FREECIV(6)

📦
version 3.2.6 · 2 versions
, in arch rolling, opensuse-leap 16.0

💖 FREECIV(6) — the Freeciv game (overview), bestie 💖

✨ NAME ✨

Okay so picture this: freeciv is the whole Freeciv game — the overview page, the vibe-setting main character of the manual set. 💅

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

Here’s the lineup of client binaries and the server binary, with their args, exactly as the command line wants them:

freeciv-gtk3.22|freeciv-gtk4|freeciv-sdl2|freeciv-sdl3|freeciv-qt|freeciv-[various...] [ options... ]
freeciv-server [ options... ]

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

Freeciv is a free turn-based multiplayer strategy game — yes, free, yes turn-based, yes multiplayer. You become the leader of a civilization, and you’re fighting for the ultimate goal: to become the greatest civilization. No cap, that’s the whole dream. 👑

If you played Civilization II® by Microprose®, you’ll lowkey feel at home, because one aim of Freeciv is to have compatible rules. 🎀

Freeciv is maintained by an international team of coders and enthusiasts, and it’s easily one of the most fun and addictive network games out there! Fr fr. 💖

It’s designed to be played either over a network or on one machine. There can be a single human player, or multiple human players in different locations on different kinds of computers. Freeciv can also run artificial intelligence (AI) players as desired, to fill out the game. 🤖

Human players run a freeciv-client(6) program to join a game, and there are several different Freeciv client programs to choose between. Think of the Freeciv client as a thin window onto the server’s information and activity — it’s giving very observant bestie. 🪟

The terrain, rules, and activity of the game are held by a running freeciv-server(6) program. In a single-player game, your client program starts up its own local server program behind the scenes. In a multi-player game, someone starts the server first, then players connect to that server. The server runs the AI players, and it enforces the game rules — even if a cleverly-modified client program tries to cheat. So don’t try it, bestie. 💀

The Freeciv game is translated into many different languages. Generally, the Freeciv client follows the conventions of the computer it runs on to determine which language it should use when presenting the game to the player. 🌍

There are sooo many ways to tweak how games are set up, and to create completely different looks and game play. When starting the Freeciv server, you can adjust many parameters of the game map, rules, and models which drive the game. You can set the number and difficulty level of the AI players. You can set the size of the map and the kind of terrain. You can also choose among various rule sets and scenarios, which can lead to very different kinds of games. When running a Freeciv client, you can choose among tilesets and soundsets, to adjust how games look and sound. Basically: customize your little heart out. 🎨

The Freeciv community offers even more scenarios, rulesets, tilesets, and soundsets. A freeciv-modpack(6) utility lets you locate and download this additional content. Downloading extra content? Obsessed. 🧚

There are Freeciv "metaservers" which catalogue Freeciv servers seeking to attract players. One is operated by the Freeciv project. When starting a Freeciv client, you may have it contact a metaserver to find games to join. When starting a Freeciv server, you may have it publish its presence with a metaserver. Very social networking, honestly. 🌐

🐛 BUGS 🐛

Found a bug? Please report bugs to the Freeciv bug tracker, "https://redmine.freeciv.org/projects/freeciv" .

🌈 MORE INFO 🌈

There is a great deal more information at the Freeciv homepage, ""https://www.freeciv.org/"" . Updates and new info are first posted there. A Client Manual, a Server Manual, and a wiki on many topics, are published there. There is a user forum linked to from there. 📚

Freeciv installers include a number of documentation files with the game. See the FILES section for the location. They make interesting reading — especially after you have played for a while, when you are beginning to wonder how you can do more, and why the AI players can do so much. 👀

🎀 FILES 🎀

  • bin/freeciv-*, bin/freeciv-server, bin/freeciv-mp-* — These are the executable programs. There are several client programs, a server program, several modpack programs, and some other Freeciv developer utilities.
  • share/doc/freeciv/README.* — These are documentation files describing how the game and some of the included rulesets operate, in detail.

👑 AUTHORS 👑

The Freeciv Team <"freeciv-dev at freelists.org">. 🫶

This manpage was originally drafted by Jim DeLaHunt <http://jdlh.com/>. It was based on the freeciv-client and freeciv-server pages by Florian Ernst <florian_ernst AT gmx.net> and Ben Bettin <bwbettin AT gmail.com>. Feel free to use it as you wish. 💜

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

Go read these next, bestie:

💖 That’s the tea, bestie — this was the FREECIV(6) page from the Games Manual, dated May 11th 2021. Go be the greatest civilization, mwah! 💖

📦 where this page comes from