I bet you noticed that I don’t use the default Amplio tileset in my screenshots.

I have never liked Freeciv’s isometric tilesets because I haven’t seen an isometric tileset that’s as clear as is the original 2D tileset. I always get headache when trying to interpret Freeciv’s isometric tilesets.

Freeciv offers four standard tilesets and you can install more or even make your own. Most of the time you can just switch the tileset without changes to the server.

The current tileset can be changed from the client’s settings: Game – Options – Local Client under the Tileset option.

Amplio2 is Freeciv’s newest tileset and the default. It’s isometric and much bigger in resolution than other tilesets shipped with Freeciv. I personally do think it’s much more clean — even almost usable — but I don’t like the small amount of tiles this tileset allows on the screen. I’m not going to use it before Freeciv offers a way to zoom the map.

Isotrident was Freeciv’s previous default tileset (some years ago). It was the first isometric tileset to replace the original trident tileset.

Trident is Freeciv’s original 2D tileset. In my opinion it’s still the best and most clear tileset available.

Isophex is the only hexagonal tileset shipped with Freeciv. Though it can be used with a “normal” 2D/isotrident server, it does not make much sense unless used with a hexagonal-type Freeciv server.

You can install more tilesets from Freeciv’s homepage.

Installing tilesets in Linux

For example in Linux tilesets can be installed simply by unpacking the package under ~/.freeciv/2.3:

wget http://download.gna.org/freeciv/contrib/tilesets/freeland/freeland-3.0-Beta2-normal--freeciv-2.3.x.tar.gz
cd .freeciv/2.3/
zcat ~/freeland-3.0-Beta2-normal--freeciv-2.3.x.tar.gz|tar xf -

Installing tilesets in Windows 7

On my Windows 7 the right place to unpack the tileset package was C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Freeciv-2.3.0-gtk2. However I’m not sure if this is the correct place always. After the unpack there should be a directory named freeland and a file named freeland.tilespec.