Seven Kingdoms: Ancient Adversaries - Visual Studio Projects version
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Release version 2.15.4-dev
Project website: www.7kfans.com

This is a GPL release of the Seven Kingdoms: Ancient Adversaries thanks to
Enlight Software which granted the ability to license the game under a
free and open source license in 2009. See the file "COPYING" for the
details of the license. We are indebted to Enlight for making the 7kfans
project possible and giving a new chance to build a community for fans
of the game.
This specific fork of the project includes Visual Studio C++ 2015 project
and solution files.

Who should use this version of 7KAA?
Programmers who would like to get started programming for 7kaa in Visual C++
on the latest development branch.

All other users should check out the official repository.

For the latest change notes and general notes about 7kaa, check out the official
repository README.


What you will find in this archive
----------------------------------

* The GPL source and data files.
* Visual Studio C++ 2015 Project Files
* OpenAL32 headers and library file (but not the DLL)

You can also check out the official repository for more information.


Configuring your clone of this repository
-----------------------------------------

This branch of the 7kaa project runs parallel to the 7kaa master branch
and includes project files for Microsoft Visual C++ 2015.

Most of the work is done, there are just a few more steps to be taken
before you can compile and debug your own version of the source code
with VC++, all pertaining to including the used libraries.

7kaa still has several backends, but only the following libraries/backends
are 'supported' by this branch (though others might work).
- SDL2           Tested using version 2.0.3
- OpenAL32       I *think* tested with version 1.1, but Creative Labs has left OpenAL
                  a mess, so even acquiring the library files is problematic.
- ENet           Tested using version 1.3.10



Setting up the libraries
------------------------

Required dependencies
* SDL 2.0.8 or later (http://libsdl.org/)
* enet 1.3.xx (http://enet.bespin.org/)
* OpenAL-soft or equivalent driver (http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal.html)

Optional dependencies
* Autoconf 2.65 (when using git snapshot)
* libcurl for full 7kfans multiplayer integration (website requires TLS1.2)
* gettext 0.19
* Game music: 7kaa-music-2.15
  -> Packagers: Copy music into program data folder or PACKAGE_DATA_DIR
  -> Make sure the file names are in upper-case
* NSIS for building a Windows installer

--- SDL2 ----
1. Download the latest version (or the tested version) of SDL (http://libsdl.org/):
   Select the Visual C++ Development Library and download it.
2. Extract the files to 7kaa\SDL, such that the directory structure looks like
   7kaa\SDL\lib, 7kaa\SDL\include.
   The compiler and linker can now find SDL2.
3. To enable running the compiled executable, copy the DLL file
   7kaa\SDL\lib\x86\SDL2.dll to 7kaa\data. This will allow the executable to find
   SDL2.dll, as the Debugger has been set up to use the 7kaa\data directory as
   the working directory, allowing you to directly Run from the IDE.

--- enet ---
1. Download the latest version (or the tested version) of ENet (http://enet.bespin.org/).
2. Extract enet.lib, and the contents of 'include', to 7kaa\enet (no subdirectories
   this time; all the extracted files go directly into 7kaa\enet).
ENet is a static link library, so no DLL is required.

--- OpenAL32 ---
It seems currently nearly impossible to find a development version, or documentation
for that matter, of OpenAL. The include files and library are therefore directly
included in the branch, under 7kaa\OpenAL.
To run the executable OpenAL32.dll needs to be present on your system. If 7kaa.exe can
not find it, search for a 32-bits version of OpenAL32.dll on your system
(certain games include it) and copy it to 7kaa\data\ (just like SDL2.dll).


Your setup should now be working. For any questions, remarks, suggestion or to share
your work, please visit the 7kaa open source project at
   http://www.7kfans.com/forums/index.php


Running locally from source build
--------

To run the game from the build directory, you need to point to the game data
folder. The game data folder is set by the environment variable SKDATA. In
a bash shell, this can be accomplished by
$ SKDATA=data src/7kaa
Alternatively, for VS2015 you can set the working directory for the debugger to
the data folder.


Disclaimer: Visual Studio is not directly supported by the 7kaa open source project.
Therefore, updates to the official source can not always be directly applied to the
Visual Studio projects version. For instance, if a new file is added, then the project
file will need to be updated to include this file in the compilation.
I endeavour to keep this branch up-to-date as the official source advances, but there
might be some delay before this tree receives the updates.