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Re: What to do with Xconq


> Ari Rabkin wrote:
>> 
>>     And the ones that do work need to be better documented.
>
> Sigh, more writing - doesn't anybody else want to do some of this?

    I'd be happy to!  Just noting it needs to be done.  I'll see what
I can do.  Where do I submit finished or quasi-finished stuff?

>> > * Genre confusion.  These days, strategy games fall into several
>> > subcategories - historical wargames (TOAW), complex simulations (Civ),
>> > real-time (*arcraft), and maybe strategic RPG (HOMM 3).  Xconq doesn't
>> > offer strong support for any of these genres, instead falling into a
>> > mushy middle of simple-ish turn-based games.
>>
>>     I have noticed that all xconq games seem alike.  This isn't good:
>> the player should have to act and think differently in each game, not
>> just exploit the same strategies.
>
> A good observation.  This is probably a side-effect of unimplemented
> scorekeeper types, combined with lack of support code in the mplayer,
> so every game's goal has to be to wipe out the other player.

    I suspect the prime cause is that, aside from flavor, there is little
difference between tanks, destroyers, napoleonic armies, and starships.
Units and games should be more individualized; I suspect that many of the
newer engine additions will help with this.

>>     2)    Civilization is more than a war game; there is the dimension
>> of economics, science, and city management.  Civ nations are not always
>> at war or in (like the sides in some xconq games) perpetual alliance.
>> Xconq is able to do science and economics to some extent with the "advanced
>> city" code, but diplomacy is still a giant gap.
>
> Yeah, that's what agreements are supposed to be for, but that's something
> that turned out to be a bigger job than I originally expected...

    Can we have that added to the "subsystem-to-finish" list?

>>     I think rules, and particularly the combat model is more important
>> here: the "civilization[-2]" combat model is a good addition.  Perhaps
>> we should have one to allow exact emulation of those cardboard-counter
>> war games?  This would entail at most a reworking of the combat stregth
>> code added for the Civ game, and would allow xconq to leverage the
>> playtesting, research, etc that went into military baord games.
>
> That's why I gave the attack/defense strength unit properties such generic
> names, so they can be used with additional combat models.  Ideally, each
combat
> models is a blob of C code, part of which calculates the effects, and part of
> which provides generic risk/odds assessment for AIs to use.

    Is the support for multiple combat models in place? If so, I'd be
willing to have a go at writing one at some point.

[...]

>>     Could the option of using squares be added to xconq without a lot
>> of work?
>
> It could be added; in fact, I chose the term "cell" to encompass both squares
> and hexes.  Would be a lot of work though - while many iterations use things
> like for_all_directions that would work the same for squares and hexes,
> not all the code is so generic (pathfinding for instance), and squares also
> entail 4-neighbor vs 8-neighbor issues (face vs corner adjacency).  Lots of
> graphics interface hacking too...
>
> I've been holding off on this one because I don't want it to be half-done,
> and the other issues are more pressing right now.

    Makes sense--I just thought it would make civ-2 emulation more complete.
Although if it would take significant work, it's probably not worth it.

>> > * Focus on a handful of game modules, and finish them.  One or two in
>> > each Xconq-supported genre should be enough.  Do the graphics, make
>> > the AI good, etc.
>>
>>     makes sense--perhaps raffle them off to managers so that there is
>> someone specifically dedicated to each game?  I know that ANE is the
>> personal creation of Hans Ronne, who also checked in a lot of code
>> specifically for it --and it is already very highly polished, despite
>> being the newest xconq game.  Kudos, Hans!
>
> They're pretty much all available to be worked on, so if no one is working
> on a game module, I tend to assume it's because they're not that interested.
> Perhaps I should clarify - if anybody wants to work on a module, go for it.
> Notify the list so other people don't repeat your work, and also speak up
> if the base code should be extended to support something you need to do!

    I've been slowly tinkering with a "modern" version of standard--it seems
fairly playable; is there a method in-place for submitting this sort of
thing?
>>     An interesting thought; perhaps try to combine features of multiple
>> genres?  Age of Empires is an attempt at a Civ RTS mix, and seems to be
>> a success.  Perhaps we should try something similar?
>
> "ancient.g" is my idea of an AoE clone - it motivated me to add the
> collecting task.  Yes, it's unfinished too... :-(

    It seems pretty good--it passed, at least for me, the "keeps player
up late at night" test.

>> A "modern times"
>> civ game?  I can't say: but doing a combination of genres is something
>> xconq should be good at.
>
> That's a good observation!

    Thanks.

>>     I just had the following thought: with the Civ2 emulation
>> work already done, writing a small program to convert the many
>> Civ2 Gold scenarios to xconq-readable format.
>
> That's a really neat idea!  I'm guessing that people have figured
> out the file format by now.  Translating squares to cells is perhaps
> the hardest bit, but there is a formula.
>
    I'm willing to at least make a start at such a translator, after
the civ-2 game is done (so I can see what the end-product is).
    What is the hex-to-square formula, btw, if you know it offhand?

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