Freeciv for windows needs Civ2MP veteran Beta testers!

[CapTVK]

Hmmmm...some new screenshots as well for the SDL client 1.14.1

Looks like Rafal has taken a look at Civ3

[HappySunShine]

Wow, that almost reminds me of the 8bit Nintendo, keep up the good work. By the time civ 5 comes out and you've wasted half your life on a program nobody cares about you might want to invest in some better graphics.

[Hydey]

Nice to see some constuctive criticism from the master.

Keep up the good work eyes

[CapTVK]

I take it you came to that conclusion after a long, objective arduous, thorough, complete and well balanced review of all the facets in the game mr. shine?

(I'll dispense with the "Happy" and "Sun" part, nobody cares about that part of your handle anyway)



P.S
Enjoy the game, it's free after all...

[HappySunShine]

Trust me, I know it's free. I need only look at the graphics. Dork.

[Ming]

At least they are trying... you aren't

[War4ever]

i quite like it myself, well done cap...dont listen to the detractors...i dont see anyone else doing this sort of thing

[DrSpike]

Yeah keep going.

I expect some of these projects will come to nothing, but we only need one classic.

[War4ever]

just out of curiousity, what program is used to do the graphics, i have a map i wish to use for a boardgame i am working on and i want to use a computer to generate the terrain as well to print it out onto a cardboard surface?

[CapTVK]

Originally posted by War4ever
just out of curiousity, what program is used to do the graphics, i have a map i wish to use for a boardgame i am working on and i want to use a computer to generate the terrain as well to print it out onto a cardboard surface?

War4ever,

Is it going to be a realistic map with mountain ridges, hills, that sort of thing? In that case you could experiment a bit with a fractal landscape generator. After you've generated a few nice shots you could copy the overhead results into a graphic editor and create a full size map. Just by patching the pieces together. A good program to use would be Bryce (I know MarkG has used this on occasion) but there are dozens of other simpler fractal generators available on the web which might serve just as well.

As a graphic editor I like to use an old version PaintShopPro 5 (PSP) or the Gimp. PSP is shareware, the Gimp is free software. Both are more than adequate for these sorts of things.

[DrSpike]

Bear in mind that War's machine will break if he asks it to do anything complex.

[CapTVK]

Yes, those fractal land generators are PC killers. You have to know how to handle them with care. I once heard about a guy who set a wrong option and got his hand blown clean off when his PC exploded!!! It's all true I tell ya! I read it on the internet!


And now.. back to the thread...

[CapTVK]

How to control the Freeciv server from the client

...time to return to go back on topic with a subject that will come very handy when tweaking a game: "server settings and how to control them"

If you're new to Freeciv you'll usually limit yourselves to playing SP games on the standard settings. The real trick is to change the gamesettings by changing various options in the civserver. Instead of starting straight away you should unselect the "start game automatically"-checkbox. Now you can simply change the settings by entering commands from the chatline with a "/" in front of it.

For example the command: /show would show the current settings:

