Show HN: Freeciv, HTML5 open source version | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Freeciv, HTML5 open source version

play.freeciv.org

197 pointsroschdal27 comments

Thank you! The Freeciv web client is one of my favorite projects. As a civ fanatic I thought often about contributing, but never started to do it.

Maybe someone from the team could say a few words about the projects organisation, plans and communications.

I know there's a github repo [1], but you seem to use a TODO file [2] instead of the issue tracker and/or wiki. Is that a conscious decision? Because any issue tracker would make it easier to discuss the details of the task at hand. Or is there a mailing list/irc channel which gets used for coordination?

I would be especially interested in the client-side code which is readable but, on first sight, a bit overwhelming[3] for something one would do after a regular day job. API docs and/or (more?) unit tests would be awesome because I think one of the benefits of freeciv-web is be that some of it is/could be easy to customize for advanced players.

[1]: https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv-web

[2]: https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv-web/blob/master/TODO

[3]: https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv-web/tree/master/freeciv-w...

Thanks for the kind feedback, phaer!

> Maybe someone from the team could say a few words about the projects organisation, plans and communications.

The Freeciv web client started as a fork of the Freeciv project in about 2007, at the time called Freeciv.net. Today the Freeciv web client is a part of the Freeciv project. However, the code-bases are still separate, so the Freeciv web client is maintained in Github, and has code in Javascript, Java, Python and C, while the Freeciv project is mainly implemented in C and is still hosted in SVN on gna.org. As for future plans, I hope to continue improving the game and making it work on more mobile devices. There are also plans for a WebGL version, but that would take much more work.

> Because any issue tracker would make it easier to discuss the details of the task at hand. Or is there a mailing list/irc channel which gets used for coordination?

There is a TODO-file, but the main issue tracker is on gna.org here: https://gna.org/bugs/?group=freeciv

> I would be especially interested in the client-side code which is readable but, on first sight, a bit overwhelming[3] for something one would do after a regular day job.

I would be happy to help anyone setup a development environment. It is quite quick to setup a Vagrant image if you follow the description found on the Github page.

The Freeciv web client is a volunteer non-profit effort. However, all our services run on a single server, so we absolutely appreciate donation to keep the server running: http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Donations

Since today is the day of Show HNs, here's a Show HN within a Show HN:

For some ridiculous reason, I recently cloned a semi-decent chunk of Civ4 in TypeScript and made a minigame out of it: http://dumbmatter.com/barbconq/

It's open source if anyone else is interested: http://github.com/dumbmatter/barbconq/

Of course it pales in comparison to Freeciv, which is why this is only a Show HN within a Show HN rather than a Show HN on its own :)

Nice project you've got going there, perhaps a "Find and capture the barbarian capital" mod for Freeciv (or Freeciv-web) could be something to think about.

Ideally it should be possible with a scenario script, I know that feature isn't that well explored though.

Thanks!

The only reason I made it that way is because it let me produce something playable without yet implementing techs, the economy, real AI, etc :)

Personally, I would find even a very simple AI, as long as it plays under the exact same rules as the player, potentially more interesting than the admittedly cool stuff civ4 has. I just felt a bit cheated once I got better at the game and read up on it, e.g. there is not a single difficulty level where players and AI are simply equal, and people reported the AI having fishy knowledge of things going on at the other end of the map.

To me, even an AI that plays along very simple patterns can be fun while I am still figuring out those patterns; but if it's having cheaty knowledge, then even the fun I had becomes a bit unfun in hindsight once I saw through that.

Just my 2 cents and all that, of course, not trying to tell you how to make your game ^^ Just encouraging you that even super simple AI might be fun. Of course multiplayer is the best, but even then, having derpy AI in the middle to use against other humans = always fun, as long as the AI is consistent and doesn't cheat, IMHO.

No!! No!! Civ needs to be big and bloated and slow and requiring installation (i.e., Civ V) - the only defense against the "just-one-more-turn" addictiveness is to limit availability, and you're making it available everywhere. At least my phone battery will die eventually...

Pretty cool, but unplayable unless I was doing something wrong. I couldn't move the minimap unless I was careful where to click (dragging doesn't work) and everytime I tried to select a unit everything disappeared. Looking forward to playing when it works a little better!

Which browser and device are you using to play the game? The controls in the game take some time to get used to, hopefully you should get it to work with some practice. Please let me know how it goes!

I had the same problem, iPhone 5. Couldn't end turns, couldn't exit city window once I founded one, units were trying to move everywhere and it wasn't clear which one I had selected at the time as they would jump in the stack on selection.

Very ambitious however and look forward to watching it!

Played a lot of Freeciv back in the day, this is my first time ever trying it in the browser. Everything looks beautiful, but the UI with the units seems very awkward. Is there a way I'm not seeing to rapidly cycle through all the available units and give them orders?

The best way to control units is to learn the keyboard shortcuts for unit commands, and use the keyboard commands in combination with the mouse, just like in the desktop version of Freeciv. So for example, first use the mouse to select a unit, then use the keyboard shortcut for goto (G), and then click on the tile you want the unit to move to.

Actually figured out an answer on my own -- the handy thing I was looking for was W (wait, I think) to skip to the next available unit.

Okay, actually the reason I was confused is the web interface seems to be very buggy. W, for instance, seems to shuffle you back and forth between two units as often as it cycles through all of them. And lots of activities, like R or I, just leave you sitting on the unit you assigned it to, rather than sending you to the next unit waiting for orders.

Yes, there is some room for improvements in the unit controls. If you could please list all the bugs you find in unit controls, then I would be happy to fix it in the next version.

That's very nice to see! I have not tried it yet but now I could conceivably play freeciv on the ipad in safari, opera or chrome. How difficult would it be to package the html/js and server into a native iOS app? Is there a way to set the tiling to flat 2D instead of isometric as in the native client? I always prefer to play that way. For those wanting to play the granddaddy of Civ, try Empire or Empire Deluxe on iPad. http://killerbeesoftware.com/kbsgames/ednew/ http://www.classicempire.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_Deluxe#Empire_Deluxe/

Or better yet, try the board game variants and derivatives (Eclipse, Empire 4). http://empire-game.org/empire/history/detailed/

Glad to see this is still making progress!

I've actually toyed with the idea of building an indie game by starting with the HTML5 FreeCiv UI and commissioning some professional graphics.

Thanks for the upvotes to "Show HN", much appreciated. It seems that the Hacker News community really likes this game. I always appreciate the feedback I get here.

In principle, this isn't a good fit for Show HN since the project has been discussed before, including recently:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7848768

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5716859

https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

But since today is turning into a Show HN carnival, have at it.

Thanks, we're all enjoying the Show HN carnival today :)

That's nice. I'm sure you had fun wasting your time posting this. Personally I'm glad it has been added to Show HN. I possibly would not have heard of it otherwise.

You're criticizing one of the HN mods for clarifying the criteria for what qualifies as Show HN.

Damn, this is a great game!

Keep up the great work!

A fantastic and inspirational work. This makes me believe I can too can make high quality games someday.

This page has been down for me for the past 8 hours - is it working for anyone?

It's just you: http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/Play.freeciv.org

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