Compiling

May 28, 2026 · View on GitHub

General Linux Guide

To build Cataclysm from source you will need at least a C++ compiler, some basic developer tools, and necessary build dependencies. The exact package names vary greatly from distro to distro, so this part of the guide is intended to give you higher-level understanding of the process.

Compiler

You have three major choices here: GCC, Clang and MXE.

  • GCC is almost always the default on Linux systems so it's likely you already have it
  • Clang is usually faster than GCC, so it's worth installing if you plan to keep up with the latest experimentals
  • MXE is a cross-compiler, so of any importance only if you plan to compile for Windows on your Linux machine

(Note that your distro may have separate packages e.g. gcc only includes the C compiler and for C++ you'll need to install g++.)

Cataclysm is targeting the C++17 standard and that means you'll need a compiler that supports it. You can check if your C++ compiler supports the standard by reading COMPILER_SUPPORT.md

The general rule is the newer the compiler the better.

Tools

Most distros seem to package essential build tools as either a single package (Debian and derivatives have build-essential) or a package group (Arch has base-devel). You should use the above if available. Otherwise you'll at least need make and figure out the missing dependencies as you go (if any).

Besides the essentials you will need git.

If you plan on keeping up with experimentals you should also install ccache, which will considerably speed-up partial builds.

Dependencies

There are some general dependencies, optional dependencies, and then specific dependencies for either curses or tiles builds. The exact package names again depend on the distro you're using, and whether your distro packages libraries and their development files separately (e.g. Debian and derivatives).

Rough list based on building on Arch:

  • General: gcc-libs, glibc, zlib, bzip2
  • Optional: gettext
  • Curses: ncurses
  • Tiles: sdl2, sdl2_image, sdl2_ttf, sdl2_mixer, freetype2

E.g. for curses build on Debian and derivatives you'll also need libncurses5-dev or libncursesw5-dev.

Note on optional dependencies:

  • gettext - for localization support; if you plan to only use English you can skip it

You should be able to figure out what you are missing by reading the compilation errors and/or the output of ldd for compiled binaries.

Make flags

Given you're building from source you have a number of choices to make:

  • NATIVE= - you should only care about this if you're cross-compiling
  • RELEASE=1 - without this you'll get a debug build (see note below)
  • LTO=1 - enables link-time optimization with GCC/Clang
  • TILES=1 - with this you'll get the tiles version, without it the curses version
  • SOUND=1 - if you want sound
  • LOCALIZE=0 - this disables localizations so gettext is not needed
  • CLANG=1 - use Clang instead of GCC
  • CCACHE=1 - use ccache
  • USE_LIBCXX=1 - use libc++ instead of libstdc++ with Clang (default on OS X)
  • PREFIX=DIR - causes make install to place binaries and data files to DIR (see note below)

There is a couple of other possible options - feel free to read the Makefile.

If you have a multi-core computer you'd probably want to add -jX to the options, where X is your CPU's number of threads (generally twice the number of your CPU cores). Alternatively, you can add -j$(nproc) for the build to use all of your CPU processors.

Examples:

  • make -j4 CLANG=1 CCACHE=1 NATIVE=linux64 RELEASE=1 TILES=1
  • make -j$(nproc) CLANG=1 TILES=1 SOUND=0

The above will build a tiles release explicitly for 64 bit Linux, using Clang and ccache and 4 parallel processes.

Example: make -j2 LOCALIZE=0

The above will build a debug-enabled curses version for the architecture you are using, using GCC and 2 parallel processes.

Note on debug: You should probably always build with RELEASE=1 unless you experience segfaults and are willing to provide stack traces.

Note on PREFIX: PREFIX specifies a directory which will be the prefix for binaries, resources, and documentation files. Compiling with PREFIX means cataclysm will read files from PREFIX directory. This can be overridden with --datadir (e.g. if you used PREFIX=DIR in earlier build, then specify --datadir DIR/share/cataclysm-dda).

Compiling localization files

If you want to compile localization files for specific languages, you can add the LANGUAGES="<lang_id_1> [lang_id_2] [...]" option to the make command:

make LANGUAGES="zh_CN zh_TW"

You can get the language ID from the filenames of *.po in lang/po directory. Setting LOCALIZE=1 only may not tell make to compile those localization files for you.

