or hang) or missing saved game (almost always needed to replay some sort of strange behaviour).

Note also, we do not handle translation directly.  FreeCol is translated by the volunteers at https://translatewiki.net/.  Please raise translation issues there, except in cases where you see messages containing percent-delimited words %like% %this%.  These are coding bugs and belong on the bug tracker.

There were also several other bugs fixed, including one that can result in certain bonuses (e.g. Jefferson, Newspaper) being counted twice.  This can lead to very enjoyable levels of bell production.  New games should not have this problem, but existing saved games are vulnerable.  Unfortunately, a fully backward compatible fix would be quite complex and thus likely to cause worse problems and delay this release, so please do not report this as a bug.  Such reports will be closed with a `Wont Fix' status.

There are also lurking problems with old saved games using the America_large map, due to some lake tiles with null regions and single isolated river tiles.  The map has been fixed so new games are safe.  These problems have caused crashes, all reported cases of which are fixed, but we are not that confident there are no more.

Finally, there are still various hard to reproduce problems where the active unit is not correctly displayed.  These tend to depend strongly on what happened just before.  If you wish to report one of these bugs, we will need a saved game, and instructions on what to do to make the problem happen.  A saved game in the failed state will not be enough.

 

We hope you enjoy FreeCol 0.10.7.

 

FreeCol 0.10.6 has been released, to coincide with the end of the world.  Thanks to all contributors, but particularly to izzieliu (see below) and reflame (most prolific bug reporter).

The main user-visible changes since 0.10.5 are:

• >80 bugs fixed.
  
• colony names (freecol ruleset): The colony names have been revised for accuracy and chronological order, contributed by izzieliu.
  
• disasters: Colonies aare subject to natural disasters.
• editor: The map editor should be working again.
• European trade: Trading of goods with other European nations should be working again.
• intervention force: A foreign power may intervene and aid you against the REF.
• map reveal: The map is fully revealed on independence, as in Col1.
• native anger: Native settlements now have a `most hated nation', visible in the various popups, reports and the `!' chip by the settlement name.
• native trade: An option has been added to allow trading with empty carrier units.
• options panel: New tree-view of the options.
• path finding: The path finding code has been reworked, and should now find the fastest path in more cases.
• peace: The monarch now sometimes declares peace.
• ship names: Ships now have names by default. Historic ship name list contributed by izzieliu.
• AI:
  1. Following the path finding rewrite, most AI actions have been reworked and are now more robust and efficient, fixing many long standing bugs.  This was a lot of work and the main reason for the long release cycle.  Much of this is not really obvious to a casual player, the AI just fails less often.
     For example: In a 0.10.5 test game the Russian AI sent a unit to build a colony on a small island, but when it arrived the colony site had already been taken by the Swedish.  The Russian unit just hung around until eventually captured.  With 0.10.6 a new colony site is chosen as soon as the existing one becomes unavailable, and if needed a transport unit will be sent to take the colony founders there.
  2. European AI nations now send missionaries to nearby native settlements.
  3. European AI player cheating has been reduced, some explicit cheats are now controllable in the game options.
  4. Native AI gift and tribute demand probabilities are now game options.
  5. Note though, with very few exceptions, the AI is concerned only with the efficiency of its movements.  It makes no attempt to check if it is moving its units into danger.  Not yet.  That is the next major thing to do with the AI.  For now, do not bother reporting bugs where the AI moved a unit into unnecessary danger.  We know.

 

A serious bug has been discovered in 0.10.6 that removes all colonists from captured colonies. 0.10.7 will be releasd soon, fixing this and other less serious bugs.

 

FreeCol 0.10.5 has been released. This is mainly a bug-fix release to fix serious game corrupting bugs in 0.10.4.

A few other bugs have been fixed, and the amount of lumber delivered when a forest tile is cleared is now more Col1 compatible.