Welcome to Freeciv 1.8!

This is release 1.8.1.

Thanks again to all our developers, who continue to work so hard.
Special mention this release goes to Vasco Alexandre da Silva Costa,
who did most of the work for the new Gtk+ client.  Special thanks
also to Nicolas Brunel, who has retired from maintaining Freeciv,
after doing lots of work for this release, as well as for the 
previous 1.8.0 release. 

Those who are interested in seeing the detailed changes should check
the ChangeLog file.

WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.8.0:

 - The biggest change is a new client which uses the popular Gtk+ 
   toolkit.  The old Xaw client is still included as well.
 - A new alternate (30x30) tileset: the "trident" tileset.
   Start the client with "--tiles trident" to try it out.
   (This replaces the "classic/brunus" tileset, which is still 
   available separately from the Freeciv ftp site.)
 - In the Gtk+ client, parts of the main window can be detached.
   Detaching them all allows a full-screen map window!
 - The data directory can now be specified as a "path" ($FREECIV_PATH), 
   instead of a single directory.  By default, ~/.freeciv is now in 
   the path, so if you download new tiles, modpacks, etc, you can now 
   simply put them in ~/.freeciv
 - Server console improvements: can abbreviate server command names, 
   and server option names.  Better prompt handling - eg, server no 
   longer prints an unnecessary prompt each turn.
 - Server commands can now be issued from the client chatline. 
   There is a new server command "cmdlevel", to control access to 
   this feature on a per-player basis.
 - Some of the "small" graphics have been improved.
 - Added a nice cursor for selecting the destination for "goto".
 - New column "corruption" in the city report.
 - Implemented Marco Polo's Embassy wonder.
 - New command to explode Nuclear units at an empty square.
 - Improved behavior of Caravans and "goto": the Caravan dialog will
   now popup when the Caravan arrives, whether moving by goto or by
   the keyboard.
 - Allow connecting to metaserver (in client) via $http_proxy.
 - Minor "Zone of Control" (ZOC) rules changes to better match Civ2.
 - Improved debug logging.
 - Server will refuse to run as root, as a security measure.
 - As always: lots of bug fixes, code cleanups, and help-text 
   improvements.


WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.7.2:

 - Space race!  Be the first player to build a space ship and colonize 
   Alpha Centauri. 
 - Civil war!  Capturing the enemy capital may split his empire.  Half 
   of his towns will join a new AI leader!
 - Two tile sets in this release! The "big" ones are from Ralph Engels.  
   I hope you will enjoy them.  The second set is an enhancement of the 
   classic tiles.  The server option -tiles allows to choose a subdirectory 
   of the data directory to use different tiles.  (The data directory can 
   be set with the DATADIR environment variable.)  Also, diagonal roads 
   and railroads are now drawn.  Changed some of the national flags 
   (especially changed Soviet flag to the Russian flag for Russians).
 - Rulesets can be used to customise units, advances, wonders, and 
   improvements without recompiling -- see README.rulesets.
 - Units in a town can be put in auto-attack mode.  In this mode, they 
   will attack any enemy units which come nearby.
 - New city options for each city, controlling whether new citizens are 
   workers or specialists, whether to allow disbanding a size 1 city by 
   building a settler, and options for units on auto-attack mode in the 
   city.
 - Mapgen 4 (selected with the server command "set generator 4") is a new 
   map generator which generates a map with 2 players on each island.
 - Cities can be a traded in diplomatic treaties.  This effectively allows 
   you to exchange, sell or buy cities. 
 - The AI now builds diplomats to defend against enemy diplomats.
 - Settlers and engineers can do teamwork.  With enough manpower, all 
   terrain improvements can be done fast!
 - With engineers, the terrain type can be changed using the new Transform
   command ('O').  For example, hills can be turned into plains.
 - Units only regenerate hit points if they have not moved at all for a 
   full turn.
 - Gamelog option.  The whole history of a game can be stored in the 
   gamelog file. 
 - One can select a unit with 0 moves left from the main map.
 - City workers can be adjusted from the main map, with shift+button1.
 - Changed the order of libraries to fix problems on IRIX and Cygwin.
 - Changed the client-server protocol to use network byte order.
 - Other bug fixes and code and help text cleanups.

WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.7.1:

 - Improvements to the configure script, so it should now work
   properly on all systems.  
 - Ability to configure to use Xaw3d instead of the normal Xaw.
 - New "easy" AI mode, which is now the default.
 - Improved "City Report" dialog, with configurable columns.
 - Improved "Message Options" dialog, with customizable filtering and 
   selection for the different message types.
 - Improved "Messages" dialog, with a scrollbar, and a "Popup City" button.
 - Improved multi-column "Unit Select" dialog when there are lots of units.
 - In city dialog, middle-click unit icons to "activate and close".
 - New client command "t" to show tiles used by city under mouse.
 - New metaserver dialog to make connecting to metaserver games easier.
 - Ability to save and re-load client settings.
 - Clearer Yes/No toggle buttons in various places in the client.
 - Reduced color usage (but looks almost identical), so the client should 
   now work fine on systems with 8 bit color displays.
 - Ability to use "scenarios", that is, pre-designed maps.  Scenarios 
   for Earth and Europe games are included in the data directory.
   (Use them with the server command-line option -f, like savegames.)
 - More city names, so you're less likely to see "City 41" etc.
 - Saving large games is now much faster, and the savefile is smaller.
 - Improvements to the documentation and online help system, including
   a new help section on the "Zones of Control" game concept.
 - Detect repeated log messages and print repeat counts.
 - New server options randseed and aqueductloss.
 - Many other enhancements and bug fixes.
  
WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.7.0:

 - Removed two C++-style comments, the most reported problem with 1.7.0!
 - Tweaks to the configure script for Solaris, although it's still not perfect.
 - Spy and diplomat improvements.
 - Added the "W" command, which Wakes up sentried units, 
 - Added the "scorelog" command, which can be read by a script to generate
   power graphs after the game.
 - Loading games is now MUCH faster.
 - AI improvements from John Stonebraker.
 - Visual improvements to dialogs and the map screen.
 - Settlers may not fortify.
 - Numerous bug fixes.

WHAT'S CHANGED SINCE 1.6.3:

 - Massive AI changes. It plays smarter, and the AI uses seagoing vessels.  
 - The contents of the help system have been improved substantially.
 - Many bugs fixed.
 - We now recommend you use "configure" instead of Imake.
 - Settlers have a new "e"xplore mode.
 - The makefiles now contain auto-generated dependency information.
 - Units within the radius of the city to which they belong no longer
   cause unhappiness.  This will allow much more realistic defense
   scenarios.
 - The tax/lux/sci rates are now limited by your government type.
   Also, they can modified by clicking on the rate status icons.
 - The behaviour of spies and diplomats has been greatly improved.
 - Freeciv now needs to transmit a lot less data (<25%!) when playing
   over the Internet.  This will greatly speed up games.
 - Preliminary support for compiling Freeciv under Windows and OS/2,
   when used in conjunction with the GNU tools.
 - From now on, it will be possible for different Freeciv versions to
   talk to each other if they're able.
 - Tracy Reed (who provides www.freeciv.org) reports that our site is
   getting over 6,000 hits per month.  He was quoted as saying "Cool!
   Now my computer is doing something!"
 - Lots, and Lots, and Lots of donated patches. Thanks guys, keep 'em 
   coming!