Accelerating Linux builds with llama

llama is a CLI tool for outsourcing computation to AWS Lambda. If you want your builds to run faster and are willing to pay Amazon for the privilege, then you may be able to use it to accelerate your builds. See our llama README for more details.

Fedora

Ncurses builds

Dependencies:

  • ncurses
  • g++ and make

Install:

sudo dnf install astyle gcc-c++ ncurses-devel make

Building

Run:

make

SDL builds

Dependencies:

  • SDL2
  • SDL2_image
  • SDL2_ttf
  • freetype
  • g++ and make
  • libsdl2-mixer-dev - Used if compiling with sound support.

Install:

sudo dnf install astyle gcc-c++ SDL2-devel SDL2_image-devel SDL2_ttf-devel SDL2_mixer-devel freetype-devel make

Building

A simple installation could be done by simply running:

make TILES=1

A more comprehensive alternative is:

make -j2 TILES=1 SOUND=1 RELEASE=1 USE_HOME_DIR=1

SDL3 lane

The SDL3 build (SDL3=1) needs SDL3 >= 3.4.0 plus a shader toolchain on top of the SDL2 deps.

Dependencies:

  • SDL3, SDL3_image, SDL3_ttf, SDL3_mixer (>= 3.4.0)
  • glslangValidator from glslang (GLSL to SPIR-V)
  • SDL_shadercross (SPIR-V to DXIL on Windows, MSL on macOS). Build from https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL_shadercross if your distribution does not package it.

Install (Debian/Ubuntu):

sudo apt-get install glslang-tools

Install (macOS via Homebrew):

brew install glslang

Put shadercross on PATH (or set SDL_SHADERCROSS=/path/to/shadercross). BUILD_SHADER_FORMATS picks which artifacts get built: spv on Linux, msl on macOS, dxil on Windows by default. Override with a comma list for a multi-platform bindist. The GPU shader path stays inert at runtime if its artifact format is missing; the game falls back to the pre-baked atlas variants.

Build:

make -j2 TILES=1 SOUND=1 SDL3=1 RELEASE=1 USE_HOME_DIR=1

The Windows MSVC lane uses a vcpkg overlay-port at vcpkg/overlay-ports/sdl3/ (configured via msvc-full-features/vcpkg-configuration.json) to pin SDL3 >= 3.4.0 above the registry baseline.

The -j2 flag means it will compile with two parallel processes. It can be omitted or changed to -j4 in a more modern processor. If there is no desire to have sound, those flags can also be omitted. The USE_HOME_DIR flag places the user files, like configurations and saves, into the home folder, making it easier for backups, and can also be omitted.

Gentoo

If you want sound and graphics, make sure to emerge with the following:

USE="vorbis png" \
 emerge -1va emerge media-libs/libsdl2 media-libs/sdl2-gfx media-libs/sdl2-image media-libs/sdl2-mixer media-libs/sdl2-ttf

Once the above libraries are installed, compile with:

make -j$(nproc) TILES=1 SOUND=1 RELEASE=1

Debian

Instructions for compiling on a Debian-based system. The package names here are valid for Ubuntu 12.10 and may or may not work on your system.

The building instructions below always assume you are running them from the Cataclysm:DDA source directory.

Linux (native) ncurses builds

Dependencies:

  • ncurses or ncursesw (for multi-byte locales)
  • build essentials

Install:

sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev build-essential astyle

Building

Run:

make

Linux (native) SDL builds

Dependencies:

  • SDL
  • SDL_ttf
  • freetype
  • build essentials
  • libsdl2-mixer-dev - Used if compiling with sound support.

Install:

sudo apt-get install libsdl2-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev libsdl2-image-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libfreetype6-dev build-essential

Building

A simple installation could be done by simply running:

make TILES=1

A more comprehensive alternative is:

make -j2 TILES=1 SOUND=1 RELEASE=1 USE_HOME_DIR=1

The -j2 flag means it will compile with two parallel processes. It can be omitted or changed to -j4 in a more modern processor. If there is no desire to have sound, those flags can also be omitted. The USE_HOME_DIR flag places the user files, like configurations and saves, into the home folder, making it easier for backups, and can also be omitted.

