====================== Welcome to Freeciv 2.4 ====================== The most important changes between major releases are shown below. Not all changes are shown here. To see detailed changes in the 2.4 series, check NEWS-2.4. Those who are interested in seeing more detailed changes should check the ChangeLog file. MAJOR CHANGES FROM 2.3.x to 2.4.0 --------------------------------- (from <http://www.freeciv.org/wiki/NEWS-2.4.0>) As is usual for major releases, 2.4 clients cannot interoperate with pre-2.4 servers, and vice versa. Pre-2.4 savegames can however be loaded into 2.4, and in most cases, the supplied rulesets have not changed so much as to make it difficult to complete a game started with 2.3.x's rules. Server / General Gameplay * The maximum theoretical map size has increased from 128,000 to 2,048,000 tiles; the maximum linear map dimension has increased from 512 to 32,768. GNA#18087 * If map generation fails (for instance the common failure to allocate start positions), it is now retried with a different random seed. GNAPATCH#2402 * A couple of new server settings have been added to customise gameplay: + 'revealmap' allows the map to be shown to all players at game start, or to dead players. GNAPATCH#2379 + 'first_timeout' allows the first turn to have a different timeout from subsequent turns. GNAPATCH#1967 Clerical * Player authentication has been revamped. Database access is now mediated by a Lua script that can be customised by server operators, and uses Luasql, enabling a variety of backends: MySQL (the only backend supported previously), SQLite, and PostgreSQL. See doc/README.fcdb for details. GNA#13643 + Support is included 'out of the box' for SQLite and MySQL databases. SQLite uses a simple file as a database, and is recommended as being entirely adequate for Freeciv authentication and much less hassle to set up than MySQL. + The Windows packages include SQLite support, so for the first time, it's possible to use player authentication on Windows without building the server yourself. * The server now supports a 'delegation' feature similar to that in Longturn, where one user can nominate another to temporarily take over control of the game. This is controlled by the '/delegate' server command. GNAPATCH#2121 * There is a new "map image" feature to save an overview map as an image. This is a much expanded version of the previous --Ppm server feature, which has been removed. Compared to --Ppm, the new feature can distinguish units, cities, borders, terrain colors, hex tiles, and more. Saving images can be triggered automatically (turn-based) on the server, or on demand on the server or client. See the '/mapimg' server command. GNAPATCH#1391 + A series of these images can be assembled into an animation to replay the progress of the game. A shell script 'mapimg2anim' is provided to help with this. + PNG/GIF/JPEG output is only available if built against the ImageMagick library; this is included in the Windows packages as of 2.4.0-RC1. * Player colors are now assigned centrally, and can be changed with the '/playercolor' server command. There is a new server setting 'plrcolormode' that controls how colors are assigned, including a mode where all players on a team have the same color. GNAPATCH#2062 + The set of default player colors in the supplied rulesets has been reworked to enhance visibility of borders against terrain, etc. GNA#19778 * The colors used to represent different terrain types on the minimap have been reworked. GNAPATCH#2069 * The 'autosaves' setting gives finer control over when savegames are generated. GNAPATCH#2536 + To disable autosaves entirely, instead of '/set saveturns 0', it's now necessary to use a command like '/set autosaves ""'. * The scripts 'ser' and 'civ' have been renamed to 'fcser' and 'fcgui' respectively. GNAPATCH#2830 * A Lua script can be read from a file with the '/lua file' command. Direct Lua input is now via the '/lua cmd' command. GNAPATCH#2338 GNAPATCH#2869 * New server option --Bind-meta to control which network interface the metaserver connection is made from. GNA#14106 * The server can be built with support for .xz (LZMA) compression for saved games, etc. See the 'compresstype' option. GNAPATCH#1810 * The freeciv-modpack utility supports more modpack types, more options (see --help), and uses the Curl library for network access so should be more robust. * (as of beta2) The ranklog format has changed; it now includes individual players' scores, and can be parsed more unambiguously. GNAPATCH#3346 Clients * There is a new client, freeciv-gtk3, based on version 3 of the Gtk+ toolkit. This is fully playable and has largely identical UI and functionality to freeciv-gtk2. Currently it is experimental; however, it is expected that it will become the default client in the next major release. + The first time you run this client, it will copy any Gtk2 client settings you have set. Thereafter, Gtk2 and Gtk3 settings will remain separate. + Known issue in beta1/beta2: when compiled against some versions of Gtk3, there are assertion failures and crashes associated with the unit selection dialog. This is believed due to a Gtk bug (671939); however, it's been worked around in the Freeciv code as of RC1. GNA#19846 * (In the code there is also the start of a Qt client. However, at this point it is just a stub and is unlikely to be of interest. Development will continue in 2.5.) * A server spawned by the client now only listens on the local network interface, so clients on other machines cannot connect to it. This improves security for single-player games, but means that a multiplayer game can no longer be hosted by the client; you must start a separate server instead (see the FAQ). GNA#18530 * It's now possible to display a map overlay indicating which tiles the currently selected unit can enter ("native" tiles), with the Shift-Ctrl-N keyboard shortcut. GNA#13620 * The research speed in bulbs per turn is now available with other research information from popups/tooltips on the main window. GNA#17685 GNA#16481 * For rulesets where different nations have unique gameplay attributes (different initial governments, techs, units, or buildings), this information is now available when picking a nation in the pregame, and in the online help. GNAPATCH#3066 * The client now displays the current stable version of Freeciv and whether that's newer than the running version (this information comes from the metaserver). GNAPATCH#2735 * (Gtk) The client now has a Lua scripting console. GNAPATCH#2515 + This is currently something of a proof of concept rather than a finished feature, as a comprehensive API suitable for the client-side has not been provided. Notably, there are not yet any signals from which client-side scripts can be triggered. + However, client scripts do have access to the client's view of most of the same game data that server-side ruleset scripts do (map, units, cities etc); see the Lua reference manual. This should be sufficient for some useful work. For example, it should in principle be possible to implement an on-demand optimal trade route calculator with these facilities (although we haven't tried). * (Gtk) The unit selection dialog has been revamped to allow browsing and selecting units by combinations of location and activity, anywhere in the world. GNA#17236 * (Gtk) A bribe cost is now shown in the popup for units (for enemy units, this is estimated). GNA#17489 Tilesets / Art * The orientation of units is now tracked, so tilesets can provide different graphics for different unit orientations. GNAPATCH#2719 + A tileset making use of this, Cimpletoon, is included. It is based on Amplio2 but has a full set of oriented unit sprites for the default ruleset. GNAPATCH#2739 + Known issue in beta1: Cimpletoon did not have sprites for all Fundamentalist units (it lacked Elephants and Crusaders), so for rulesets with these units, it would use fallback sprites (Chariot and Knights respectively). As of beta2, the tileset is complete. GNA#19998 Gameplay / Rules Changes affecting supplied rulesets * Nations: + The number of playable nations has increased from 385 to 539. + Out of these, a subset of 50 "core" nations has been defined, based mostly on nations that have appeared in the Civilization series of games. For localised versions of Freeciv, these nations are more likely to be translated than the remainder. Players are initially presented with the core set, and it will be used for random nation selection if no nations are specifically selected; but players can still select nations outside the core set, and if some do, then the full range of