Revision as of 20:02, 11 November 2014

VCMI requires data from original Heroes 3: Shadow of Death or Complete editions. Data from native Linux version made by LOKI will not work.

Binaries installation

Ubuntu

VCMI can be installed from PPA:

• stable version (recommended): https://launchpad.net/~saven-ivan/+archive/vcmi
• daily builds (for testing only): https://launchpad.net/~vcmi/+archive/ppa

To use it type in Terminal:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:saven-ivan/vcmi
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install vcmi

Debian

Download and install package for your distribution. Install can be done using any GUI managers or using command line:

sudo dpkg -i downloaded_package.deb
sudo apt-get -f install

Note: First command most probably will result in errors - this is normal behavior, all of them should be fixed by second one.

Fedora

Fedora packages are no longer supported officially. The last release is VCMI 0.95 for Fedora 20. The .SPEC file for generating the .RPM package resides in the VCMI repository on Github. If you are interested in providing RPM builds, please let us know.

Download and install package for your distribution. There are two ways to install package along with all dependencies:

Option A) Double-click the package. A package management window should appear with instructions to guide you through the process.

Option B) Open a terminal window, and type

sudo rpm -i package_location_and_name(e.g. vcmi-0.9.5-1.fc20.x86_64.rpm)

Other distributions

For other distributions, VCMI can be installed from 3rd-party repositories listed below.

• Gentoo https://github.com/qdii/qdiilay/tree/master/games-strategy/vcmi
• Archlinux vcmi vcmi-git

Compiling from source

• Packaged source for latest version
• Alternative download links on github
• Readme (available as README.linux in source package)

Be careful about proper installation of VCMI. The game copies some files from its source distribution at first run, so you must use make install to install the game properly. Otherwise, the game won't be able to find resource files. If you don't want to pollute your filesystem with game files, use the following way of installing the game:

# cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=absolute_path_to_binaries ../vcmi
# make && make install
# cd absolute_path_to_binaries
# ./bin/vcmiclient

Installing Heroes III data files

To install VCMI you will need:

• Heroes III: Shadow of Death or Complete edition
• Unnoficial WoG addon: http://download.vcmi.eu/WoG/wog.zip
• VCMI data files: http://download.vcmi.eu/core.zip

Automated install

To install Heroes 3 data using automated script you need any of:

• One or two CD's or CD images
• gog.com installer
• Directory with installed game

Run the script using options appropriate to your input files:

vcmibuilder --cd1 /path/to/iso/or/cd --cd2 /path/to/second/cd
vcmibuilder --gog /path/to/gog.com/installer
vcmibuilder --data /path/to/h3/data

You should use only one of these commands.

Fedora music support

To have Music support on Fedora it is required to perform a additional step. Fedora doesn't provide Mp3 playback support natively due to patents applied on the Mp3 technique. The SDL_mixer package from the official Fedora repo is compiled without Mp3 support.

To make music work it must be converted into ogg format. This can be done either manually or using vcmibuilder:

vcmibuilder --convertMP3

This command can be run separately after install or as additional switch during initial vcmibuilder launch

Manual install

• Install Heroes III

• Launch vcmiclient to determine data directory (output may differ)

$vcmiclient -v
Starting... 
VCMI 0.91
  data directory:    /usr/share/vcmi
  library directory: /usr/lib/vcmi
  binary directory:  /usr/games

• Copy your data to data directory. This should result in directory structure similar to this:

/usr/share/vcmi/config/
/usr/share/vcmi/Data/
/usr/share/vcmi/Maps/
/usr/share/vcmi/Mods/WoG/
/usr/share/vcmi/Mods/vcmi/
/usr/share/vcmi/Mp3/

Launching game

To start the game type in console:

vcmilauncher

Or, to start game directly avoiding Launcher:

vcmiclient

VCMI should be also available via desktop environment menu or launcher (Games/Strategy/VCMI)

Reporting bugs

Report any issues with packages on our bugtracker or post a message on VCMI forums In report please proceed according to Bug reporting guidelines