2.2 Main Menubar Options

The main client window has four menu buttons in a row along the top of the window. They each deal with different aspects of user interface.

2.2.1 Game Menu

This menu deals with empire-wide game controls and user interface controls.

Find City

This is to help when you have a large empire and have forgotten where one of your cities is. A window will open giving a list of all of the cities whose names you could know, whether yours or of other empires. Click on a name and the map will center on that city. Click on "Center" and the window will close, leaving the map on that city. Click on "Cancel" and the window will close, leaving the map where it was before Find City was selected.

Options

This sets a number of the client's user interface options.

• "Solid unit background color", when set, uses a solid color to identify each race's units, instead of the default background containing a national flag.
• "Sound bell at new turn", when set, rings the bell when the new turn begins. This may be useful in multiplayer games with a timeout set, since you may be away from the computer waiting for others to move.
• "Smooth unit moves", defaulted to Yes, gives to unit moves a bit more of the feel of moving pieces on a board. Instead of just having the unit disappear and reappear in a new place, it is shown for an instant part way in between the old and new positions.
• "Flags are transparent", defaulted to Yes, has the race flag behind units be transparent, which allows the underlying terrain to show through. When set to No, a fixed background color is used. Some sets of tiles (see Customization) may work better with non-transparent flags.
• "Popup dialogs in AI mode", defaulted to No, allows messages to pop up in the client when the race is being controlled by an AI.
• "Manual Turn Done in AI mode", defaulted to Yes, enables the "Turn Done" button when the AI has finished its work. This allows you to control the race in addition to having the AI make the moves.
• "Auto Center on Units", defaulted to Yes, makes the main window automatically center on the unit when a new unit is activated.
• "Focus on Awakened Units", defaulted to Yes, controls units that have awakened out of Sentry. When set, such units become active automatically.
• "Draw Diagonal Roads/Rails", defaulted to Yes, shows small roads between squares in a diagonal relationship which both have roads. This is simply a visual effect, not a game issue of what squares have roads.

Message Options

As shown in the tutorial, this opens a window with controls for the messages which the server can send. For each message, you can set whether or not it is to be added to the scrolled message list, to be presented in a message window with other messages so marked, or to be presented in its own message window.

Save Settings

This writes out to file .civclientrc in your home directory a listing of your personal preferences, as defined by the other options in this menu bar. It will be automatically read whenever you run the client.

Rates

This opens the Rates Window.

Revolution

This allows you to start a revolution, which eventually will allow you to change your form of government.

Players

This opens the Players Window.

Messages

This opens this turn's messages window, which contains the urgent messages from the server.

Server options initial and ongoing

These open read-only windows listing the server's game options. For descriptions of the server game options see the server documentation, especially the server's online documentation via the "explain" command. These are to allow you to find out what the rules are in this universe.

Export log

This writes the current game log out to the file civgame.log in the current directory. The material written is what appears in the main window's scrollable message list.

Clear log

This clears the main window's scrollable output list. This may be necessary if you find the window's content has become so long that it is difficult to scroll.

Disconnect

This disconnects the client from the server, and brings up the Connect window so you can reconnect.

Quit

Exits the client.

2.2.2 Orders Menu

These give orders to the currently selected unit. Most of them are traditional orders from Civilization; see the online help for details on the orders given to units. A few are new to Freeciv:

Auto Settler

This tells the game to assign AI control to the selected Settler. Thereafter it will do what AI player's Settlers do as far as building roads, irrigating, for the purpose of improving the area around the Settler's city.

Auto-Attack

This marks a unit, if it is in a city, as operating under that city's auto-attack options; see the City Options Window. When so enabled, when a designated enemy unit comes close to the city, such units will leave the city, attack the enemy, and return to the city.

Auto-Explore

This tells the game to assign AI control to the selected unit as an exploration unit. Thereafter it will search the map and uncover new territory in the manner of AI players.

2.2.3 Reports Menu

Each of these brings up the corresponding report window; most of these were shown in the windows section. The only window now shown there is Spaceship window. This shows a picture of the spaceship under construction, and gives a summary of its statistics.

2.2.4 Help Menu

The online help contains information on all areas of the game system, buildings, units, concepts, etc.