supplied nations will be used for random selection of remaining players. GNAPATCH#3449 GNAPATCH#3432 + The civ1 and civ2 rulesets now have their own separate nation sets, more closely matching the original games. GNAPATCH#2243 * City center tiles now lose their automatic irrigation bonus if a mine is built on them, since mines and irrigation cannot coexist on a tile. GNA#20932 + Similarly, in the supplied rulesets, cities on a tile with a mine can no longer get a farmland bonus. * The effect of veterancy on the cost of bribing a unit now depends on veteran bonuses, not numeric veteran level; bribe costs for veteran units have thus changed. GNA#19253 * When the 'barbarians' server setting is disabled, huts no longer spawn barbarians. * When migration is enabled, citizens now consider the risk of plague when deciding whether to migrate. GNA#17740 * In rulesets without tech upkeep enabled, if the bulb count goes negative (for instance due to 'conquercost'), technologies are no longer lost. This restores the behavior of previous versions of Freeciv. GNA#19487 * Diplomats and Spies now have special names for their veteran levels, but behavior is unchanged from 2.3. GNA#19850 * In the default, multiplayer, and experimental rulesets, years are displayed with CE/BCE rather than BC/AD notation. GNA#15090 * (as of beta2) The default map topology for new games has been changed to isometric, to match the default Amplio2 tileset. GNAPATCH#3764 * (as of beta2) In the 'multiplayer' ruleset, the ability to build buoys has been removed, as they do not work well with national borders disabled (the default for this ruleset). It is expected that they'll be re-enabled in a future major release. GNAPATCH#3541 * Changes to the 'experimental' ruleset: + Citizen nationality is enabled; see below. + Workers and Engineers can now gain veteran levels by working the land; this in turn allows them to work faster. GNAPATCH#2370 GNA#19818 + A Mech. Inf. unit can now carry up to three Missile units. GNAPATCH#2481 + Galleons can now carry Big Land units, and Frigates no longer can. Old savegames are handled gracefully. GNAPATCH#2643 Changes and new features for rulesets/modpacks/scenarios * New feature: optionally, the nationality of citizens can be tracked. For instance, when you conquer a city, its citizens retain their original nationality. Currently this affects the cost of inciting cities and the chance of migration (if enabled); more effects are planned for future versions. GNAPATCH#2265 * The veteran system has been reworked: + Per-unit veteran levels have been generalised; all veteran properties can now be set on a per-unit basis; previously, the chances of moving between levels could not. This means that different units can now usefully have different numbers of veteran levels for the first time. GNAPATCH#2346 + Diplomatic combat and spy mission survival chances are now derived directly from the 'power_fact' property of the veteran level, rather than being based purely on the numeric veteran level. GNA#19850 + As noted above, the effect of veterancy on unit bribe costs has changed. + The maximum number of veteran levels has doubled from 10 to 20. + Units with only a single veteran level, or which can't become veteran, now do not have a veteran level displayed. + Information about veteran levels is now included in the on-line help. GNA#19851 * Recursive transports are now supported (up to a depth of 5). GNAPATCH#2270 * Two new tech_cost_styles: 3 with a new formula (early techs slightly easier, later techs much harder), and 4 which is similar to 2 (read from ruleset) but with the gaps filled with the new formula. GNAPATCH#2396 * A new effect 'Irrig_Possible' and requirement range 'CAdjacent' (cardinally adjacent) have been added. The requirement for oceans or rivers for irrigation is thus no longer hardcoded and can be modified. GNAPATCH#2450 * The 'CityTile' requirement now supports 'Adjacent' and 'CAdjacent' ranges, so effects can be triggered for tiles next to a city. GNA#18551 * 'Surviving' requirements for wonders are now supported at Player range as well as at World range. GNA#17463 * In ruleset definitions, specifying 'move_type' for a unit is now optional; if not specified it will be inferred from the native terrains/specials of the unit. GNA#13630 GNAPATCH#2991 * A ruleset can now specify a 'default_government' for all its nations in nations.ruleset, rather than each nation being required to specify its initial government individually. GNAPATCH#3031 + The supplied nations no longer include init_government="Despotism", so they can be used in rulesets which require a different initial government. GNAPATCH#3032 * The image used for a city in the client is now set by the effects system (effect 'City_Image'), so it's no longer constrained to be a simple function of city size. GNA#17110 + The experimental ruleset uses this to align city graphics with the city map radius. * Tile labels are supported. These are text labels that are displayed by all clients when they display a particular map tile. They can be added to scenarios in the editor. GNAPATCH#2408 * The colors used for players, and for terrains on the minimap and map images, are now specified by the ruleset on the server side, rather than the tileset on the client side. GNAPATCH#2060 GNAPATCH#2061 * In rulesets with tech_leakage enabled, dead players are no longer taken into account in the calculation; so you cannot gain from their knowledge, but equally a dead, ignorant player no longer pushes up research costs. GNAPATCH#2956 * The behavior where the senate of representative governments is bypassed has moved from the Any_Government to the No_Anarchy effect. GNA#19107 * The 'min_dist_bw_cities' ruleset item has been retired; use the 'citymindist' option instead. GNAPATCH#2537 * Many changes to ruleset Lua scripting -- for full details see the Lua reference manual. These are all backward compatible. Highlights: + Script-triggered climate change (GNAPATCH#2624) and civil war (GNAPATCH#2627). + Scripts can now move existing units. + A script can test whether tiles have a particular base. GNAPATCH#2672 + Script facilities for reading and manipulating unit orientation. GNAPATCH#2823 GNAPATCH#2836 + Scripts can now read server settings. GNAPATCH#2955 * (as of beta2) An internal 64kbyte limit on string length has been removed. Among other things, this allows longer Lua scripts in scenarios. GNA#20086 AI * (as of beta2) The city governor logic has been reworked, fixing various issues such as unexpected tax collectors in cities with many buildings, and a need to set minimal gold surplus to a lower target than expected. GNAPATCH#3620 * (as of beta2) The AI's workers/settlers, and human players' autosettlers, will now automatically stop what they are doing and go elsewhere if threatened by an enemy unit and there is no defender on their tile. (Currently only threats from land units are considered.) GNAPATCH#3384 * (as of beta2) Improvements to AI settler management: + The AI now considers worker units' food consumption (e.g. Settlers) to be less of a factor when deciding whether to build such units, to encourage it to do so. GNAPATCH#3693 + Fix poor handling of rulesets containing boats which can only carry a single unit. Previously, the AI would generate settlers with the intention of sending them out on such boats, but then refuse to do so due to lack of room for a bodyguard, regardless of whether one was needed, often hurting expansion and leaving useless settlers. Now it only insists on room for a bodyguard if one is actually needed. GNA#19815 * Improvements to AI city defense: + (as of beta2) Reduced the tendency of AI city defenders to be lured out of their city by nearby targets even in the presence of threats. GNA#20504 + (as of beta2) Cities in grave danger of invasion with no defending units were tending to build City Walls, uselessly. They will now prioritise acquiring a defender. GNA#20559 + (as of RC1) Reduced the weighting of the AI's assessment of defence strength, so that it defends its own cities more convincingly. (part of GNAPATCH#3960) + (as of RC1) The AI now tends to keep a unit constantly defending each of its cities even in the absence of an obvious threat, rather than relying on being able to acquire one when a threat appears. GNAPATCH#3958 * (as of beta2) Improvements to AI caravan management: + Caravans in transit are now taken into account when a city is deciding whether to build more caravans. Previously, a city could end up building endless caravans if existing ones did not complete their trade route. GNAPATCH#3529 * (as of RC1) The