1FREECIV(6) Games Manual FREECIV(6)
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6 freeciv - The Freeciv game (overview)
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9 freeciv-gtk3.22|freeciv-sdl2|freeciv-qt|freeciv-[various...] [ op‐
10 tions... ]
11 freeciv-server [ options... ]
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14 Freeciv is a free turn-based multiplayer strategy game, in which each
15 player becomes the leader of a civilization, fighting to obtain the ul‐
16 timate goal: To become the greatest civilization.
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18 Players of Civilization II® by Microprose® should feel at home, since
19 one aim of Freeciv is to have compatible rules.
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21 Freeciv is maintained by an international team of coders and enthusi‐
22 asts, and is easily one of the most fun and addictive network games out
23 there!
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25 Freeciv is designed to be played either over a network or on one ma‐
26 chine. There can be a single human player, or multiple human player in
27 different locations on different kinds of computers. Freeciv can oper‐
28 ate artificial intelligence (AI) players as desired, to fill out the
29 game.
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31 Human players run a freeciv-client(6) program to join a game. There are
32 several different Freeciv client programs to choose between. The
33 Freeciv client can be thought of as a thin window onto the server's in‐
34 formation and activity.
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36 The terrain, rules, and activity of the game are held by a running
37 freeciv-server(6) program. In a single-player game, the player's client
38 program starts up its own local server program behind the scenes. In a
39 multi-player game, someone starts the server first, then players con‐
40 nect to that server. The server runs the AI players. The server en‐
41 forces the game rules, even if a cleverly-modified client program tries
42 to cheat.
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44 The Freeciv game is translated into many different languages. Gener‐
45 ally, the Freeciv client follows the conventions of the computer it
46 runs on to determine which language it should use when presenting the
47 game to the player.
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49 The Freeciv game offers many ways to tweak how games are set up, and to
50 create completely different looks and game play. When starting the
51 Freeciv server, you can adjust many parameters of the game map, rules,
52 and models which drive the game. You can set the the number and diffi‐
53 culty level of the AI players. You can set the size of the map and the
54 kind of terrain. You can also choose among various rule sets and sce‐
55 narios, which can lead to very different kinds of games. When running
56 a Freeciv client, you can choose among tilesets and soundsets, to ad‐
57 just how games look and sound.
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59 The Freeciv community offers even more scenarios, rulesets, tilesets,
60 and soundsets. A freeciv-modpack(6) utility lets you locate and down‐
61 load this additional content.
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63 There are Freeciv "metaservers" which catalogue Freeciv servers seeking
64 to attract players. One is operated by the Freeciv project. When start‐
65 ing a Freeciv client, you may have it contact a metaserver to find
66 games to join. When starting a Freeciv server, you may have it publish
67 its presence with a metaserver.
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70 Please report bugs to the Freeciv bug tracker,
71 https://osdn.net/projects/freeciv/ticket/ .
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74 There is a great deal more information at the Freeciv homepage,
75 http://www.freeciv.org/ . Updates and new info are first posted there.
76 A Client Manual, a Server Manual, and a wiki on many topics, are pub‐
77 lished there. There is a user forum linked to from there.
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79 Freeciv installers include a number of documentation files with the
80 game. See the FILES section for the location. They make interesting
81 reading — especially after you have played for a while, when you are
82 beginning to wonder how you can do more, and why the AI players can do
83 so much.
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86 bin/freeciv-*, bin/freeciv-server, bin/freeciv-mp-*
87 These are the executable programs. There are several client pro‐
88 grams, a server program, several modpack programs, and some
89 other Freeciv developer utilities.
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91 share/doc/freeciv/README.*
92 These are documentation files describing how the game and some
93 of the included rulesets operate, in detail.
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96 The Freeciv Team <freeciv-dev AT freelists.org>.
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98 This manpage was originally drafted by Jim DeLaHunt <http://jdlh.com/>.
99 It was based on the freeciv-client and freeciv-server pages by Florian
100 Ernst <florian_ernst AT gmx.net> and Ben Bettin <bwbettin AT
101 gmail.com>. Feel free to use it as you wish.
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104 freeciv-client(6) freeciv-server(6) freeciv-modpack(6) freeciv-
105 ruledit(6) freeciv-manual(6) freeciv-gtk2(6) freeciv-gtk3(6) freeciv-
106 gtk3.22(6) freeciv-qt(6) freeciv-sdl(6) freeciv-sdl2(6) freeciv-xaw(6)
107 freeciv-mp-cli(6) freeciv-mp-gtk2(6) freeciv-mp-gtk3(6) freeciv-mp-
108 qt(6) and the Client Manual and the Server Manual on the Freeciv web‐
109 site.
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113 May 12th 2021 FREECIV(6)