Re: Freeciv vs. Xconq

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

>Hi,
>A while ago, I announced on freeciv-dev that I was going to do a
>feature-by-feature comparrission between Freeciv and Xconq. Here is what
>I have written.
>
>I choose to publish it here first so you have the chance to correct some
>things in it and maybe fix some things in Xconq too, before I send it to
>freeciv-dev. I thought this was neccessary to make it fair, because I
>have been picking around at freeciv-dev for a while now and only
>recently started with Xconq. And I might not have understood all facts
>about Xconq correctly.

I think your review is fair for the stuff you cover. I have two points to add:

First, Xconq is a *lot* more powerful than Freeciv or any other Civ
implementation when it comes to designing new game modules. This is because
of the almost infinite number of options available in GDL, and because you
can have many more unit types etc. than in Civ.

I've been working on a Lord of the Rings game that is based on the advances
module, uses Massimo's old map, and unit definitions from Harlan Thompson's
Lord of the Rings Civ2 scenario. I was struck by how simple it is to
implement new ideas in Xconq compared to Civ2, where writing a new scenario
is an exercise in compromises and weird hacks. Civ scenarios are limited by
the small number of available unit types (shall I keep Pippin or Faramir?)
and by various strange properties that are hard-coded into the game (Your
Gandalf has run out of fuel ...).

If you look at the available xconq game modules, you will find that many of
them differ from each other enough to be considered different games. In
contrast, if you have played one Civ scenario, you have played them all.
The icons may differ, but Gandalf and the bomber both run out of fuel ...

The point I'm trying to make is that Civ2 (or Freeciv) is a game. Xconq is
not. It's a tool or a platform for writing entirely new games.

My second point is that you may want to check out the mac interface. It's
more advanced than the tcltk interface in several respects. Specifically,
the stuff listed below is not true on the mac, but there are also other
things like offscreen graphics,unit closeups (control-click on a unit to
open it) and various dialogs not available under tcltk.

Hans

>    > Xconq:
>      - Grayscale units.

>* Sound
>  > Both:
>    - No sound at all.

>* User Interface
>  > Both:
>    - Too little of the window is used to display the actual
>      map. Objects should be rearranged to give more room for the map
>      view.

>  > Xconq:
>    - Outdated and unfriendly. Worse than GTK+.
>    - There is no city dialog.

>    > Xconq:
>      - There is no way to select research goals. Technologies must be
>        researched 1 by 1.

Hans Ronne

hronne@pp.sbbs.se