I got on a Civilization kick today. It started at Instapundit, who linked to Brad DeLong. Brad had three articles referrencing his children's play of Civ: Democracy is way too hard (which included Sid Meier on Defeating the Taliban (in the comments, at the bottom) , Never build the Manhattan Project unless you have to, and Fundamentalism is perfect for the 20th Century .

A search turned up freeciv, a GNU deal I may just have to check out.