Cross-compiling to linux 32-bit from linux 64-bit

Dependencies:

  • 32-bit toolchain
  • 32-bit ncursesw (compatible with both multi-byte and 8-bit locales)

Install:

sudo apt-get install libc6-dev-i386 lib32stdc++-dev g++-multilib lib32ncursesw5-dev

Building

Run:

make NATIVE=linux32

Cross-compile to Windows from Linux

To cross-compile to Windows from Linux, you will need MXE, which changes your make command slightly. These instructions were written from Ubuntu 20.04, but should be applicable to any Debian-based environment. Please adjust all package manager instructions to match your environment.

Dependencies:

Installation

sudo apt install astyle autoconf automake autopoint bash bison bzip2 cmake flex gettext git g++ gperf intltool libffi-dev libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev libtool libltdl-dev libssl-dev libxml-parser-perl lzip make mingw-w64 openssl p7zip-full patch perl pkg-config python3 ruby scons sed unzip wget xz-utils g++-multilib libc6-dev-i386 libtool-bin
mkdir -p ~/src/libbacktrace
cd ~/src
git clone https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA.git
git clone https://github.com/mxe/mxe.git
cd mxe
make -j$((`nproc`+0)) MXE_TARGETS='x86_64-w64-mingw32.static i686-w64-mingw32.static' MXE_PLUGIN_DIRS=plugins/gcc11 sdl2 sdl2_ttf sdl2_image sdl2_mixer gettext
cd ../libbacktrace/
wget https://github.com/Qrox/libbacktrace/releases/download/2020-01-03/libbacktrace-x86_64-w64-mingw32.tar.gz
wget https://github.com/Qrox/libbacktrace/releases/download/2020-01-03/libbacktrace-i686-w64-mingw32.tar.gz
tar -xzf libbacktrace-x86_64-w64-mingw32.tar.gz --exclude=LICENSE -C ~/src/mxe/usr/x86_64-w64-mingw32.static
tar -xzf libbacktrace-i686-w64-mingw32.tar.gz --exclude=LICENSE -C ~/src/mxe/usr/i686-w64-mingw32.static

Building all these packages from MXE might take a while, even on a fast computer. Be patient; the -j flag will take advantage of all your processor cores. If you are not planning on building for both 32-bit and 64-bit, you might want to adjust your MXE_TARGETS. Additionally if not building for a particular target you can skip the curl and tar commands for the targets NOT being built.

An additional note: With C:DDA switching to gcc 11.2 with MXE (MingW), if you've previously built MXE you'll need to "make clean" and rebuild it to get gcc11.

Edit your ~/.profile as follows:

export PLATFORM_32="~/src/mxe/usr/bin/i686-w64-mingw32.static-"
export PLATFORM_64="~/src/mxe/usr/bin/x86_64-w64-mingw32.static-"

This is to ensure that the variables for the make command will not get reset after a power cycle.

Building (SDL)

cd ~/src/Cataclysm-DDA

Run one of the following commands based on your targeted environment:

make -j$((`nproc`+0)) CROSS="${PLATFORM_32}" TILES=1 SOUND=1 RELEASE=1 LOCALIZE=1 bindist
make -j$((`nproc`+0)) CROSS="${PLATFORM_64}" TILES=1 SOUND=1 RELEASE=1 LOCALIZE=1 bindist

Cross-compile to Mac OS X from Linux

This procedure is very much similar to cross-compilation to Windows from Linux. It has ben tested on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS but it should work on other distros as well.

Please note that due to historical difficulties with cross-compilation errors, run-time optimizations are disabled for cross-compilation to Mac OS X targets. (-O0 is specified as a compilation flag.) See Pull Request #26564 for details.

Dependencies

Make sure that all dependency tools are in search PATH before compiling.

Setup

To set up the compiling environment execute the following commands: git clone https://github.com/tpoechtrager/osxcross.git to clone the toolchain cd osxcross cp ~/MacOSX10.11.sdk.tar.bz2 ./tarballs/ to copy prepared MacOSX SDK tarball on place. Read more about it OSX_VERSION_MIN=10.7 ./build.sh to build everything. Note the targeted minimum supported version of OSX.