AI's new weighting of defence strength assessment means that it is less fearful of its enemy's defenders when attacking their cities. (part of GNAPATCH#3960) * The AI's management of its tax rates has been reworked to be more sophisticated; notably, it now takes tech upkeep into account. It also considers tech upkeep when determining the value of a tech. GNAPATCH#2251 * AI planning for new cities has been improved slightly. GNA#19449 * Autosettler planning for building railroads (GNAPATCH#2885, GNA#19560) and farmland (GNAPATCH#2889) has been improved. (Note that the latter is still only triggered by the existence of a Supermarket, so the AI still does not benefit, due to a chicken-and-egg situation.) * The extensive reworking of the AI code (see #Development), while not intended to introduce any functional changes (and extensively tested for this), may have changed behavior in some rare cases. Translations * New Indonesian translation. * (as of beta2) New Traditional Chinese translation. * Updated translations: Bulgarian, Catalan, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic, Korean, Polish, Dutch, Irish, French, German, Finnish, and British English. Development * The AI code has been heavily refactored, with a view to making it easier for people to start their own projects to write better Freeciv AI. + There's now a concept of AI type; different players can have different AIs. The type can be specified to the server /create command and the Lua function edit.create_player(). + The server can be built to accept dynamically loadable AI modules with the --enable-aimodules option to configure. A module is loaded by starting the server with the --LoadAI option. + Alternatively, a fixed set of modules can be compiled in with --enable-ai-static. + In addition to the 'classic' AI, the standard Freeciv package ships with the 'stub' and 'threaded' AIs. These are both dummy templates for development and do not work as shipped. They are enabled with the configure option --enable-aimodules=experimental. + See doc/README.AI_modules for some more information. Build/portability * There is now a hard dependency on libcurl for HTTP access. This is used for metaserver communication and for freeciv-modpack. GNAPATCH#2320 GNAPATCH#2376 * Efforts have been made to make the codebase compile without warnings with GCC 4.6 and (as of beta2) 4.7. * Use of some GNU make extensions has been removed from the build system, so it may now be possible to build with a POSIX 'make'. GNAPATCH#3378 * freeciv-modpack can be built against either gtk2 or gtk3. GNAPATCH#2762 * The configure option --enable-sys-lua allows use of a system-wide copy of Lua instead of the one shipped with Freeciv. GNAPATCH#2747 See doc/README.packaging for more information. MAJOR CHANGES FROM 2.2.x to 2.3.0 --------------------------------- (from <http://www.freeciv.org/wiki/NEWS-2.3.0>) As well as many new features, many features from Longturn and some from Warclient have been merged into the main codebase for this release. A new program has been added to the Freeciv suite: 'freeciv-modpack'. This makes it easier to download and install add-ons ('modpacks': rulesets, tilesets, etc) to the right place; you can enter a URL, choose an add-on from the list, and the tool will install it to the correct place for this version of Freeciv to use it. Modpack authors should see this page for details of how to publish modpacks for installation by this program. GNAPATCH#1822 As is usual for major releases, 2.3 clients cannot interoperate with pre-2.3 servers, and vice versa. Pre-2.3 savegames can however be loaded into 2.3, and in most cases, the supplied rulesets have not changed so much as to make it difficult to complete a game started with 2.2.x's rules. Server / General Gameplay * Various limits have been lifted, including: + Maximum number of simultaneous players increased from 30 to 126 GNAPATCH#1731 + Map size o Maximum map size increased from 30,000 to 128,000 tiles; maximum linear map dimensions increased from 254 to 512 GNAPATCH#1733 o Minimum map size reduced to 16x16(!) GNA#17031 + Allow goto paths that take more than 99 turns GNA#16792 * There are now more ways of specifying the map size. Instead of specifying the size in thousands of tiles (via the 'size' option), you can specify the number of tiles per player ('tilesperplayer'), or the exact X and Y sizes ('xsize' and 'ysize'). The method is selected with the 'mapsize' option. GNAPATCH#1720 * A number of new server settings have been added to customise gameplay: + 'killunhomed': units without a home city (such as starting units) can be configured to lose hitpoints each turn until they die. GNAPATCH#1501 + 'unreachableprotects' controls whether 'unreachable' units (such as Bombers) protect the whole stack on their tile as in previous versions. If this is unset, a mixed stack is vulnerable to attack (including normally-unreachable units). GNAPATCH#1850 + 'unitwaittime' allows a minimum time to be enforced between actions of a given unit on successive turns, to mitigate the 'double-move problem'. GNAPATCH#1500 + 'restrictinfra' allows enemy use of infrastructure such as roads and rails to be restricted. GNAPATCH#1266 + 'airliftingstyle' allows airlifts between allied cities, and unlimited airlifts per turn. GNAPATCH#1189 + 'techlost_recv'/'techlost_donor' allow introduction of a risk of technology loss when technologies are transferred between civilizations (via diplomacy, espionage, conquest etc). GNAPATCH#1263 + 'trading_tech'/'trading_gold'/'trading_city' allow certain types of diplomatic agreements to be selectively disabled. GNAPATCH#1504, GNAPATCH#1506 + 'globalwarming'/'nuclearwinter' allow these global catastrophes to be disabled. GNAPATCH#1505 + 'team_pooled_research' allows pooled research to be disabled. GNAPATCH#1868 + 'alliedvictory': all players in an alliance can share victory. This new behaviour is enabled by default. GNA#14278 * (as of rc1) Changes to the 'timeout' setting now always have immediate effect, as in 2.0.x; previously, changes between non-zero values would not take effect until the next turn. GNA#18079 * Improvements to observing: + The demographic report is now available to global observers. GNA#16486 + Global observers can now view the city report (it shows cities from all nations). GNA#16699 GNAPATCH#2571 + Global observers can now access the buildable target list in the city dialog. GNA#16487 * The number of units built, killed, etc now contributes to the final score, and appears in the endgame report. GNAPATCH#1870 * Changing a unit's activity is now more forgiving: if you accidentally stop an activity such as irrigation, but restart it without doing anything else, progress is no longer lost. GNA#15510 Clerical * Settings configuration on the client and server has been reworked. The most notable change is that enumerated and bitwise options are now set with strings instead of numbers (for instance, '/set barbarians hordes' instead of 4, '/set topology wrapx|wrapy' instead of 3). GNAPATCH#1301 * The FREECIV_PATH environment variable can be overridden by three new variables: FREECIV_DATA_PATH, FREECIV_SAVE_PATH, and FREECIV_SCENARIO_PATH. GNA#14624 * Add-ons are now loaded from a sub-path ~/.freeciv/<version>/ (e.g., ~/.freeciv/2.3/), since they tend to be specific to a version of Freeciv. GNA#14624 * Servers send more information to the metaserver: + The 'timeout' and 'aifill' options (GNAPATCH#2092); + (as of beta2) the number of human players (as opposed to AIs) (GNAPATCH#2312); as of beta3 this is displayed in the client (GNAPATCH#2411) * New server command '/kick' and associated option 'kicktime' to lock out troublesome users. GNA#16933 * New server commands '/ignore', '/unignore', and '/list ignored users', allowing players to suppress chat messages from specific users. GNAPATCH#1910 * The '/create' command can now create a new player even in a running game. GNAPATCH#1574 * New command '/lua' to execute a line of Lua script on the server command line. GNA#15644 * More options have been added to the '/reset' command. GNAPATCH#1284 * The name of the scorelog file is configurable with the new 'scorefile' option. GNAPATCH#1750 * The current ruleset can be shown by '/show rulesetdir' instead of '/rulesetdir' (this allows less privileged users to do so). GNA#16636 * Observers can see the current votes in progress with the new command '/list votes'. GNA#16635 * The server uses a new format for savegames. It can load savegames generated by old versions of Freeciv, but old versions will not be able to load new savegames. GNAPATCH#1541 + Support has