In this section you will start a solitaire game of Freeciv and learn the basic concepts of controlling your race. All of this document assumes that Freeciv is installed in its default directories, and that the executables are in your PATH.
There are at present five versions of the client. The original client, named `xaw', uses the Athena widget set that comes with the X window system. There is also a native Amiga client (MUI) and a native Windows client (Win32). The default client is built on the GTK+-1.2 widget set and is called `gtk'. A client for GTK+-2.0 comes with the distribution but is not yet polished. There are other ports in various states of progress. We will be using the default GTK client for this tutorial.
![]() The other tab in the dialog lists the games registered with the Metaserver. This is described in more detail here. All this is FYI. For now, if you're starting a new game, just choose the default. The second and third fields specify the server that your client is connecting to. If you started the civserver in another window as above and you have your /etc/hosts set up correctly (i.e. localhost points to your machine), then everything should be fine. If the server is on a different machine, you must specify the hostname or IP address and possibly the port number that the server is running on (a server command line option sets this, but defaults to 5555).
Click on "Connect". (Throughout this manual, "click" means a single left click.) If you look over at your server window, you should see something like:
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![]() It is possible to move around the world to view a different part. This can be done by either clicking on the scrollbars ( as you normally do in a program) or by using the keyboard shortcuts( remember to have the freeciv screen active before using the keyboard shortcuts). You can also center the map by clicking the on map.You can also set auto center on units which can be found in menu game options.This would auto center the map on the current active unit.You can also center the map view on a particular city, this is done by using the find city option in the kingdom menu or the keyboard shortcut (CTRL f). The flashing square in the middle is alternating between the terrain of that square and the icon of the currently active unit. The terrain types which you see should be a sample of those in the world; in the picture your initial units are on a Grassland square, with Plains squares just to the south, east, and southeast of your units, and one north of the middle of the river. Just to the north of your units is a River square, with two more Rivers to its east. Off to the far southeast is a Tundra square. Surrounding your coast to the west is a number of Ocean squares. Your map may vary, but the same features will be available. Many map squares have special resources; in this case, there is one. The Plains square just to the east of the units has a Horses symbol; such a square has higher food productivity than an ordinary Plains square. How can you tell what the squares contain if you aren't familiar with the symbols? Put the cursor over the square, and press and hold the middle mouse button; you will see a tiny window saying something like "Terrain: Plains (Horses)". Do the same in the square with your units; you will get a line describing its terrain, another identifying the unit on the top of the stack there, and another giving the unit's critical statistics (attack, defense, firepower, and hit points). But first, note that much of the map is black, apart from the 21 squares in the center. These are squares of which you know nothing; you will not see what is in them until you have a unit close enough to report on them. What of the world beyond your 11x8 viewport? Move your cursor to the horizontal scrollbar below the map, and single left click. This shifts the map one square to the left, exposing more black squares on the right. A single right click will shift the map one square to the right. A single middle mouse click on the scrollbar will jump the map to that relative position on the entire world map. The vertical scroll bar adjusts the map height similarly. Or, instead of using the scrollbar, you can simply point to a square on the map and use a single right click; the map will be recentered around that spot. At present, there is little to see. Find your way back to where your units are. A shortcut for this is the "c" key, which will move the map to place the active unit in the center of the map. This and other shortcut keys you will use a lot. We'll leave the units for later. |
![]() Once you have a world-spanning empire it will come in handy. On the real Earth map, if you have the detail map showing Europe, for instance, you would need many scroll clicks to adjust it to look at South America. But one click on the corresponding place in the overview map will shift the detail map to centered on the selected position.
Cities and unites are shown on the overview map as colored dots. Moving units will move the dot on the overview map. Cities that have been destroyed will not be shown on the overview map. All units and cities can be shown by building a certain wonder. See wonders for more information on this. |
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1) Sidebar detach button: Just drag and drop the sidebar to detach it to where you wish it to be. 2) There are four symbols here, the first is the science researched level, the brighter the builb, the closer you are to what ever science you are looking up. Second is the nuclear winter globe (when this becomes brighter it means that the land is polluted with nuclear waste) if left unchecked will cause a nuclear winter. The third is the Global warming globe if this goes white, global warming takes place. To clear pollution see settlers/engineer in units list. Fourth is the goverment icon, and represents which goverment type your nation is running. 3) This shows 10 figures each being 10% of your nation, and shows your luxuary, science, tax levels. They represent the division you have between luxuries, research, and taxes. The default rates are no luxuries, 50% research, and 50% taxes, so what you see are pictures for five researchers and five tax collectors. if you reduced taxes to 40% and increased luxuries to 10%, the pictures would show one entertainer, five researchers, and four tax collectors. Let's change things to do research a bit faster. There is no need for taxes at this point. There are two ways to change the distribution of effort in your empire. One is through the "Game" menu item called "Rates". The other is through this icon bar. Click on the first tax collector. That will change it to an entertainer, and move it to the far left of the line (since it always shows entertainers, then scientists, then tax collectors). Click on that far-left entertainer, and it becomes a scientist. You can also look at the information box above and see the new percentages give as text. What if you try to exceed the maximum amount of research (or any other choice) allowed for in the rules? Try it: Click on another tax collector to make it an entertainer, then click on the new entertainer. The icon doesn't change, and you get an error at the bottom of the window: "Game: Science rate exceeds the max rate for Despotism." This is how you get errors returned from the server; your client tried to make the change, but the server rejected it. Change a scientist into a tax collector, and you can change the entertainer back into a scientist. 4) This is a display of the total population of your civilization, the year it is in the game (years increment is 50years a turn, until 1000BC, then 25years a turn ect), the amount of gold you have in the treasury and the levels of tax, luxuries, science to which you have set your nation to. Certain goverment types have certain limits for tax, luxuries, science. 5) This is the timeout indicator, if the timeout option has been set, this will show the amount of time you have left to complete your turn. The amount can be changed by using the server command for this. If playing over the internet, who ever is hosting the game will have control over this, and you can ask them to change the timeout by asking them in the player chat window. 6) This is the turn done button, press this at the end of your turn, or set Auto Turn Done which will do auto turn for you once you make you last move. You can find this option in the Game menu. You may see this button flash, this means that all other players have finished their turns and are waiting on you to finish your turn. When you press the turn done button it will gray out until the start of the next turn. When the game ends the turn done button stops working. 7) This part gives the type of unit whose move it is (or the unit you have selected for moving), the number of moves you have left for that unit and what kind of terrain it is on. 8) This is the unit which is being moved (unit details can be found above). 9) This is the list of of the units that are occupying the same square as the active unit, or are present in the same town. 10)This shows that there are more units on this square than can be shown in the space. Click this and you will be shown the other units.
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![]() At the very bottom is a single line. This is the multiplayer "chat" line, to communicate with other players. You can also send commands to the server through an IRC-like interface. For example, typing /help will give you return the help listing in the Output window. More detailed explanation of the chatline can be found in the reference section. |
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Local Option: Solid unit background color
Local Option :Sound bell at new turn
Local Option: smooth unit moves and Local Option: smooth unit moves steps
Local Option: combat animations
Local Option: popup dialog in AI mode
Local Option: Manual Turn Done in AI mode
Local Option: Auto center in Units and Local option Auto Center on Combat
Local Option: Focus on Awakened Units
Local option Draw Diagonal Roads/Rails
Local Option Concise city Production
Local Option: End turn when done moving |