Have a prepackaged set of libs and frameworks in place since compiling with osxcross built-in MacPorts is rather difficult and not supported at the moment. Your directory tree should look like:

~/
├── Frameworks
│   ├── SDL2.framework
│   ├── SDL2_image.framework
│   ├── SDL2_mixer.framework
│   └── SDL2_ttf.framework
└── libs
    ├── gettext
    │   ├── include
    │   └── lib
    └── ncurses
        ├── include
        └── lib

Populated with respective frameworks, dylibs and headers. Tested lib versions are libintl.8.dylib for gettext and libncurses.5.4.dylib for ncurses. These libs were obtained from homebrew binary distribution at OS X 10.11. Frameworks were obtained from the SDL official website as described in the next section.

Building (SDL)

To build the full feature tiles and sound enabled version with localizations enabled:

make dmgdist CROSS=x86_64-apple-darwin15- NATIVE=osx USE_HOME_DIR=1 CLANG=1 \
  RELEASE=1 LOCALIZE=1 LANGUAGES=all TILES=1 SOUND=1 FRAMEWORK=1 \
  OSXCROSS=1 LIBSDIR=../libs FRAMEWORKSDIR=../Frameworks

Make sure that x86_64-apple-darwin15-clang++ is in PATH environment variable.

Building (ncurses)

To build the full curses version with localizations enabled:

make dmgdist CROSS=x86_64-apple-darwin15- NATIVE=osx USE_HOME_DIR=1 CLANG=1 \
  RELEASE=1 LOCALIZE=1 LANGUAGES=all OSXCROSS=1 LIBSDIR=../libs FRAMEWORKSDIR=../Frameworks

Make sure that x86_64-apple-darwin15-clang++ is in PATH environment variable.

Cross-compile to Android from Linux

The Android build uses Gradle to drive CMake over the same src/*.cpp tree the desktop build uses, with SDL3 + satellites pulled from the upstream Android prefab AARs.

The Gradle project lives under android/. Build it from the command line or open it in Android Studio. Only the SDL3 tiles + sound + localization configuration is supported.

Dependencies

  • Java JDK 17 (Temurin or another distribution)
  • Android SDK with platform 35 and command-line tools
  • Android NDK 28.1.13356709 (r28b) - bundled 16 KB page-size alignment is required for Play under targetSdk 35
  • AGP 8.7 and Gradle 8.9 (Gradle wrapper auto-downloads)
  • SDL3 Android AARs (auto-downloaded with SHA256 pinning by the fetchSdl3Aars Gradle task):
    • SDL3 3.4.8
    • SDL3_image 3.4.4
    • SDL3_ttf 3.2.2
    • SDL3_mixer 3.2.2

Setup

Install build dependencies. For a desktop Ubuntu installation:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-17-jdk-headless gettext ccache

Install the Android SDK and NDK via sdkmanager:

sdkmanager "platform-tools" "platforms;android-35" "ndk;28.1.13356709"

Export environment variables (add to ~/.bashrc if useful):

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-17-openjdk-amd64
export ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Android/Sdk
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools

ccache is wired through -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_LAUNCHER=ccache in android/app/build.gradle. Install it and the build picks it up automatically.

Android device setup

Enable Developer options on your Android device. Plug in over USB, accept the RSA prompt:

adb devices

Building

From the android/ subdirectory:

./gradlew assembleExperimentalDebug

Output APK lands in android/app/build/outputs/apk/experimental/debug/.

To deploy directly to a connected device:

./gradlew installExperimentalDebug

For an in-place update over an existing on-device install (preserves saves under /sdcard/Android/data/com.cleverraven.cataclysmdda/files), use the matching installStableRelease/installExperimentalRelease task whose keystore signature matches the on-device build.

To produce a Play Store-style AAB:

./gradlew bundleExperimentalRelease

Sign-off with bundletool build-apks --bundle .../app.aab --output app.apks --connected-device then bundletool install-apks --apks app.apks --connected-device to test the actual split-config delivery path.

