Getting Started

What you need

1. The server, compiled and installed in ~/eressea/server with the s/install script.
2. A game directory like ~/eressea/game-1, created with the s/setup script.
3. A number of players with their email address and choice of race.

Set up some files

Go to your game directory. Add your game's email address and the languages you want to use to the [game] section of the eressea.ini file, like so:

[game]
email = eressea@example.com
locales = en,de

The first language in that list (here English) will be the default language used by monsters and other faction that do not specify a preference.

Now, create a file called newfactions. It should contain one line for each of your players, like this:

#email race language
bart@example.com elf en
lisa@example.com human de
homer@example.com goblin en
marge@example.com aquarian en

Lines beginning with a # are comments and will be ignored.

Create the world

To create the first data file, start the server in console mode with ./eressea -t 1. Enter the following commands:

E> require 'config'
E> gmtool.editor()

This will load your game's rules and start the TUI editor. Your world is currently empty, but you can move around with the arrow keys and press Ctrl+t to terraform each region. Build a small island from plains, mountains and other basic terrain, and surround it by ocean.

Now, for each of your players in the order they were listed in the newfactions file, go to the region where they should start, and press s to place their first unit. It will receive a default name and some starting equipment as defined in the game's rules, and you will see it appear in the information pane on the right-hand side of your terminal when you navigate to the region.

Once all factions have been placed, save your new world. Press S and in the status line at the bottom, enter 1.dat when prompted for a filename. Then press Q to leave the editor and return to the console.

Back at the console, write the initial reports for all factions:

E> write_reports()

Now you can leave the console by pressing Ctrl+d (or Ctrl-z if you are in Windows).

Congratulations. You should now have a directory named reports that contains the report files for all your players. Pick one at random, and check that it contains what you expect.

Testing that the first turn works

Before you start mailing the reports to your players, make sure that everything works as expected. To simulate the first turn, combine all their order templates into a single input file like so: cat reports/1-*.txt > orders.1

Note that for technical reasons, the templates currently all contain the password 'password'. Players need to replace this with their password, which can be found in the 'Events' section of the initial .nr report. Fix the passwords in orders.1, and give each unit some command like WORK or STUDY ENTERTAINMENT.

Now you can run a turn with the command ./eressea -t 1 run-turn.lua. This instructs the server to load the game from data/1.dat, process the orders in the orders.1 file, generate the reports for turn 2, and write the world's new state to data/2.dat.

Check that a new set of reports was written to the reports directory, and read one or more to see that the password was accepted and any orders you gave the units were indeed executed.

Check that the data/2.dat file exists, and that it can be loaded. A simple way to do this is to run the editor again, loading the new file, like this: ./eressea -t 2 ../server/scripts/map.lua. Note that this skips the console, and and puts you straight into the editor after loading the 2.dat file. Pressing Q will exit without making any changes.

If you've gotten this far, you can delete the 2.dat file, the second set of reports, and the orders.1 file, and begin playing for real.

Enjoy!