Freeciv's default interface language is English but it has also been localised (i.e. translated) for a number of languages. As of 2.4.2, the following translations exist (bold shows complete translations). There are also Wikis in some of these languages or dedicated project/support pages on external sites in some cases.
- Arabic (ar) : العربية
- Brazilian Portuguese (pt_BR) : Português
- Bulgarian (bg)
- Catalan (ca) : Català
- Chinese (simplified, zh_CN)
- Chinese (traditional, zh_TW)
- Czech (cs) : Česky
- Danish (da) : Dansk
- Dutch (nl) : Nederlands
- English (British; en_GB)
- Esperanto (eo) : Esperanto
- Estonian (et)
- Farsi (fa)
- Finnish (fi) : Suomi
- French (fr) : Français
- German (de) : Deutsch
- Greek (el)
- Hebrew (he)
- Hungarian (hu) : Magyar
- Indonesian (id)
- Irish (ga)
- Italian (it) : Italiano
- Japanese (ja) : 日本語
- Korean (ko) : 한국어
- Lithuanian (lt)
- Norwegian (Bokmål; nb/no) : Norsk
- Polish (pl) : Polski
- Portuguese (pt) : Português
- Romanian (ro) : Română
- Russian (ru) : Русский
- Scots Gaelic (gd): Fòram na Gàidhlig
- Serbian (sr) : српски
- Swedish (sv) : Svenska
- Spanish (es) : Español
- Turkish (tr) : Türkçe
- Ukrainian (uk)
Freeciv's localisation relies on volunteers. See Translations for how to help out (including adding new languages).
Changing the interface languageEdit
In some installations before 2.3.1, Freeciv does not pick up on the language of the Windows installation even if it's a localised version of Windows or you may want to play a different language altogether.
In version 2.3.1 and later, when you run the installer, you'll be given the opportunity to choose a different language during the installation process. Just make sure you put a tick against the code of your language (see the list above).
A couple of other ways to do this are shown below. (You might need these if you're running an older version, or if you want to change the language after installation.)
Changing the Target pathEdit
This is probably the easiest way for most users. Note you may need Admin rights on your computer to use this option.
- Click Start
- Navigate to where the Freeciv installation is, usually Start > Program Files > Freeciv 2.3.0 (GTK+ client) > Freeciv. Right click on Freeciv (next to the globe).
- Left-click Properties. Under the Shortcut tab, you can see the path of the file. By default, this points to auto, which checks the language of your operating system.
- Change auto to gd (if you want Scots Gaelic for example) and click OK.
- Start the program normally from Program Files, the interface is now in the language you selected.
Using the command promptEdit
This is slightly more complicated but should work even if you don't have admin rights on your computer.
- Click Start
- Enter cmd
- Change to the directory in which you installed Freeciv. Usually this involves the cd .. command to get to the top level, followed by cd Program Files and cd Freeciv-2.3.0-gtk (if you installed it in the default installation directory). Note you can use the Tab Key to autocomplete a line, for example by typing cd free and the hitting the Tab Key.
- To start the game in Scots Gaelic (gd), enter .\freeciv-gtk2.cmd gd
To avoid having to do that, you can create a .bat file. Open a text editor like Notepad and copy and paste the following code:
cd Program Files (x86)
cd Program Files
Then save it as freeciv.bat Now all you have to do is double-click the file and it will start in your chose language. Note that the above code gd stands for Scots Gaelic. To start it in a different language, pick the right code out of the list above and replace the gd with it.
Also note that if you installed it somewhere else (for example Documents and Settings/UserName/Application Data/My Documents/Freeciv-2.3.0-gtk2), then you have to change the cd path accordingly.
Assuming that the game is running on your system (for installation on Mac OSX see this page), the following should work to play a certain language. Note that depending on the availability of certain components of X11 in your desired language, some buttons may appear in English.
- Open Terminal
- Launch the Freeciv client with LANG=gd LANGUAGE=gd freeciv-gtk2
To launch the Freeciv server:
- Open Terminal
- Launch the Freeciv server with LANG=gd LANGUAGE=gd freeciv-server
- Connect to server with client
Under Linux, Freeciv should automatically use the same language as the rest of the system. For instance, if you have configured your Linux installation to use Chinese as its language, Freeciv should use its Chinese localisation.
For instance, under Ubuntu, you can install new languages and select which one the system will use under System > Administration > Language Support (in Ubuntu 10.04 at least).
If your Linux distribution does not currently have a localisation for your language, it may not be possible to use Freeciv's localisation for that language, even if it has one. However, you could try something like the following, if you want to play it in French for example:
LANG=fr_FR.utf-8 LANGUAGE=fr freeciv-gtk2
Note that you must install the program for the localization to work. The fcgui/fcser scripts of the source directory will use the installed localization, not the localization of the source directory.