Re: Some Qs

[Hans Ronne <hronne at pp dot sbbs dot se>]

>Hi, my name is Richard Hunt.

>	I downloaded xconq 7.4.1 a couple of days ago, and I've played the
>introductory game, the Roman Civil War module, and the Old Empire module.
>The only other strategy games I have played much are Civilization, FreeCiv
>and the empire that comes free with some versions of linux (sorry, i
>couldn't find any more info about what versions that is).

Welcome to the xconq list! If you like Civ you should check out the civ2
and advances/ancient near east modules, both of which are similar to Civ2.

>	I am interested in playing this kind of game (including scenario
>rather than advancement based) more but I don't have much information.
>What other games of this type are available for Linux? What sites/books
>would you recommend about strategy in these types of games? Which
>scenarios in xconq are good for a beginner in this type of game?

I like WW2-Advanced-Europe-jan42 best. Big enough to be interesting, but
not unmanagable (like the whole World WW2 game tends to be). Then there is
Flattops if you are interested in naval strategy. An execellent game which
is still rather simple. The Roman Civil War, which you already played, is
another favourite. And the Russian Revolution. The Lord of the Rings
module, which I wrote last year, is also a scenario type game.

>	Now some questions about xconq:
>
>	Is xconq intended mainly as an empire-type, or a scenario based game?

Xconq is intented as a tool to write almost any kind of game. The only
limitation is that you have to stick to maps made up of hexes. That being
said, we even had a chess module for a while. But I think its gone now :-(.
In any case, there is a whole language for writing game modules (Game
Design Language - GDL) and built-in game editors for both the Mac and Unix.
So the possibilities for new games are endless.

>	The Old Empire module seemed very similar to the version that I
>have played, except that it did not have Patrol Boats. Is there a module
>that gives this unit as well?

Not sure, but you can add Patrol Boats or whatever in five minutes with GDL
if you want them. I suggest you hack your Old Empire module and test it out.

>	Are there plans to improve the isometric display to show all units
>in a hex?

Not sure what you mean. The isometric display does show all units in a hex,
down to a certain resolution. It does not differ from the standard display
in this respect. What can happen with the isometric display is that some
units, or even whole hexes, are hidden from sight because of elevation
differences. Just like in real life!

>	Is it possible to give units a strategy to follow (ie attack,
>explore etc) until they are needed for something specific?

This is called "plan types" in xconq. And yes, you can set them for
individual units (at least on the Mac) using the More menu. Unfortunately,
this does not achieve anything right now. The reason for this is that units
under manual control don't ever use the plans, and if you put the unit
under AI control (which you can do on a unit-by-unit basis) the first thing
the AI will do is trash your plan and pick a new one.

I've been working on a semi-automatic mode, where you would hand a unit
over to the AI but forbid it to change the plan. Kind of a fire-and-forget
unit. A prototype with this feature already exists in my "Unfinished xconq
projects" folder. However, adding this stuff to the current sources would
require some major kernel hacking. I would rather figure out the network
problems first.

Hans

Hans Ronne

hronne@pp.sbbs.se