1 FREECOL 2 3An Open Source Colonization Clone 4================================= 5 6I. Requirements 7II. Compiling FreeCol 8III. Running FreeCol 9IV. Troubleshooting 10V. Help, Feedback & Bug Reports 11VI. About 12 13 14I. Requirements 15================================= 16The program is written in Java. It can be ran with any Java 17Runtime Environment (JRE) that is at least version 1.8. 18The JRE (or JVM) can be downloaded from: 19http://java.sun.com/getjava/download.html 20 21In order to compile the game, you'll also need Apache Ant, 22get it at: 23http://ant.apache.org 24 25This process requires the 'native2ascii' task, which is an optional ant 26task. Some Linux distributions place optional tasks in a different 27package, so make sure you have installed all necessary packages if you 28are a Linux user. 29 30II. Compiling FreeCol 31================================= 32NOTE: The compiled files are included with the releases, so this 33step is not required in order to play the game. 34 35Launch a command prompt and go to the directory where you unpacked 36the FreeCol package. 37Make sure the file named 'build.xml' is in your current directory. 38From that directory execute the command 'ant'. In case the command 39could not be found, check your Ant installation and make sure that 40the ant (*nix) or ant.exe (Windows) file is in your PATH. See the 41Ant installation manual for more information. 42If the compilation fails, check your CLASSPATH environment variable 43and make sure that '.' is a part of it. 44 45 46III. Running FreeCol 47================================= 48Launch a command prompt and go to the directory where you unpacked 49the FreeCol package (in case you downloaded the binary package) or 50the directory where you executed the 'ant' command (in case you 51downloaded the source package). 52Make sure the file named 'FreeCol.jar' is in your current directory. 53 54Execute the command 'java -Xmx512M -jar FreeCol.jar' 55 56Windows users may need to execute 57'java -Xmx512M -cp . -jar FreeCol.jar' 58 59In case the command could not be found, check your Java installation 60and make sure that the java (*nix) or java.exe (Windows) file is in 61your PATH. 62 63Run 'java -jar FreeCol.jar --usage' to get a list of available 64command-line parameters. 65 66You may ignore the message: 67 "The music files could not be loaded by FreeCol. Disabling music." 68because there is no music available yet for FreeCol. 69 70 71IV. Troubleshooting 72================================= 73Q: I get the following error: 74 The data file "data/images/units/Unit0.png" could not be found. 75A: Use the command-line option --freecol-data to specify the location 76 of the 'data' directory. 77 For example: java -jar FreeCol.jar --freecol-data C:\Games\FreeCol\data 78 79Q: I am unable to start the game. 80A: Try running the game in windowed mode: 81 'java -Xmx256M -jar FreeCol.jar --windowed' 82 83 84V. Help, Feedback & Bug Reports 85================================= 86Help 87---- 88If you need help with anything related to FreeCol that is not 89yet documented somewhere then you can send an e-mail to the 90mailing list: freecol-users@lists.sourceforge.net 91 92Feedback 93-------- 94General Feedback is very much appreciated. Send an e-mail to 95freecol-users@lists.sourceforge.net if you want to provide feedback. 96 97Bug Reports 98----------- 99FreeCol is currently still beta software and may contain some bugs. 100 101If the client should hang/freeze/crash then remember 102that you can always press <Control>-<Alt>-<Backspace> or 103<Control>-<Alt>-<F1 or F2, ...> when using Linux/Unix or 104<Control>-<Alt>-<Delete> when using Windows. 105 106If you manage to close FreeCol in this way or if you encounter less 107serious problems then you can provide the developers with information 108on the problem you've had by entering the following data as a bug 109report at FreeCol's Sourceforge page at 110http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=add&group_id=43225&atid=435578 111 112- Detailed description of the problem you've had 113- Contents of the file 'FreeCol.log' which can be found in the 114 directory from which you launched the client 115- If possible: a stacktrace that you may see when running the 116 game from the command line. 117 118 119VI. About 120================================= 121Content is Copyright (C) 2002-2015 The FreeCol Team 122The authors of FreeCol can be found on the FreeCol homepage. 123FreeCol's homepage can be found at http://www.freecol.org 124
