[Freeciv] Re: rndCiv

[banjo <banjo@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 2004-03-26 at 23:10, Yves Rutschle wrote:
> <URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=8355 >
> 
> On Thu, Mar 25, 2004 at 09:00:00PM +1200, banjo wrote:
> > from rndCiv rulesets/buildings.info 
> > 
> > [building_linux]
> > name            = _("Linux")
> 
> This sounds fun; I have wondered for a while, how does one
> actually use rndCiv? I'm really just a Freeciv user and I
> don't remember seeing any instructions that would boil down
> to "extract this tar.gz here and run civserver with these
> parameters"...
> 
> Y.

The idea behind rndCiv is that new strategy games are mainly
interesting in what new techs/units/buildings etc you have
to play with.  And once you've found the way to win that
game it's time to look for a challenge.

I also found it boring how you usually had to play the same
way and end up with the same sort of winning civilization.

I thought, wouldn't it be cool if you could ask freeciv to
construct a completely new game to play.


bash$ ./rndCiv.pl -h

./rndCiv.pl: make randomized FreeCiv rulesets
Usage: ./rndCiv.pl [OPTIONS] packagelist

Options:

    -v/-vv/-vvv  verboseness, more 'v's more verbose
    -s/--size    number of techs to have
    -o/--outdir  directory to write to
                 defaults to ./output/
    -d/--data    data directory
    -t/--techs   must have techs
                 ( use '-' to continue to package list )
    -h/--help    print this help & exit
    -l/--list    list known packages

    -p/-pp       prereq 'strictness'


ahh, well the general idea is you tell rndCiv to use a bunch of
config files to work up a techtree etc, and write the ruleset
to the output directory...

bash$ ls output/
buildings.ruleset    ruleset.summary  techtree.dot  units.ruleset
governments.ruleset  techs.ruleset 

and then run civserver pointing to that directory

bash$ civserver
> rulesetdir /path/to/randCiv/output/

However there is still work to be done for rndCiv to be usable...

 * for the many new building types to work, the general_effects
   patch must be finished, i don't know how far away that is

 * all new units images (& sounds) default to standard ones,
   but new ones should be made, i haven't even started on that.
   Zoltán Lakatos <lakatoszoltan@xxxxxxxxxx> has supplied some
   new fantasy units.

 * the config files will need to be tweaked, balanced & playtested

rndCiv can be downloaded from
 http://banjo.actrix.com/code/rndCiv/rndCiv-0.4.tgz

To install/test rndCiv (on unix)...
bash$ tar zxf rndCiv-0.4.tgz
bash$ cd rndCiv
bash$ ./rndCiv -s 100 modern ancient atomic renaissance medieval
bash$ cd output/
bash$ less ruleset.summary
bash$ grep ^name units.ruleset


-banjo