Additional notes

The app stores data files on the device in /sdcard/Android/data/com.cleverraven.cataclysmdda/files. Saves are backwards compatible with the desktop version.

To override Gradle defaults locally without editing gradle.properties, drop a local.properties file in android/:

j=10
abi_arm_32=false

ABI selection (abi_arm_64, abi_arm_32, abi_x86_64, abi_x86_32) flows through both the APK splits and the CMake abiFilters, so disabling an ABI also skips its native build.

Mac OS X

To build Cataclysm on Mac you'll need Command Line Tools for Xcode and the Homebrew package manager. With Homebrew, you can easily install or build Cataclysm using the cataclysm formula.

Simple build using Homebrew

A homebrew installation will come with tiles and sound support enabled.

Once you have Homebrew installed, open Terminal and run one of the following commands.

For a stable tiles build:

brew install cataclysm

For an experimental tiles build built from the current HEAD of master:

brew install cataclysm --HEAD

Whichever build you choose, Homebrew will install the appropriate dependencies as needed. The installation will be in /usr/local/Cellar/cataclysm with a symlink named cataclysm in /usr/local/bin.

To launch Cataclysm, just open Terminal and run cataclysm.

To update a stable tiles build simply run:

brew upgrade cataclysm

To update an experimental build, you must uninstall Cataclysm then reinstall with --HEAD, triggering a new build from source.

brew uninstall cataclysm
brew install cataclysm --HEAD

Advanced info for Developers

For most people, the simple Homebrew installation is enough. For developers, here are some more technical details on building Cataclysm on Mac OS X.

SDL

SDL2, SDL2_image, and SDL2_ttf are needed for the tiles build. Optionally, you can add SDL2_mixer for sound support. Cataclysm can be built using either the SDL framework or shared libraries built from source.

The SDL framework files can be downloaded here:

Copy SDL2.framework, SDL2_image.framework, and SDL2_ttf.framework to /Library/Frameworks or /Users/name/Library/Frameworks.

If you want sound support, you will need an additional SDL framework:

Copy SDL2_mixer.framework to /Library/Frameworks or /Users/name/Library/Frameworks.

Alternatively, SDL shared libraries can be installed using a package manager:

For Homebrew:

brew install pkgconfig freetype sdl2 sdl2_image sdl2_ttf

with sound:

brew install sdl2_mixer libvorbis libogg

For MacPorts:

sudo port install libsdl2 libsdl2_image libsdl2_ttf

with sound:

sudo port install libsdl2_mixer libvorbis libogg

ncurses and gettext

ncurses (with wide character support enabled) and gettext are needed if you want to build Cataclysm with localization.

For Homebrew:

brew install gettext ncurses

For MacPorts:

sudo port install gettext ncurses
hash -r

gcc

The version of gcc/g++ installed with the Command Line Tools for Xcode is actually just a front end for the same Apple LLVM as clang. This doesn't necessarily cause issues, but this version of gcc/g++ will have clang error messages and essentially produce the same results as if using clang. To compile with the "real" gcc/g++, install it with homebrew:

brew install gcc

However, homebrew installs gcc as gcc-8 (where 6 is the version) to avoid conflicts. The simplest way to use the homebrew version at /usr/local/bin/gcc-8 instead of the Apple LLVM version at /usr/bin/gcc is to symlink the necessary.

cd /usr/local/bin
ln -s gcc-8 gcc
ln -s g++-8 g++
ln -s c++-8 c++

Or, to do this for everything in /usr/local/bin/ ending with -8,

find /usr/local/bin -name "*-8" -exec sh -c 'ln -s "\$1" $(echo "\$1" | sed "s/..$//")' _ {} \;

Also, you need to make sure that /usr/local/bin appears before /usr/bin in your $PATH, or else this will not work.

Check that gcc -v shows the homebrew version you installed.

Compiling

The Cataclysm source is compiled using make.

