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Re: Standard game parameters (Was Re: xconq on x86)



   From: bob@fla.fujitsu.com (Bob Carragher)
   Date: Wed, 08 Sep 1999 15:07:44 -0700

   I play an "abstract" period on top of Xconq 5.3 (mainly because
   I haven't ported the period to the latest Xconq).  It's based on
   the old "abstract" period from the "squares" version of Xconq,
   which first hooked me on the game.  So my comments are mainly
   based on that, and may not apply either to the "standard" period
   which is being referred to above or even the latest version of
   Xconq.

You need to upgrade, dude.  I left all those nice little conversion
tools in misc/ just to help you out... 5.3 has a lot of limitations
that no longer exist in 7.x, and the graphics are much better.

I'd also like to see this game design - somehow the distribution has
the jeep and spy plane icons and such, but no game that uses them,
always wondered where they came from...

   What I find utterly disturbing and disappointing is the fact that
   the AIs don't actually load up any of these (as Bruno discovered
   with the carriers).

The AI has been completely redesigned and rewritten.  The old scheme
was kind of a fuzzy hope that if you gradually pushed units in
beneficial directions, and then attacked when an opportunity arose,
that this would lead to clever play.  Ahem, no.  So the current code
makes explicit theaters, decides how many units ought to be operating
in each, the units get direct orders to move to their assigned
theaters, and can "requisition" transport if necessary to get there.
Since all is explicit, you can actually watch the decision process and
see what behaviors need to get more sophisticated, add improvements,
and see a clear difference.

   Anyway, I'm not sure what my point is except that it's probably
   very difficult to design a one-fits-all AI.  Perhaps if one could
   somehow select between different types of AIs ...?

7.x does have a mechanism for multiple AIs to coexist, although only
the one generic AI "mplayer" has been written so far.  Eventually I'd
like to write some specialized AIs and put them up against the generic
one, see who does better.  Hans Ronne has been adding some AI guidance
parameters to GDL as well, so the game designer can supply hints about
how best to play a game.

								Stan

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