A few months ago, there were two major game releases:
Freecol 1.0.0
https://www.freecol.org/news/freecol-1.0.0-released.html
You play as colonizers and conquer the New World, competing with other colonizers and against the Crown. A classic 4X strategy game. Very long game sessions.
I like this one much more than FreeCiv because the mechanics are clearer and less convoluted. It still has a learning curve but it all makes more sense to me.
Disclaimer: I was involved in translation.
FreedroidRPG 1.0
https://www.freedroid.org/2023/01/22/release-1-0/
Yes, you read that right. Freedroid 1.0.0 is out! I bet everyone in this community has heard of it before.
This one is a HUGE deal. This game has been in development for ages, it has come a VERY long way and I can remember one of the earliest versions when the map was still mostly empty. This release actually is something special to me.
I didn't play it yet, but I played older versions ... again and again ... This game is something truly unique. You play as Tux after the robot apocalype which sounds pretty boring but actually they wrote a lot of lore. It's hard to explain, you just have to try. :D
The reason why I didn't play 1.0 yet is because I consider making a Let's Play (not sure tho).