Rulesets/Tilesets

Existing, contributed tilesets can be found on the Freeciv download page.

For guidance on adding Rulesets and Tilesets for Freeciv, see:

See also the README.rulesets and README.graphics files in the distribution for further information.

How to Contribute

You may find information of general interest to all contributors here, including how to submit changes.

How to add a Nation

Freeciv has a hardcoded limit to the number of nations. This is the reason contributed nations are no longer added to the distribtion. They are collected in the contributed nations FTP directory instead.

To add a nation of your own, you should look at the following files:
    ./data/default/nations.ruleset includes files from ./data/nation
    ./data/engels/flags.spec spec for following...
    ./data/engels/flags.xpm flags for engels tileset
    ./data/misc/shields.spec spec for following...
    ./data/misc/shields.xpm flags for *_sheilds tilesets
    ./data/trident/flags.spec spec for following...
    ./data/trident/flags.xpm flags for trident tileset
    ./data/nation/Makefile.am specifies files in ./data/nation
    ./data/nation/american.ruleset ruleset for nation (here, American)
    ./po/POTFILES.in specifies files in ./data/nation
Please note that Freeciv is switching from XPM to PNG image format; releases newer than 1.14.0 use .png files instead. Some clients (Windows, Amiga) have always used them.

The name of your ruleset file should be the same as the name of your nation, though all lower-case and with .ruleset appended.

It's best to submit flags/shields in their own files, rather than with all the existing flags/shields. Something like: 

  new_trident_flags.xpm
  new_engels_flags.xpm
  new_shields.xpm
Each should use the correct palette (GIMP palettes for all Freeciv .xpm files are at http://www.freeciv.org/graphics/utils/palettes.tar.gz ). Given these, the new flags can be pasted into the existing files rather easily.

The rest of the changes can be submitted by a diff (using "diff -ruN"). Even though the *.spec files may need to be changed, please include them in the diff -- this should be easier for you, and it provides a convenient place for me to grab the sprite name.

Rulesets/Tilesets Mini-FAQ

These address a few problems and questions about Rulesets/Tilesets.
* In what order should I list cities in Nation ruleset files?

A discussion of city ordering appears in the freeciv-dev archive: There is even a perl script available to do the job in the same thread:


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