FreeCol's 0.9.0 "alpha" stage was released in early October 2009 and the final form in early January 2010.
- Pictures of buildings in colony screen. Arranged in a fixed order, unlike the original game, where only the water-related buildings had a fixed place on the page.
- More permissible variety in screen size. (That will please anyone who has an Eee pc 1000, which has 1024 by 600 screen resolution.)
- Clear "borders".
- Smarter AI.
- You can abandon a colony even after it has a stockade. (In Col1 you cannot, which should be the default option in FreeCol 1.0.0.)
- With de Witt, a custom house circumvents boycotts.
- Changed algorithm for bells per founding father; as burschik says: "We now use an algorithm that this source (http://t-a-w.blogspot.com/2007/05/colonization-tips.html) claims to be that of the original game."