I was chatting to someone in IRC (CC'd) who was trying to build the server and
they got this problem which I could replicate..

[inchoate 9:38] ~/projects/netrek-server-vanilla-2.12.1 >env 
CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include 
LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/lib ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
checking for used sources... Vanilla SERVER
checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c
checking for gcc... gcc
checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out
checking whether the C compiler works... yes
checking whether we are cross compiling... no
checking for suffix of executables...
checking for suffix of object files... o
checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes
checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes
checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed
checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E
checking whether ln -s works... yes
checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes
checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /usr/bin/grep
checking for egrep... /usr/bin/grep -E
checking for AIX... no
checking for inline... inline
checking if fd_set requires sys/select.h... no
checking for ANSI C header files... yes
checking for sys/types.h... yes
checking for sys/stat.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... yes
checking for string.h... yes
checking for memory.h... yes
checking for strings.h... yes
checking for inttypes.h... yes
checking for stdint.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... yes
checking for unistd.h... (cached) yes
checking for memory.h... (cached) yes
checking math.h usability... yes
checking math.h presence... yes
checking for math.h... yes
checking for stdlib.h... (cached) yes
checking sys/timeb.h usability... yes
checking sys/timeb.h presence... yes
checking for sys/timeb.h... yes
checking sys/ptyio.h usability... no
checking sys/ptyio.h presence... no
checking for sys/ptyio.h... no
checking sys/fcntl.h usability... yes
checking sys/fcntl.h presence... yes
checking for sys/fcntl.h... yes
checking fcntl.h usability... yes
checking fcntl.h presence... yes
checking for fcntl.h... yes
checking ctype.h usability... yes
checking ctype.h presence... yes
checking for ctype.h... yes
checking machine/endian.h usability... yes
checking machine/endian.h presence... yes
checking for machine/endian.h... yes
checking sys/resource.h usability... yes
checking sys/resource.h presence... yes
checking for sys/resource.h... yes
checking sys/wait.h usability... yes
checking sys/wait.h presence... yes
checking for sys/wait.h... yes
checking netinet/in.h usability... yes
checking netinet/in.h presence... yes
checking for netinet/in.h... yes
checking sys/filio.h usability... yes
checking sys/filio.h presence... yes
checking for sys/filio.h... yes
checking gdbm.h usability... yes
checking gdbm.h presence... yes
checking for gdbm.h... yes
checking ncurses.h usability... yes
checking ncurses.h presence... yes
checking for ncurses.h... yes
checking for gdbm_open in -lgdbm... yes
checking for wait3 that fills in rusage... yes
checking for pid_t... yes
checking for uid_t in sys/types.h... yes
checking for size_t... yes
checking vfork.h usability... no
checking vfork.h presence... no
checking for vfork.h... no
checking for fork... yes
checking for vfork... yes
checking for working fork... yes
checking for working vfork... (cached) yes
checking whether struct tm is in sys/time.h or time.h... time.h
checking for itimer in time.h... no
checking for long... yes
checking size of long... 4
checking for u_int in sys/types.h... yes
checking for PATH_MAX in limits.h... yes
checking for main in -lgdi32... no
checking for X... libraries /usr/X11R6/lib, headers /usr/X11R6/include
Warning: x_includes was going to be blank, check with quozl
checking for mp.h... yes
checking for gmp.h... yes
yes
checking res-rsa/configure... RSA utilities found
checking for main in -lXbsd... no
checking for main in -lsocket... no
checking for main in -lresolv... no
checking for main in -linet... no
checking for main in -lnsl... no
checking for main in -lseq... no
checking for main in -lsun... no
checking for main in -lipc... no
checking for main in -lshm... no
checking for main in -lstuff... no
checking for crypt in -lcrypt... yes
checking for main in -ltermcap... yes
checking for newwin in -lncurses... yes
checking return type of signal handlers... void
checking for sys/wait.h that is POSIX.1 compatible... (cached) yes
checking for restartable system calls... yes
checking for signals style... BSD
checking for usleep... yes
checking for random... yes
checking for setstate... yes
checking for strftime... yes
checking for ftime... no
checking for strcmpi... no
checking for strncmpi... no
checking for main in -lm... yes
checking for nint... no
checking for nint in -lsunmath... no
checking for random... (cached) yes
checking for strdup... yes
checking for rint... yes
checking build system type... i386-unknown-freebsd7.0
checking host system type... i386-unknown-freebsd7.0
checking for a sed that does not truncate output... /usr/bin/sed
checking for ld used by gcc... /usr/bin/ld
checking if the linker (/usr/bin/ld) is GNU ld... yes
checking for /usr/bin/ld option to reload object files... -r
checking for BSD-compatible nm... /usr/bin/nm -B
checking how to recognise dependent libraries... pass_all
checking dlfcn.h usability... yes
checking dlfcn.h presence... yes
checking for dlfcn.h... yes
checking for g++... g++
checking whether we are using the GNU C++ compiler... yes
checking whether g++ accepts -g... yes
checking how to run the C++ preprocessor... g++ -E
checking for g77... no
checking for xlf... no
checking for f77... f77
checking whether we are using the GNU Fortran 77 compiler... yes
checking whether f77 accepts -g... yes
checking the maximum length of command line arguments... 196608
checking command to parse /usr/bin/nm -B output from gcc object... ok
checking for objdir... .libs
checking for ar... ar
checking for ranlib... ranlib
checking for strip... strip
checking if gcc supports -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions... no
checking for gcc option to produce PIC... -fPIC
checking if gcc PIC flag -fPIC works... yes
checking if gcc static flag -static works... yes
checking if gcc supports -c -o file.o... yes
checking whether the gcc linker (/usr/bin/ld) supports shared libraries... yes
checking whether -lc should be explicitly linked in... yes
checking dynamic linker characteristics... freebsd7.0 ld.so
checking how to hardcode library paths into programs... immediate
checking whether stripping libraries is possible... yes
checking if libtool supports shared libraries... yes
checking whether to build shared libraries... yes
checking whether to build static libraries... yes
checking for OSX ranlib... drat - yes
checking for netstat... yes
checking for uptime... yes
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: creating system.mk
config.status: creating Makefile
config.status: creating ntserv/Makefile
config.status: creating tools/Makefile
config.status: creating sequencer/Makefile
config.status: creating newstartd/Makefile
config.status: creating robots/Makefile
config.status: creating keycomp/Makefile
config.status: creating xsg/Makefile
config.status: creating pledit/Makefile
config.status: creating robotd/Makefile
config.status: creating docs/Makefile
config.status: creating tools/no_geno_timer
config.status: creating tools/geno_timer
config.status: creating docs/sample_geno_timer_crontab
config.status: creating docs/sample_sysdef
config.status: creating tools/setpath
config.status: creating tools/setpath.csh
config.status: creating include/config.h
config.status: include/config.h is unchanged
=== configuring in res-rsa 
(/usr/home/darius/projects/netrek-server-vanilla-2.12.1/res-rsa)
configure: 
running /usr/local/bin/bash ./configure '--prefix=/usr/local'  'LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/lib' 'CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include' --cache-file=/dev/null --srcdir=.
configure: warning: LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/lib: invalid host type
configure: warning: CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/include: invalid host type
configure: error: can only configure for one host and one target at a time
configure: error: ./configure failed for res-rsa