Make options

  • NATIVE=osx build for OS X. Required for all Mac builds. This is automatically set if compiling natively on macOS.
  • UNIVERSAL_BINARY=1 build x86_64 and arm64 dual-architecture Universal Binary; omit to build for host architecture only.
  • TILES=1 build the SDL version with graphical tiles (and graphical ASCII); omit to build with ncurses.
  • SOUND=1 - if you want sound; this requires TILES=1 and the additional dependencies mentioned above.
  • FRAMEWORK=1 (tiles only) link to SDL libraries under the OS X Frameworks folders; omit to use SDL shared libraries from Homebrew or Macports.
  • LOCALIZE=0 disable localization (to get around possible gettext errors if it is not setup correctly); omit to use gettext.
  • LANGUAGES="<lang_id_1>[lang_id_2][...]" compile localization files for specified languages. e.g. LANGUAGES="zh_CN zh_TW". You can also use LANGUAGES=all to compile all localization files.
  • RELEASE=1 build an optimized release version; omit for debug build.
  • CLANG=1 build with Clang, the compiler that's included with the latest Command Line Tools for Xcode; omit to build using gcc/g++. This is enabled by default.
  • MACPORTS=1 build against dependencies installed via Macports, currently only gettext and ncurses.
  • USE_HOME_DIR=1 places user files (config, saves, graveyard, etc) in the user's home directory. For curses builds, this is /Users/<user>/.cataclysm-dda, for OSX builds it is /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support/Cataclysm.
  • DEBUG_SYMBOLS=1 retains debug symbols when building an optimized release binary, making it easy for developers to spot the crash site.

In addition to the options above, there is an app make target which will package the tiles build into Cataclysm.app, a complete tiles build in a Mac application that can run without Terminal.

For more info, see the comments in the Makefile.

Make examples

Build a release SDL version using Clang without gettext:

make RELEASE=1 TILES=1 LOCALIZE=0

Build a release SDL version using Clang, link to libraries in the OS X Frameworks folders, don't use gettext, and package it into Cataclysm.app:

make app RELEASE=1 TILES=1 FRAMEWORK=1 LOCALIZE=0

Build a release curses version with gettext supplied by Macports:

make RELEASE=1 LOCALIZE=1 MACPORTS=1

Running

For curses builds:

./cataclysm

For SDL:

./cataclysm-tiles

For app builds, launch Cataclysm.app from Finder.

Test suite

The build will also generate a test executable at tests/cata_test. Invoke it as you would any other executable and it will run the full suite of tests. Pass the --help flag to list options.

dmg distribution

You can build a nice dmg distribution file with the dmgdist target. You will need a tool called dmgbuild. To install this tool, you may need to install Python first. You can download Python on their official website or install it with homebrew brew install python. Once you have Python, you should be able to install dmgbuild by running:

# This install pip. It might not be required if it is already installed.
curl --silent --show-error --retry 5 https://bootstrap.pypa.io/get-pip.py | sudo python
# dmgbuild install
sudo pip install dmgbuild pyobjc-framework-Quartz

Once dmgbuild is installed, you will be able to use the dmgdist target like this. The use of USE_HOME_DIR=1 is important here because it will allow for an easy upgrade of the game while keeping the user config and his saves in his home directory.

make dmgdist NATIVE=osx RELEASE=1 TILES=1 FRAMEWORK=1 LOCALIZE=0 CLANG=1 USE_HOME_DIR=1

You should see a Cataclysm.dmg file.

Mac OS X Troubleshooting

ISSUE: Colors don't show up correctly

Open Terminal's preferences, turn on "Use bright colors for bold text" in "Preferences -> Settings -> Text"

Windows

Building with Visual Studio

See COMPILING-VS-VCPKG.md for instructions on how to set up and use a build environment using Visual Studio on windows.

This is probably the easiest solution for someone used to working with Visual Studio and similar IDEs.

For an alternative setup using CMake, please read COMPILING-CMAKE-VCPKG.md.

Building with Visual Studio Code (MSBuild)

This method uses Visual Studio's MSBuild toolchain without needing to open Visual Studio itself.

Setup

Follow the instructions in the Building with Visual Studio section.

Running a build

  1. Open the repository using the Cataclysm-DDA.code-workspace file in VS Code. Opening the bare folder is not sufficient, as the workspace file configures the build tasks and settings.
  2. Press Ctrl+Shift+B (or go to Terminal → Run Build Task) to open the build task picker.
  3. Select the desired configuration.

