Stratagus

Stratagus is a Free and open-source cross-platform game engine used to build real-time strategy video games. Licensed under the GNU GPL,[2] it is written in C and (mostly) C++ with the configuration language being Lua.

Stratagus
Developer(s)Stratagus team
Initial releaseJune 15, 1998 (1998-06-15)
Stable release
2.4.2 / September 29, 2018 (2018-09-29)[1]
Repository
Operating systemAmigaOS 4, BSD, Linux, Mac OS X, MorphOS, AROS, Windows
Type
LicenseGNU General Public License
Websitewargus.github.io
Battle of Survival screenshot

History
Battle for Mandicor screenshot (2005).

On June 15, 1998 Lutz Sammer released the first public version of a free Warcraft II clone for Linux he had written, named ALE Clone. In 1999 it was renamed to Freecraft. In June 2003, a cease and desist letter was received from Blizzard Entertainment, who thought the name Freecraft could cause confusion with the names StarCraft and Warcraft, and that some of the ideas within the engine were too similar to Warcraft II.[3] The project halted on June 20, 2003.[4]

The developers regrouped in 2004[5] to continue work on the project renaming it Stratagus. Their focus changed from cloning Warcraft 2 to creating an open source, configurable engine for RTS games including support for playing over Internet/LAN or playing vs. computer opponents.[6] A separate project, Wargus, was started to get Warcraft 2 data files running in the Stratagus engine. This mod requires a legal copy of Warcraft 2 and allows for cross-platform support such as Linux and other operating systems. The free media set imitating Warcraft II was discontinued.[7]

On June 10, 2007, development of Stratagus was paused.[8]

The Stratagus developers began working on Bos Wars, which uses its own modified version of the Stratagus engine.

In June 2010 some of the developers moved Stratagus project from Sourceforge to Launchpad and started working on Stratagus and games again. Wargus (for Warcraft II), War1gus (for Warcraft I) and Stargus (for Starcraft) continued to be developed by the Stratagus team on Launchpad. In 2014, Wyrmgus started as a fork from the Stratagus engine to develop a strategy game based on free assets with a wider scope than the original engine allowed. The Stratagus team has since also moved to GitHub.[9]

Playable Stratagus-based games are: fantasy Aleona's Tales,[10] medieval Battle for Mandicor,[11][12] Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (plus expansion Beyond the Dark Portal) port Wargus, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans port War1gus, futuristic Battle of Survival,[13][14][15][16][17][18] historically-inspired Commander Stalin,[19][20][21][22][23] StarCraft port Stargus, and space age Astroseries. Of these, only Aleona's Tales, Wargus, War1gus, and Wyrmsun are complete.

Programming

The Stratagus engine is a 2D engine based on cross-platform open-source libraries like SDL, gzip, bzip2 and others.

Basing on Lua as their primary scripting language, virtually all the abilities in the engine have been made available to the users of Stratagus for easy modding, removing the need to change the original C/C++ source. Animations are created from a set of .png pictures; this technique was commonly used in the time that Warcraft and other RTS had come out.

Stratagus and Wargus have been ported to run on Pocket PC,[24] Symbian and Android[25] devices. Wargus has also been ported to the GP2X and Open Pandora Linux handhelds.

Reception

Stratagus was downloaded alone from Sourceforge.net between 2004 and June 2017 over 185,000 times.[26]

See also
  • Game engine recreation
  • bnetd, a similar in style project for another Blizzard product that was shut down due to a court action (This was a recreation of the Battle.Net server software, not an actual game, not similar by any means.)

References
  1. releases on github.com
  2. Stratagus's copyfile at Debian Packages on Debian.org
  3. "Howard Wen, ''Stratagus: Open Source Strategy Games'' linuxdevcenter.com July 15, 2004". Linuxdevcenter.com. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  4. FreeCraft Cease and desisted by Blizzard – Slashdot
  5. stratagus news (2004)
  6. "Stratagus in Launchpad". launchpad.net. Retrieved April 27, 2018.
  7. "Stratagus". LinuxDevCenter. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  8. "Stratagus homepage". sourceforge.net.
  9. Wargus/stratagus on GitHub
  10. Aleona's Tales (Stratagus game) – Free Gamer
  11. "Battle for Mandicor – Filewatcher". Archived from the original on September 23, 2009. Retrieved January 29, 2010.
  12. "Battle for Mandicor". FreshPorts. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  13. "Bos Wars". EeeSite. December 12, 2007. Archived from the original on February 27, 2012. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  14. "Bos Wars – Software Informer". Bos-wars.software.informer.com. April 15, 2009. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  15. "Bos Wars". LinuxLinks. April 7, 2011. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  16. "Bos Wars - Moblin.org". Garage.moblin.org. Archived from the original on February 3, 2010. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  17. "Bos Wars". FOSSForUs. November 1, 2011. Archived from the original on December 16, 2010. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  18. Bos Wars – Softpedia
  19. Andrew (November 28, 2009). "Commander Stalin: Real Time Strategy Game". Web Upd8. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  20. "Commander Stalin: Open Source Free Strategy Game". open-tube. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  21. "Commander Stalin". FOSSForUs. November 1, 2011. Archived from the original on December 16, 2010. Retrieved November 20, 2011.
  22. Commander Stalin Archived December 7, 2008, at the Wayback Machine – Softpedia
  23. Commander Stalin Archived July 21, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, Tux Blog: Linux Software & Games Reviews.
  24. "n0p's homepage". Archived from the original on July 12, 2012.
  25. "Stratagus for Android homepage".
  26. stats 2000-06-07+to+2019 on Sourceforge.net (May 2019)
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