been added for future versions of Freeciv to save backward-compatible savegames (back to 2.3.0) via the 'saveversion' server option. Clients * Various report screens have been reworked so as not to redraw and lose their selections after a few seconds. GNA#16439 * The total revenue from trade routes is now visible in the city report. GNA#16812 * The chat log file name is now configurable. GNAPATCH#1749 * (GTK) Some rework of the pregame connection screen and menus (GNA#16685). Buttons on this screen now adapt to selected player/user (GNA#15300). * (GTK) Tab completion of user and player names on the chatline. GNAPATCH#1867 * (GTK) The goto/airlift dialog now shows which nation each city belongs to, and more detail on airlift capacity. GNA#15313 GNAPATCH#2588 * The research report is now updated when tax rates or city science output change. GNA#16776 * (as of beta2) Improve handling of (non-default) rulesets which restrict reachability of technologies (via root_req in the ruleset) in the science report. You can now choose whether unreachable technologies are displayed. GNA#16852, GNA#16855, etc * (as of beta2) (Xaw) The Take Player command is implemented. GNAPATCH#2253 * (as of rc1) In 2.2.x, the "Sell Obsolete" button in the Economy report could never be pressed. It has been renamed to "Sell Redundant", and now lets 'redundant' buildings be sold en masse (redundant buildings are those whose effects are entirely superseded by another, for which you may still be paying upkeep -- for instance, Power Plants are redundant in cities with a Hydro/Nuclear/Solar Plants). In the Gtk client, the "Obsolete" column in the Economy report has been replaced with a "Redundant" column showing how many of each building in your empire are redundant. GNA#17937 Gameplay / Rules Changes affecting supplied rulesets * Two new rulesets are included in the distribution: + multiplayer: a ruleset based on the default but tuned for multiplayer games, based on Madeline Book's "rewonder" ruleset for 2.1. + experimental: a ruleset showcasing new features of the Freeciv "engine", without strict regard for game balance and playability. It enables some of the new features mentioned below, such as variable city radii. * More than doubled the number of playable nations (from 185 to 385). Many improvements to existing nations, such as using native spellings for cities and leaders. * The interaction of promotions and diplomat-vs-diplomat contests has changed: + Attacking diplomats can now gain experience; previously, only defending diplomats gained experience. GNA#17265 + The effect of veterancy on the outcome of these contests has been reduced; it can change the odds by at most 20% (previously, elite diplomats could become practically invincible). GNA#17264 * The terrain effects of global warming and nuclear winter are now more severe: land can be lost to ocean (and vice versa), and glaciers can melt. GNA#17105 * If migration occurs, citizens take half the food in the granary with them. GNAPATCH#1232 * (as of rc1) In rulesets with Fundamentalism, it now has a happiness penalty for empire size (as it did in 2.0.x). GNA#18133 * (as of rc2) The civ2 ruleset now uses a restricted set of 25 nations, to better resemble the original game. Loading civ2 savegames from older versions of Freeciv may cause nations to be reassigned; it will not be possible to load a civ2 savegame with more than 23 (non-barbarian) players. GNA#18419 New features for ruleset/modpack/scenario authors These features have been added to the Freeciv "engine", but aren't enabled in standard rulesets (except the experimental ruleset, in some cases). * Variable city radius: the circle of tiles able to be worked by a city is no longer fixed but can vary (radii from 1 to 5 possible) depending on requirements defined by the ruleset. GNAPATCH#1235 + Accordingly, the maximum value for the 'citymindist' server option has been increased from 5 to 9. GNAPATCH#2262 * Build slots: in ruleset-defined circumstances, cities with large production surpluses can now produce more than one of a given type of unit per turn. GNAPATCH#1234 * Tech upkeep: rulesets can cause some research output to be diverted to maintaining expertise in existing technology rather than discovering new technology, with the risk of losing advances if the upkeep is not met (similar to gold upkeep for city improvements). GNAPATCH#1264 * Rulesets can define units that can be converted into another type of unit on the player's command. GNA#13890 * Rulesets can define "Capturable" units that can be captured by certain other "Capturer" units. (There is an associated server option 'homecaughtunits'.) GNAPATCH#1851 * Rulesets can suggest or mandate server settings. GNA#13873, GNAPATCH#1200 * A start position in a scenario can now be restricted to a set of nations rather than a single nation. The built-in editor now supports editing this set. GNA#13803 * Various improvements to Lua scripting. See Events Reference Manual for some more detail. Tilesets / Art * New default tileset with redrawn terrain graphics: "Amplio 2". The original Amplio tileset is available for 2.3 as an add-on (it can be found with the freeciv-modpack utility). GNAPATCH#1777 * Larger versions of flags and shields are now included in the Freeciv distribution for use by larger tilesets; they are used in Amplio2 (as of beta4). GNAPATCH#2202 Translations * (as of rc2) New Scottish Gaelic localization (complete). * (as of beta3) New Irish Gaelic localization (not yet complete: 55%). * Updated translations: + Complete translations: Polish, French, Spanish, Catalan, and British English. + Incomplete translations: Danish (95.8%), Finnish (85%), Ukrainian (81%), Italian (74%), Japanese (70%), Brazilian Portuguese (70%), Russian (69%), Swedish (60%), Lithuanian (43%), and Simplified Chinese (40%). KNOWN ISSUES * There are some regressions in the SDL client relative to 2.2.x: + The city dialog has not been redesigned to accommodate the larger city map required by variable city radius support. As a result, the city map display is scaled down and difficult to read. GNA#15804 + Not all setting types can now be modified; bitwise and color settings are not yet supported. GNAPATCH#1631 GNAPATCH#1957 MAJOR CHANGES from 2.1.x to 2.2.0 --------------------------------- (from <http://www.freeciv.org/wiki/NEWS-2.2.0>) * Built-in editor * Expanded ruleset format: + Unit classes + Movement restrictions o Can limit which terrains a unit can enter o River-boats o Wheeled units o Which units another unit can transport + Migration + Plague + Bases + Calendar effects * Changes to gameplay with default ruleset: + New terrains: o Deep Ocean (as Ocean but no specials and cannot be transformed) o Lake (as Ocean but no Whales special; inland water below a certain size is generated as Lake) + Triremes are not restricted to tiles next to land, but to (shallow) Ocean tiles; they now cannot even attempt to enter unsafe tiles + Triremes no longer get the +1 movement bonus from Nuclear Power that other sea units get + Triremes and Carriers can no longer attack land units + Submarine attack strength reduced from 15 to 12 (to make it easier to defend against them with escorts) + New base type buoy, which can be built by Engineers on water tiles with the Radio advance, and gives vision. + Ruins (left behind by destroyed cities, no effect on gameplay currently) + New advance Environmentalism and Solar Plant improvement, which can eliminate pollution from production + Trade route value now depends on size of cities, not on trade generated in them + New national borders system + Coastal Defense now available earlier (requires Gunpowder instead of Metallurgy) + No restrictions on specialists in small cities + Terrain within working range of a city can no longer remain unknown + Units in fortresses now regain 25% HP per turn (as in 2.0.x) instead of 100% + New nations * AI difficulty level: Cheating * New server options: + foggedborders: visibility of borders is subject to fog of war + borders gains new modes where player can see all tiles inside borders, and borders extend to unknown tiles revealing them + endspaceship controls whether spaceship reaching Alpha Cen ends the game + trademindist controls the minimum distance for trade routes between your cities + Times now specified in turns instead of years (endyear becomes endturn, onsetbarbs expressed in turns) + simultaneousphases renamed to phasemode and gains new options * Client interface changes: + Menus and shortcut keys revamped; notable changes include: o Connect with Road/Rail/Irrigation changes from Ctrl+Shift+R/L/I to