/show: Option value (min,max) description
/show: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/show: xsize + 40 (40,200) Map width in squares
/show: ysize + 40 (25,100) Map height in squares
/show: generator + 5 (1,5) Method used to generate map
/show: tinyisles +=0 (0,1) Presence or absence of 1x1 islands
/show: separatepoles +=1 (0,1) Whether the poles are separate continents
/show: landmass +=30 (15,85) Amount of land vs ocean
/show: mountains +=30 (10,100) Amount of hills/mountains
/show: rivers +=50 (0,1000) Amount of river squares
/show: grass +=35 (20,100) Amount of grass squares
/show: forests +=20 (0,100) Amount of forest squares
/show: swamps +=5 (0,100) Amount of swamp squares
/show: deserts +=5 (0,100) Amount of desert squares
/show: specials +=250 (0,1000) Amount of "special" resource squares
/show: huts +=50 (0,500) Amount of huts (minor tribe villages)
/show: minplayers +=1 (1,30) Minimum number of players
/show: maxplayers +=30 (1,30) Maximum number of players
/show: aifill + 2 (0,30) Number of players to fill to with AI's
/show: settlers +=2 (1,10) Number of initial settlers per player
/show: explorer +=1 (0,10) Number of initial explorers per player
/show: dispersion +=0 (0,10) Area where initial units are located
/show: gold +=50 (0,5000) Starting gold per player
/show: techlevel +=0 (0,50) Number of initial advances per player
/show: researchcost +=10 (4,100) Points required to gain a new advance
/show: techpenalty +=100 (0,100) Percentage penalty when changing tech
/show: diplcost +=0 (0,100) Penalty when getting tech from treaty
/show: conquercost +=0 (0,100) Penalty when getting tech from conquering
/show: freecost +=0 (0,100) Penalty when getting a free tech
/show: foodbox +=10 (5,30) Food required for a city to grow
/show: aqueductloss +=0 (0,100) Percentage food lost when need aqueduct
/show: fulltradesize +=1 (1,50) Minimum city size to get full trade
/show: notradesize +=0 (0,49) Maximum size of a city without trade
/show: unhappysize +=4 (1,6) City size before people become unhappy
/show: angrycitizen +=1 (0,1) Whether angry citizens are enabled
/show: cityfactor +=14 (6,100) Number of cities for higher unhappiness
/show: citymindist +=0 (0,5) Minimum distance between cities (move distance)
/show: rapturedelay +=1 (1,99) Number of turns between rapture effect
/show: razechance +=20 (0,100) Chance for conquered building destruction
/show: civstyle +=2 (1,2) Style of Civ rules
/show: occupychance +=0 (0,100) Chance of moving into tile after attack
/show: killcitizen +=1 (0,15) Reduce city population after attack
/show: wtowervision +=2 (1,3) Range of vision for units in a fortress
/show: wtowerevision +=0 (0,2) Extra vision range for units in a fortress
/show: citynames +=1 (0,3) Allowed city names
/show: barbarians +=2 (0,4) Barbarian appearance frequency
/show: onsetbarbs +=-2000 (-4000,5000) Barbarian onset year
/show: fogofwar +=1 (0,1) Whether to enable fog of war
/show: diplchance +=80 (1,99) Chance in diplomat/spy contests
/show: spacerace +=1 (0,1) Whether to allow space race
/show: civilwarsize +=10 (6,1000) Minimum number of cities for civil war
/show: savepalace +=1 (0,1) Rebuild palace if capital is conquered
/show: naturalcitynames +=1 (0,1) Whether to use natural city names
/show: autotoggle +=0 (0,1) Whether AI-status toggles with connection
/show: endyear +=2000 (-4000,5000) Year the game ends
/show: timeout +=0 (40,8639999) Maximum seconds per turn
/show: tcptimeout +=10 (0,120) Seconds to let a client connection block
/show: netwait +=4 (0,20) Max seconds for TCP buffers to drain
/show: pingtimeout +=60 (60,1800) Maximum seconds between PINGs
/show: turnblock +=0 (0,1) Turn-blocking game play mode
/show: fixedlength +=0 (0,1) Fixed-length turns play mode
/show: demography +="NASRLPEMOqrb" What is in the Demographics report
/show:

To change settings (e.a setting starting amount for gold) you would type: /set gold 2500. This works the same way for other settings as well.

For help you should type: /help
You can also use the help function to get info on the various commands and gamesettings.

And last but not least, the starting command: /start

Once you enter that you will return to the game menu and you can select your civ.


That's all for Freeciv right now...

Keep on civ'in...

[CapTVK]

I thought it might be a good idea to have a live tutorial MP game for Freeciv. We'll organize a MP game with a few regulars who know Freeciv and give newbies a bit of training on the game mechanics while in the game.

I was hoping to organize one sun 23 feb around 13:00 CET. If you're interested to give it a try post in:

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=77290

[CapTVK]

I believe we have found the online twin of PBEM...Longturn Freeciv

This idea has popped up on previous occasions but I've never seen it in action. "What if we could play one turn of Civ once a day?" While we all love to play online into to the modern age with tanks and nukes for all this isn't the case in practice. Most MP games don't last longer than a single session. Lag and bad connections can also throw a spanner in the works. You can't stay permanently online in Civ waiting for the rest after a player drops.
Well, some chaps from Poland did figure out a way around this. Coming with the online variant of PBEM in the process. The idea of running a permanent MP game on a server where players simply log on to make their moves for the turn* and increasing the timeout to 24 hours to make one day sessions is my mind a brilliant one. That's because they actually did it and not languish in a "wouldn't it be cool if...."-discussion.


Debate out graphics aside, if there's only one thing speaking for Freeciv it would have to be its versatility.

*Note: All players move at the same time in Freeciv

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=79693

Hi

We (civ.org.pl team) would like to start another Freeciv experiment -
LongTurn Freeciv. It consist in plaing one big game (30 players?) with 24h
timeout. All you need to do is only make 1 round every day. It takes about
2-5 minuts (big map). Of course every player can contact with other
players via email or jabber, so diplomatic situation will be more
complicated and alliances will be much more important.
More info (as always) at http://www.civ.org.pl/freeciv/slow-eng.php

Becouse we would like to start game as fast as possible all players that
would like to play should inform as via e-mail or forum
(forums.civ.org.pl). Remember that you can play even if you don't have
much time. All you need is about 5 minuts every day.


Regards
Adam