If I disable res-rsa configure finishes fine but building doesn't work..
[inchoate 9:40] ~/projects/netrek-server-vanilla-2.12.1 >gmake
cd ntserv; gmake libnetrek.a
gmake[1]: Entering directory 
`/usr/home/darius/projects/netrek-server-vanilla-2.12.1/ntserv'
gcc -g -O2 -Wall     -I../include   -c -o alarm.o alarm.c
gcc -g -O2 -Wall     -I../include   -c -o balance.o balance.c
gcc -g -O2 -Wall     -I../include   -c -o bans.o bans.c
gcc -g -O2 -Wall     -I../include   -c -o bay.o bay.c
gcc -g -O2 -Wall     -I../include   -c -o blog.o blog.c
gcc -g -O2 -Wall     -I../include   -c -o coup.o coup.c
gcc -g -O2 -Wall     -I../include   -c -o data.o data.c
gcc -g -O2 -Wall     -I../include  -c db.c
db.c:14:18: gdbm.h: No such file or directory
db.c: In function `db_index_fetch':

It would appear that the Makefiles do not honour the CPPFLAGS/CFLAGS/LDFFLAGS
passed in via env vars to configure, hence the build fails.

I will try and fix it but me and autotools are not good friends so perhaps
someone with more experience could have a go.

-- 
Daniel O'Connor software and network engineer
for Genesis Software - http://www.gsoft.com.au
"The nice thing about standards is that there
are so many of them to choose from."
  -- Andrew Tanenbaum
GPG Fingerprint - 5596 B766 97C0 0E94 4347 295E E593 DC20 7B3F CE8C
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