FreeCiv Game Manual |
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.
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River |
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Road |
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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.
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.
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Irrigation |
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Mine |
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.
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Village |
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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 | |
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Glacier Move: 2 |
0/0/0 1/1/4 Ivory 0/4/0 Oil |
4 Road 10 Mine: production +1 24 Transform: produces Tundra |
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Tundra Move: 1 |
1/0/0 3/1/0 Game 2/0/3 Furs |
2 Road 5 Irrigate: food +1 24 Transform: produces Desert |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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Ocean Move: 1 |
1/0/2 3/0/2 Fish 2/2/3 Whales |
36 Transform: produces Swamp |
Next: Cities |