Shift+R/L/I o City Report: F1 to F4 o Go/Airlift to City: Shift+L to T o Wake up Others (Shift+W) becomes Unsentry all on tile (Shift+S) o Orders menu split into Select, Unit, Work, and Combat; Reports becomes Civilization * Scripting improvements * Event cache: messages from the last few turns can be replayed to clients on connection and saved in savegames * Featured text in Gtk client, including colour coding and clickable links to mentioned cities/units/tiles OLDER CHANGES ------------- WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 2.0.7 - Significantly improved features for modmakers. - New default tileset: Amplio. - New city tab on main map. - City outlines. - Added lua as scripting language. New tutorial scenario. - Many new nations, flags and nation information and options. - New /surrender command to yield in multiplayer games. - Score now shown in player dialog. - Reputation removed from the game. - New borders rules. Borders are static, fortresses expand borders and cities expand more borders with city size growth. - New diplomacy rules. Neutral state replaced with Armistice. You now start in War state, and cannot cross borders with military units except in War or Alliance states. - GTK+ 1.2 client removed. - Votes need over 50% of votes to pass. Voting is now only during game. - First player to join becomes game organizer and sets all options. - Many AI changes. Improved AI diplomacy. - Palace has a production bonus of +75% under Despotism and +50% under Monarchy. - New animated cursors. - Support for GGZ Gaming Zone. - Multiple units may be moved at once as a battlegroup. - As usual, tons of changes under the hood. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.14.2 - Research cost has doubled, effects of science buildings doubled. SETI now improves Research Labs instead of giving free Research Labs to every city. Isaac Newton's College now improves all the player's universities. - New units: AWACS and Workers. - New option: national borders. Units inside your borders do not cause unhappiness under Republic and Democracy. - It is no longer possible for one player to be in alliance with a player who is at war with another player you are allied with. - The Civ2 ruleset now has waste. Default ruleset does not. - Incite costs changed, now cities closer to capital, with units and with buildings have much higher incite cost. - Killing a defending diplomat now costs you 1 movement point. - Units now have multiple, configurable veteran levels. - Team mates now pool their research. You may opt out and research individually by cancelling the 'Team' treaty. - Server has voting on commands and options. You need over 50% of votes. - When moving a unit from a transport on an ocean tile to a land tile, you lose all movement points. - You can specify a list of players that you would like to share victory with, using the 'endgame' command. - Nations added: Swiss, Afghanistan, Ethiopian, Assyrian, Columbian, Elvish, Galician, Hobbits, Indonesian, Kampuchean, Malaysian, Martian, Nigerian, Quebecois, Sumerian, Taiwanese, Austrian, Belgian, Phoenician and Mexican. - New wonder: The Eiffel Tower. Makes AIs love you and improves reputation. - The building requirements of several buildings have been changed. - The whale special is reduced to 2 food, 1 shield and 2 trade. - Settlers / Workers / Engineers can never get veterancy. - Trireme's high sea loss now considers veterancy level (green 50%, veteran 25%, hardened 5%, elite 0%) before being divided by 2 if you have Seafaring or 4 when you reach Navigation (previously only fixed at 50% before being divided). - Glacier terrain is now unsafe for land units (15% chance per turn of being lost). Also doesn't count as coastline for Trireme safety or Fish and Whale generation. Roads/railroads can be built but all units (worker too) get 15% chance per turn of being lost any way! - King Richard's Crusade is now made obsolete by Robotics (previously Industrialization). - Fixed tech costs based on the number of prerequisites of the tech in the tech tree. - Nations have preferred nations to fork off when civil war occurs. - AI is much improved, and does not use 'double-move' any more. - AI now conducts diplomacy with you (and against you). - New difficulty level: Novice. It severely handicaps the AI players. - Smarter autoexplorer and autosettler code. - Modpack options vastly improved: You can customize buildings, add buildings as requirements to units, restrict technologies to certain nations, have split technology trees, gold upkeep for units, new units and terrain flags and lots of other options. (This is still done by editing configuration files with a text editor.) - Fewer popups (eg choose the new government from the menu directly) - Alternative map topologies, e.g., real support for isometric and hexagonal maps and "donut" map wrapping. - Incomplete support for drawing civ3 graphics. See the civ3gfx tileset. - Global observer can observe the entire game. - New method of settings map dimensions: Just use 'size'. - Modified map generators. - Initial units can be selected with a server option. - 'Home' key centers on your capital. - Drag and drop goto. - Player authentication with optional passwords. - You can start the server and set server options from the client. - You can meet with other players for 20 turns after your units have last met, and you can exchange embassies when meeting. - You can bind the server to a given IP on multihomed hosts. - New client dialog which uses multicast to find servers on your LAN. - Compress network traffic and send only a delta (diff) of the data. - GTK2 client can now run in fullscreen mode. - GTK2 is now the default client (the code base also features fully functional GTK1, Xaw and native Win32 clients). - Convert charsets as they are sent between client and server. All data files are now in UTF-8. - New (and incompatible) metaserver. - New ALSA sound plugin. - The s(entry) command no longer doubles as a means to put units on boats - use the new l(oad) command instead. - Many more (smaller) changes, and massive changes under the hood. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.13.0 - Unique city names, you no longer can name your cities the same, and you can enforce unique city names globally (optional). - A new map generator (generator 5) which creates pretty fractal maps. - You can load savegames from the server prompt. - You can save client commandline defaults. - Specialists are taken from content citizens first, instead of from unhappy citizens first. This makes it more difficult to quell unrest using taxmen and scientists. - You now start with no technologies by default, and angry citizens are enabled by default, although they will rarely make an apperance. - The algorithm used for calculating the effects of tax settings has been changed. It is now no longer possible to get 100% effect from 60% choice of tax goal. - A new, historically more correct version of the rulesets included. - There is an option to require several turns of rapture/celebration before it takes effect. See "show rapturedelay" in server. - The sequence of some end of turn activities have been regrouped. - Several AI improvements. It should now build and buy units and buildings slightly more intelligently. - Many internal code improvements that will lead to more features later. - /fix and /unfix commands to stop modifications after game has started. - The server commands "rulesout", "log", "freestyle" and "crash" have been removed, while "rfcstyle" now toggles between rfcstyle and freestyle. - civ2 ruleset now more accurately reflects civ2 deity level defaults. - A truly massive amount of bugfixes. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.12.0 - Citizen Management Agent (CMA) allows you to automate workers and specialists in cities. - Sound support has been added. - The new "isotrident" tileset has been made the default. The "hires" and "engels" tilesets have been taken out of the distribution but can be downloaded from the web page. - New city dialog in the gtk client. - Windows version of the client. It has improved connection dialog and supports loading and saving from the client. - GTK 2.0 version of the client. - The client will try to suggest names for your cities that correspond with what they mean. - Improved players dialog shows sortable and colored information, including the players' flags. - Server no longer takes the --server command line option, instead you can use the --info option to set the metaserver announcement text to whatever you like. The -a option when given to the client skips the connection dialog entirely. - A "wall" server command added which gives message to all players. - A new flexible timeout set through "timeoutinc" server option. - Leftover research bulbs will carry over to next advance. - Trade routes are more effective. - Units attacking ships in cities double their firepower, while defenders get only 1 firepower. - Helicopters defending against air units get 50% penalty, and have their firepower reduced to 1 against fighter units. - You can build city walls even though you have Great Wall wonder. - The Communism government's food cost in default ruleset has been changed to 1, while it has been changed to 2 for the Civ2 ruleset. - Stealth fighter and bomber now really are stealthy, and are partially invisible just like subs. Also, stealth bombers have increased their attack strength from 14 to 18. - Civ2 ruleset now has Fundamentalism. - Improved modpack abilities: The caravan ability has been split. New ways to calculate technology costs. Better documentation. Rulesets can specify starting techs. You can have more than one bonus tech. Split settler abilities. Buildings ruleset syntax has been significantly extended, but effects do not work yet. - Server option "tinyisles" allow 1x1 size islands and "separatepoles" allow continents connected to the poles - "citymindist" specify minimum distance between cities, while "notradesize" and "fulltradesize" regulate the trade generated by smaller cities. - You can turn on angry citizens with "angrycitizens" option. - Fortresses may give you extended vision. See watchtower options. - If you lose your palace, you get a new one for free in a randomly chosen city. This behaviour can be turned off with the server option "savepalace". - Rulesets are now loaded from inside the server through the "rulesetdir" command. - The limit on the number of nations that can be included with Freeciv has been removed. - The format of the isometric tileset spec-files has changed. - The map and ai code has been cleaned up significantly. - Translations improved. Added better support for plural forms. - Several bugs squished and a lot of work done under the hood. - For an overview of the remaining bugs please visit doc/BUGS. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.11.4 - Internationalization extended. Still needs improvement. Current localizations: de en_GB es fr hu it ja nl no pl pt pt_BR ro ru sv. - Isometric view in gtk and amiga clients using the mostly civ2- compatible HiRes tileset. This is on by default, but the old non- isometric tiles are still available by giving a --tiles argument to the client, fx "civclient --tiles trident". - While planning a goto (after hitting "g") a line will be displayed showing the route from the selected unit to the mouse pointer. Hitting "g" will insert a waypoint at the mouse pointer. - The server now has readline completion. This works at all levels, fx "cu<TAB>" completes to "cut", and if there exist a player named "paulz" "cut pau<TAB>" will complete to "cut paulz". - Players can agree to give shared vision, which means that you automatically see everything the other player sees. - Layer view menu items allow you to only display some map info on the main map. Fx you can choose to not show roads. - The server will ping all connected clients and cut off those too slow to respond. - Smarter placing of partisans. - The server no longer automatically starts when the maximum number of players have been reached. - If commandlevels are used and the controlling player disconnects a connected player can assume the "first" level with the "/firstlevel" command. - "Restrictions and Limitations" section added to the README.ruleset - Caravans, diplomats and spies can move into allied cities. - Elephants, Crusaders and Fanatics activated in civ 2 ruleset. - The size of the city foodbox is now controlled by the ruleset variables "granary_food_ini" and "granary_food_inc". - Limit on number of improvement types in rulesets removed. - Capitalization is available from the start of the game in the default ruleset. (renamed coinage) - Cities can have 0 trade. (used to be at least 1) - Settlers can only be added to cities less than size 8, as in civ 2. - If you paradrop a unit into unknown terrain and the terrain contains an enemy unit the paradropping unit is lost. If you drop into terrain you thought was land, but which has changed to water, the unit is also lost. - diplomats/spies can't take action from a ship. - Refueling air units at turn update will refuel units with only 1 fuel first. Secundary criteria is unit cost. - Trireme loss percentage depends upon known technologies. - Leonardo's workshop will upgrade a random unit each turn, and not just the next one. - Allied cities count as friendly when determining whether a unit is being agressive. (gives unhappyness under some govs.) - Deserts are created primarily 15 to 35 degrees off the equator. - Only arctic tiles generated at poles. - The server will report when a new government becomes available. - Changed wording of message "famine feared" to "famine occurred". New "famine feared" message just before food runs out. - "wonder soon build" message when another player is about to complete a wonder. - Players are notified when one of their wonders has become obsolete. - In the players dialog it is now reported which nations have an embassy with you. Your embassies are also listed. - Wonders being built are listed in the "wonders of the world" popup. - Server "save" command saves to <auto-save name prefix><year>m.sav[.gz] if it is not given any arguments. - "quitidle" server commandline option makes server quit if there has been no connected players for the specified amount of time. - When turning on the autotoggle option existing human nations without a connected player will be put on AI. - Server doesn't block as long when writing to a slow host, controlled by variables "tcptimeout" and "netwait". - "savename" server variable controls the prefix of autosaves. - "allowconnect" server variable lets you control which types of players (new players; human players; AI players; dead players; barbarian players) can connect. - More nations added. - New maps in data/scenario: british-isles-80x76-v2.51.sav, iberian-peninsula-136x100-v0.9.sav, hagworld-120x60-v1.2.sav (earth map). - Amiga internationalization/localization. - Amiga client: history added to chatline. - Lots of bug fixes and code cleanups. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.11.0: - Readline support added to the server. - May now disperse initial units over specified area. See "dispersion" server option. - May now arrange for first client to connect to have a higher cmdlevel than the following clients. See "cmdlevel" server option. - Save files now transparently (un)compressed when (loaded) saved. - Now requires a minimum number of ocean tiles to be adjacent to a land tile wished to be transformed into ocean. Default is 1. - Added Nuclear Fallout. Industrialization and population still generate Pollution. Dropping a Nuke generates Nuclear Fallout, which is distinct from Pollution. There is a new command to clean Fallout vs. cleaning Pollution. Fallout contributes to Nuclear Winter -- which also changes terrain, but tends to Desert, Tundra and Glacier. Added a new "cooling" icon to the info area to indicate the progress towards Nuclear Winter, and also an icon for Fallout on the main map. AIs are now more aggressive at cleaning up Pollution, but not Fallout. - Ported to OpenVMS. - Moved most of the dependencies on the "civstyle" server option to separate values in game.ruleset files. - Fixed bugs in "turns to build" displays. - Fixed bug whereby Diplomat/Spy investigations of cities did not reveal the correct supported and present unit lists. - Fixed multiple bugs in go-to code. - Fixed bug where starting a revolution, saving the game and restarting the server would allow switching governments without anarchy. - Fix bug that you could paradrop into cities you were at war with even if they contained enemy units. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.10.0: - Internationalization extended. Still needs improvement. Current localizations: de en_GB es fr hu ja nl no pl pt pt_BR ru. - Added full Fog of War. Controlled by "fogofwar" server option. - Added explicit Diplomatic States between civilizations: war, neutral, no-contact, cease-fire peace and alliance. - Allow terrain changes to/from land/ocean. Default ruleset allows Engineers to Transform Swamp to Ocean and Ocean to Swamp. Also allows Forest to be Mined into Swamp. - Increased maximum number of players to 30. - Fortifying now takes a turn to complete (like Civ1/2). - Added correct Civ2 style of Apollo wonder (shows entire map, rather than just cities). Selected by "civstyle" server option. - Aggressive sea units no longer cause unhappiness when in a city. - Added Civ2 rule that firepower is reduced to 1 for both the defender and the attacker when a ship bombards a land unit. - When changing current research, if user changes back to what was being researched, the penalty is not applied (you keep all your bulbs). - Added pop-up of more details when clicking on info box in GTK+ client. - Improved the global warming danger indicator. - Added warning of incipient city growth. - The server "remove <player>" command is no longer available after the game has started. - Added "fixedlength" server option to make all turns exactly "timeout" duration. - The "timeout" time may be much longer (up to a day). - Added goto for air units. If destination is beyond range, they will stop in cities/airfields/etc. to get there. - May now select a unit by clicking on the unit pile display on the left. - Diplomats/Spies moving by goto now do pop-up the Diplomat/Spy command dialog when they reach a city. - Improved goto algorithm and implementation. - Help dialog displays which buildings an advance will obsolete. - Optionally show city food/shields/trade productions on main map. - Added server option "autotoggle", which toggles AI status on and off as players connect and disconnect. - Allow Hoover Dam to be built anywhere, to conform to Civ2. - Show turns per advance in Science Advisor dialog. - Improved map and unit movement drawing code. - Added "End Turn when done moving" local option. - City production penalties now applied more correctly. - Added Sentry and Fortify to Present Units' City Dialog pop-up. - More nations added. - Added a resource file for the GTK+ client. - Improved network code for more reliable connections. - Split nations.ruleset into individual <nation>.ruleset files. - Extended registry file format to allow including files and overriding entries. - Added --with-xaw and --enable-client=xaw3d options to ./configure script. - Lots of bug fixes and code cleanups. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.9.0: - Internationalization extended. Still needs improvement. New ./doc directory for localized versions of README and INSTALL. Current localizations: de en_GB es fr hu no pl pt pt_BR ru. - Added Civ1/2-like Barbarians. Controlled by two server options. - Many more nations added. - Worklists -- Players can now specify a list of things to be built in a city. - The AI now utilizes diplomats/spies aggressively. - Added a variant (1) of Michelangelo's Chapel. - Initial rates after Revolution will try to maximize Science. - Rapture-triggered city growth will no longer empty the foodbox. - Map generator improvements: - Gen 1 hills more uniform north/south. - Gen 2+ will tend to make fewer length-one rivers. - Added unit-death explosion animation. - No longer will cities with exactly 0 (zero) production surplus be given a "free" shield every turn. - Command-line arguments made more consistent between server and client. - Caravans now provide a research benefit when initially establishing a trade route, equal to the monetary benefit. - Diplomat/Spy changes: - Changed all actions to more closely conform to Civ2 rules. - Changed "diplchance" to be %-chance of success. Used in many ways. - Diplomat/Spy may attempt action with any movement left. - Added "At Spy's Discretion" selection to steal and sabotage dialogs. - Allow Spies to steal tech from a city more than once (gets harder). - May only poison towns of size greater than 1 (one). - May only sabotage units that are alone on a square. - When a city is subverted, only nearby units change sides. - Veteran status improves defense against other Diplomats/Spies. - Added production display of number of turns remaining to build. - Small, shield-like flags tilesets (trident_shields, engels_shields). - Airbase changes (for Civ2 compliance): - Ground units can attack Air units when they are parked on an Airbase. - Units are defeated only singly when on an Airbase (like a Fortress). - Revised and improved the server 'help' command. - New intro graphics. - Ships may now have their movement reduced after a combat in which they are damaged. - Added display of production values to main map "city tiles" display. - Increased the Add-To City size limit to 9 to conform to Civ2. - Settler's "Connect" feature -- Automatically connect two points with Road, Railroad, Irrigate or Fortress. - Several AI improvements. - New ruleset support for CITIES, most notably cities are now drawn in different sizes and styles. - Allow specifying unambiguous player name prefix, instead of full player name, for server commands taking a player name argument. - Added multi-client configuration support. - Added 'read' and 'write' server commands. - Added "best nation" column to Demographics report. - Changed Fighters and Stealth Fighters to not cause unhappiness (Civ2). - Cities on mountains will produce an extra food (Civ2). - Fixed bug where Lighthouse was not producing veteran sea units. - Ported to Amiga. (This is not included with a "distribution"; get it directly from the CVS <http://www.freeciv.org/contribute.html#SetupCVS>, or from a CVS Snapshot <http://www.freeciv.org/latest.html>.) - Lots of bug fixes, code cleanups, and help-text improvements. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.8.1: - Internationalization added. Some aspects still need improvement, and in particular currently only works well if client and server both use the same language. Initial (partial) translations included are: de es fr hu pl pt pt_BR. - Improvements to "trident" tileset, and this set is now the default. - New ruleset support for NATIONS, and many new nations added -- there are now 32 nations in the default nations file. Also allow multiple leaders choices for each nation, allow longer player names, and allow specifying/choosing sex of leader. - New ruleset support for TERRAIN, and changes to allow Civ2 style terrain with more specials, multi-terrain rivers, and new farmland infrastructure. Moved some server options into terrain ruleset, and added new rule option regarding movement along rivers. - New ruleset support for GOVERNMENTS, and more general unit upkeep. - The contents and layout of the graphics files is now described in user-editable 'spec' files, instead of being hardwired into the code; see README.graphics for details. - Changes to city graphics: can now see cities grow. Also, code support for different city styles for different nations, and for technology dependent styles, but lacking good graphics except for the default style. Cities show a small flag when occupied by one or more units. - From Civ2, added Paratroopers unit and Airbase infrastructure. - Initial window size of Gtk+ client is smaller, to fit better on smaller screens, and can now resize detached chat/output window. - City report enhancements: New "Change All" dialog to convert all production of a given item to some other item (both clients); can select multiple cities and issue commands (Gtk+ client only); can sort by different columns (Gtk+ client only). Can also select multiple items in the Trade Report (Gtk+ client only). - In Civ2 style, can select which infrastructure item to pillage, and multiple units can pillage together. Can now pillage fortresses, as well as new farmland and airbase infrastructure items. - More fields added to Demographics Report, and now configurable from a server option. - Added more information to "Active Units Report", and renamed to "Military Report". - New cursors added for Goto, Nuke and Paradrop modes; <Escape> key cancels Go-To/Paradrop/nuke mode; pollution on city squares is now always clearly visible; improvements to refresh method for pixmaps in Gtk+ client; various other improvements to both clients. - Autosettlers no longer convert Plains/Grasslands to Forests, but will now Transform terrain. - AI can build spaceships, although does not do so very aggressively or intelligently yet. - Server and client may specify a different metaserver to use. There is now a metaserver running on www.freeciv.org, and that is now the default metaserver (http://www.freeciv.org/metaserver). - New server option for "turn blocking" mode, in which players will never miss a turn even if sometimes disconnected. - More flexible rulesets for units and techs (advances) allowing variable number of items in each (up to 200) and no longer any techs with hardwired effects depending on position in ruleset file. - Appropriate helptext now appears in ruleset files, allowing modpacks to give modified help to correspond to modified items. - Format of ruleset files is changed, no longer compatible with those for 1.8.0 and 1.8.1. - Removed science bonus of +1 per city per turn. - In Civ2 mode, overflight of a hut causes it to disappear, and can't build cities next to each other. - Rapture_size now 3, to conform to Civ2. - Settlers and Engineers now cost shield upkeep as well as food upkeep (depending on government type) as in both Civ1 and Civ2. - Helicopters do not lose hitpoints when over an airbase. - The amount of food required for a city grow is now ((citysize+1) * foodbox), instead of (citysize * foodbox); new behavior matches both Civ1 and Civ2. - Some re-organization of data directory, in adding data/scenario, and graphics now in data/trident, data/engels and data/misc. - Preliminary support for compiling the server on Mac (but networking code not yet ported). - Progressively moving code out of client gui-dependent directories. - Lots of bug fixes, code cleanups, and help-text improvements. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.8.0: - The biggest change is a new client which uses the popular Gtk+ toolkit. The old Xaw client is still included as well. - A new alternate (30x30) tileset: the "trident" tileset. Start the client with "--tiles trident" to try it out. (This replaces the "classic/brunus" tileset, which is still available separately from the Freeciv ftp site.) - In the Gtk+ client, parts of the main window can be detached. Detaching them all allows a full-screen map window! - The data directory can now be specified as a "path" ($FREECIV_PATH), instead of a single directory. By default, ~/.freeciv is now in the path, so if you download new tiles, modpacks, etc, you can now simply put them in ~/.freeciv - Server console improvements: can abbreviate server command names, and server option names. Better prompt handling - eg, server no longer prints an unnecessary prompt each turn. - Server commands can now be issued from the client chatline. There is a new server command "cmdlevel", to control access to this feature on a per-player basis. - Some of the "small" graphics have been improved. - Added a nice cursor for selecting the destination for "goto". - New column "corruption" in the city report. - Implemented Marco Polo's Embassy wonder. - New command to explode Nuclear units at an empty square. - Improved behavior of Caravans and "goto": the Caravan dialog will now popup when the Caravan arrives, whether moving by goto or by the keyboard. - Allow connecting to metaserver (in client) via $http_proxy. - Minor "Zone of Control" (ZOC) rules changes to better match Civ2. - Improved debug logging. - Server will refuse to run as root, as a security measure. - As always: lots of bug fixes, code cleanups, and help-text improvements. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.7.2: - Space race! Be the first player to build a space ship and colonize Alpha Centauri. - Civil war! Capturing the enemy capital may split his empire. Half of his towns will join a new AI leader! - Two tile sets in this release! The "big" ones are from Ralph Engels. I hope you will enjoy them. The second set is an enhancement of the classic ones. The server option -tiles allows to choose a subdirectory of the data directory to use different tiles. (The data directory can be set with the DATADIR environment variable.) Also, diagonal roads and railroads are now drawn. Changed some of the national flags (especially changed Soviet flag to the Russian flag for Russians). - Rulesets can be used to customise units, advances, wonders, and improvements without recompiling -- see README.rulesets. - Units in a town can be put in auto-attack mode. In this mode, they will attack any enemy units which come nearby. - New city options for each city, controlling whether new citizens are workers or specialists, whether to allow disbanding a size 1 city by building a settler, and options for units on auto-attack mode in the city. - Mapgen 4 (selected with the server command "set generator 4") is a new map generator which generates a map with 2 players on each island. - Cities can be a traded in diplomatic treaties. This effectively allows you to exchange, sell or buy cities. - The AI now builds diplomats to defend against enemy diplomats. - Settlers and engineers can do teamwork. With enough manpower, all terrain improvements can be done fast! - With engineers, the terrain type can be changed using the new Transform command ('O'). For example, hills can be turned into plains. - Units only regenerate hit points if they have not moved at all for a full turn. - Gamelog option. The whole history of a game can be stored in the gamelog file. - One can select a unit with 0 moves left from the main map. - City workers can be adjusted from the main map, with shift+button1. - Changed the order of libraries to fix problems on IRIX and Cygwin. - Changed the client-server protocol to use network byte order. - Other bug fixes and code and help text cleanups. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.7.1: - Improvements to the configure script, so it should now work properly on all systems. - Ability to configure to use Xaw3d instead of the normal Xaw. - New "easy" AI mode, which is now the default. - Improved "City Report" dialog, with configurable columns. - Improved "Message Options" dialog, with customizable filtering and selection for the different message types. - Improved "Messages" dialog, with a scrollbar, and a "Popup City" button. - Improved multi-column "Unit Select" dialog when there are lots of units. - In city dialog, middle-click unit icons to "activate and close". - New client command "t" to show tiles used by city under mouse. - New metaserver dialog to make connecting to metaserver games easier. - Ability to save and re-load client settings. - Clearer Yes/No toggle buttons in various places in the client. - Reduced color usage (but looks almost identical), so the client should now work fine on systems with 8 bit color displays. - Ability to use "scenarios", that is, pre-designed maps. Scenarios for Earth and Europe games are included in the data directory. (Use them with the server command-line option -f, like savegames.) - More city names, so you're less likely to see "City 41" etc. - Saving large games is now much faster, and the savefile is smaller. - Improvements to the documentation and online help system, including a new help section on the "Zones of Control" game concept. - Detect repeated log messages and print repeat counts. - New server options randseed and aqueductloss. - Many other enhancements and bug fixes. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.7.0: - Removed two C++-style comments, the most reported problem with 1.7.0! - Tweaks to the configure script for Solaris, although it's still not perfect. - Spy and diplomat improvements. - Added the "W" command, which Wakes up sentried units. - Added the "scorelog" command, which can be read by a script to generate power graphs after the game. - Loading games is now MUCH faster. - AI improvements from John Stonebraker. - Visual improvements to dialogs and the map screen. - Settlers may not fortify. - Numerous bug fixes. WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.6.3: - Massive AI changes. It plays smarter, and the AI uses seagoing vessels. - The contents of the help system have been improved substantially. - Many bugs fixed. - We now recommend you use "configure" instead of Imake. - Settlers have a new "e"xplore mode. - The makefiles now contain auto-generated dependency information. - Units within the radius of the city to which they belong no longer cause unhappiness. This will allow much more realistic defense scenarios. - The tax/lux/sci rates are now limited by your government type. Also, they can modified by clicking on the rate status icons. - The behaviour of spies and diplomats has been greatly improved. - Freeciv now needs to transmit a lot less data (<25%!) when playing over the Internet. This will greatly speed up games. - Preliminary support for compiling Freeciv under Windows and OS/2, when used in conjunction with the GNU tools. - From now on, it will be possible for different Freeciv versions to talk to each other if they're able. - Tracy Reed (who provides www.freeciv.org) reports that our site is getting over 6,000 hits per month. He was quoted as saying "Cool! Now my computer is doing something!" - Lots, and Lots, and Lots of donated patches. Thanks guys, keep 'em coming!