freeciv(6)

1FREECIV(6)                       Games Manual                       FREECIV(6)
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NAME

6       freeciv - The Freeciv game (overview)
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SYNOPSIS

9       freeciv-gtk3.22|freeciv-sdl2|freeciv-qt|freeciv-[various...]    [   op‐
10       tions... ]
11       freeciv-server [ options... ]
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DESCRIPTION

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 number and difficulty
53       level  of the AI players.  You can set the size of the map and the kind
54       of terrain.  You can also choose among various rule sets and scenarios,
55       which  can  lead  to  very  different  kinds  of games.  When running a
56       Freeciv client, you can choose among tilesets and soundsets, to  adjust
57       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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BUGS

70       Please     report     bugs     to     the    Freeciv    bug    tracker,
71       https://osdn.net/projects/freeciv/ticket/ .
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MORE INFO

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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FILES

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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AUTHORS

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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