To play X11 Xconq, just type `xconq'. You will get the default game, which has you and a single AI as the two opposing players, in a randomly generated 60x30 area that is mostly unexplored. The game design in effect is called `standard'. It is a generic "Empire" type game, with cities, armies, airplanes, and ships of various types.
If you're new to Xconq, and find that `standard' is too complicated and/or confusing, try the introductory game `intro' instead; type `xconq -g intro' to get it. `intro' is generally like `standard', but it has fewer types of units and terrain, you start with only one city, the one city is preset to build armies, there is more land, and the other player starts closer. Note that some of these changes mean that luck plays a larger role in determining whether you win or lose; so if you find yourself losing, it may only be because your starting position was poor. Success in the standard game, however, depends almost entirely on skill, so play it when you're more experienced with Xconq.
By default, the X11 interface opens up windows on the display named in
the environment variable DISPLAY, and connects it with the first
side and player in the game.
The arguments to an Xconq command consist of a list of player specifications and possibly some additional options.
[name[,ai][/config]@]display[+adv]
"_" is equivalent to the default display, as in the
value of the environment variable DISPLAY.
You can get a variety of uses out of player specs. For instance,
the player spec ,ai+4 asks for an AI, of a default type
appropriate to its side, with a starting advantage of 4.
If you want to give yourself an advantage, just specify +4
anywhere on the command line.
The following options are always available:
-c n
-design
-e[,ai][+adv] n
-f filename
-g gamename
-L.
-h n
-help, --help
-g or
-f, also list all of the variants for the game.
-host name
'^X' << 6 + '^C').
-join
-L directory
-noai
-pre form
-post form
-r
--version
-w
-x
The following options only work if the game allows for the corresponding variants.
-M width[xheight][Wcircumf][+lat][+long]
world-size.
-seq
sequential, with a value of 1.
-sim
sequential,
with a value of 0.
-tgame mins
real-time.
-tside mins
real-time.
-tturn mins
real-time.
-v
world-seen, with a value of 1.
-v[name][=value]
true).
-vhelp
-help does.
-V
see-all,
with a value of 1 (true). If see-all defaults to being
true for a game, then you can make it false by using
-vsee-all=false or -vsee-all=0.
If debugging has been compiled in, then the options -D
and -R are also available.
See the hacking chapter of the manual for more detail.
The following options apply only to the default X11 display:
-bg color
-display displayname
-fg color
-geometry geometry
-name name
If you give the command line option -x, Xconq will
display a series of dialogs that you can use to set up a game
interactively. The dialogs should be self-explanatory.
Once the game has started, you have at least one "map window" open. (For brevity, these can be called just "maps"). Each map window has identical capabilities, so you can play by using just one, or have one for each area of interest, or have some of them serve specialized purposes. For instance, you can have a map window that shows the entire world.
Each map window consists of a number of panes, whose size you may adjust by dragging the small square grips that may be seen on the the pane boundaries.
---------------------------------------------------------- | | | | history/notices | | | | | |-------------------------------------| sides | | command prompt | | |-------------------------------------| | | turn/date |------------------| |-------------------------------------| | | | | | | | unit/cell info | | | | | | | |-----------------------------| | | | | unit types | | | | | | ctrl | | | | panel | | | | | | | | | map view | | | | | | | | |------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | panner | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------
The map view is the actual display of the world.
Each map may have one current position and one current unit. The current position is specially highlighted, and the info subwindow displays information about it. If in addition there is a current unit at the current position, then it will be highlighted rather than the entire cell, and the info pane will describe it in detail. The current unit is the one to which your commands apply; it will always be a unit that you control. If the current position includes a picture of someone else's unit, the info will describe its type and owner but no more.
The info pane has the general form
<unit owner, type, name> <hp> <acp>|<cp> <cxp> <location> <other units here> <occupants> <supply> <plan> <more supply> <tasks> <even more supply>
Items like <hp> and acp have the form
current/max, so that you can get an idea
of how the value compares to what it could be.
It will nearly always be the case that the world is too large to be seen all at once. You can scroll around in two ways. First, if you are in survey mode, and click near any edge of the view, Xconq will put the position you clicked at the center of the view. By clicking in the same place repeatedly, you can "walk" the view in any desired direction.
If you want to go directly to a particular part of the world, use the panner in the bottom right corner of the map window. To use the panner, click and drag the shadowed box inside the panner. The panner is sized to match the map, and the shadowed box is sized to match the view, so you can get a general idea of of where the map is within the world.
If you click the button labelled "More..." in the leftside controls, you will get a popup dialog that is a full set of viewing controls. Unlike the leftside view controls, these do not act at once; instead, you toggle them on or off, then click on "Apply" or "Done" to see the effects. This allows you to make a number of changes, but only redraw the map once when you are ready to see the results. "Apply" leaves the popup in place, while "Done" makes it go away. You can leave the popup up permanently and continue play, if you like.
Note that each map will have its own separate view control popup, and that they're not clearly distinguished from each other. Fortunately, these only affect display, not the game itself.
The basic idea of play is to be in move mode, let the program select the next unit to do something, then give it a command, either by clicking the mouse or by typing on the keyboard.
Each map may be in either survey or move mode (See section Modes) independently of the others. In survey mode, the default actions are not to do anything, while in move mode, the default actions are to do things. This principle applies to both mouse and keyboard commands. For instance, 'h' in survey mode moves the current position west by one cell, but in move mode it causes the current unit to try to move west by one cell.
Although in classic X style, all the actions may be arbitrarily rebound, for simplicity the default Xconq setup uses the left button for the most important actions.
The general commands (See section Standard Keyboard Commands) all work.
Commands that operate on units will be applied to the current unit of the map. If the map has no current unit, then you will get an error message.
Commands that need further input will generally request it from the prompt subwindow that is sandwiched between the history subwindow and the date subwindow. You do not need to put the cursor over the prompt window to type into it however; when a prompt is up, any typed characters will be considered to be part of the answer to the prompt. You can type in an escape (`C-[') character to cancel the command and clear the prompt.
If the request is for a unit type, such as when choosing a type to construct, you can choose the type either by typing its character, or by clicking on its entry in the unit type list.
The X11 interface defines these additional commands.
flash) Highlight the position of the current unit.
zoom-out) Zoom out (cells appear smaller).
zoom-in) Zoom in (cells appear larger).
closemapmeridiansrvorderspatternsidesolidunitworld-mapmap, but the map is scaled to show the whole world
at once.
monoThe save command `S' saves games to `save.xconq'. The saved game is a normal text file. To restore the game, give the command `xconq -f save.xconq'. The saved game preserves all of the player information, including display names, so the restored game will use all of the same displays as before.
You can change which displays go with which sides by using -r
to suppress the addition of a default player, and listing all of the
players explicitly, in the order desired. For instance, suppose that
the original 5-player game was started with the arguments
foo:0.0 joe@bar:0.0 -e 2, then to just change the displays,
restore with
-f save.xconq -r baz:0.0 weeble:0.0 joe@andros:0.0.
This puts the original person who started the game onto baz:0.0,
and the other two humans on weeble:0.0 and andros:0.0,
while leaving the two AIs unaffected.
This ability is also useful for swapping sides, although it can be
tricky to get right. For instance,
-f save.xconq -r ,ai ,ai ,ai ,@foo:0.0 joe,@bar:0.0
restores the game, but gives the first three sides to the default
AI, and the last two (which had been played by AIs) to humans, and
disables the AIs that had been running them. (The ,@ sequence
effectively asks for an AI with an empty type name, which is interpreted
to mean "no AI"; otherwise the displays would have been opened, with
an AI moving the units.)