Build output and errors will appear in the Terminal panel.

Building with MSYS2

See COMPILING-MSYS.md for instructions on how to set up and use a build environment using MSYS2 on windows.

MSYS2 strikes a balance between a native Windows application and a UNIX-like environment. There's some command-line tools that our project uses (notably our JSON linter) that are harder to use without a command-line environment such as what MSYS2 or CYGWIN provide.

Building with CYGWIN

See COMPILING-CYGWIN.md for instructions on how to set up and use a build environment using CYGWIN on windows.

CYGWIN attempts to more fully emulate a POSIX environment, to be "more unix" than MSYS2. It is a little less modern in some respects, and lacks the convenience of the MSYS2 package manager.

Building with Clang and MinGW64

Clang by default uses MSVC on Windows, but also supports the MinGW64 library. Simply replace CLANG=1 with "CLANG=clang++ -target x86_64-pc-windows-gnu -pthread" in your batch script, and make sure MinGW64 is in your path. You may also need to apply a patch to float.h of MinGW64 for the unit test to compile.

BSDs

There are reports of CDDA building fine on recent OpenBSD and FreeBSD machines (with appropriately recent compilers), and there is some work being done on making the Makefile "just work", however we're far from that and BSDs support is mostly based on user contributions. Your mileage may vary. So far essentially all testing has been on amd64, but there is no (known) reason that other architectures shouldn't work, in principle.

Building on FreeBSD/amd64 13.0 with the system compiler

FreeBSD uses clang as the default compiler, which provides C++17 support out of the box since FreeBSD 12.0.

Install the following with pkg (or from Ports):

pkg install gmake libiconv

Tiles builds will also require SDL2:

pkg install sdl20 sdl2_image sdl2_mixer sdl2_ttf

Then you should be able to build with something like this:

gmake RELEASE=1 # ncurses builds
gmake RELEASE=1 TILES=1 # tiles builds

Building on OpenBSD/amd64 7.1 with clang

Install necessary dependencies:

pkg_add gmake libiconv

If building with tiles also install:

pkg_add sdl2 sdl2-image sdl2-mixer sdl2-ttf

Compiling:

gmake RELEASE=1 BSD=1 CLANG=1 TESTS=0 # ncurses build
gmake RELEASE=1 BSD=1 CLANG=1 TESTS=0 TILES=1 # tiles build

You may get an out of memory error when compiling with an underprivileged user, you can simply fix this by running:

usermod -L pbuild <user>

This command sets your login class to pbuild thus the data ulimit is increased from 1GB to 8GB.

NOTE: don't run this command for your main user, as it is already a part of the staff login class

Instead, you need to increase data limit with:

ulimit -d 8000000

Building on OpenBSD/amd64 5.8 with GCC 4.9.2 from ports/packages

First, install g++, gmake, and libexecinfo from packages (g++ 4.8 or 4.9 should work; 4.9 has been tested):

pkg_add g++ gmake libexecinfo

Then you should be able to build with something like:

CXX=eg++ gmake

Only an ncurses build is possible on 5.8-release, as SDL2 is broken. On recent -current or snapshots, however, you can install the SDL2 packages:

pkg_add sdl2 sdl2-image sdl2-mixer sdl2-ttf

and build with:

CXX=eg++ gmake TILES=1

Building on NetBSD/amd64 7.0RC1 with the system compiler

NetBSD has (or will have) gcc 4.8.4 as of version 7.0, which is new enough to build cataclysm. You will need to install gmake and ncursesw:

pkgin install gmake ncursesw

Then you should be able to build with something like this (LDFLAGS for ncurses builds are taken care of by the ncurses configuration script; you can of course set CXXFLAGS/LDFLAGS in your .profile or something):

export CXXFLAGS="-I/usr/pkg/include"
gmake # ncurses builds
LDFLAGS="-L/usr/pkg/lib" gmake TILES=1 # tiles builds

SDL builds currently compile, but did not run in my testing - not only do they segfault, but gdb segfaults when reading the debug symbols! Perhaps your mileage will vary.