Re: Xconq design examples

[Hans Ronne <hronne at telia dot com>]

>Hi,
>I have the following needs, which I couldn't figure out from existing games:
>1) I want roads (which anyone can walk on), but also railroads (which have
>the
>    following attributes:
>    - there's a maximum rail-capacity for each side, which is allocated at
>the start
>       of the month, and is used up over 4 turns.  (i.e. turn 1 you get 10
>points, turn
>       5 your railcap is reset to 10).
>    - railcap can only be used on rail hexes that connect to major cities
>(no using
>      rail on isolated track)
>    - supply can be sent via rail, but can't be sent via road.
>    - rail lines are either side A, side B or independent.
>    - their status is either OK or destroyed.
>    - their capability is either connected or solated (isolated means they
>belong to a side,
>       but are not allowed to be used for rail transport, because they're
>not connected
>       to a major city).

If you are serious about railroads belonging to one side or another you
would have to make them units rather than terrain connections. This might
actually help you to achieve some of the other stuff, too. For example, you
can specify that new units should appear in certain numbers each turn. If
you make the new railroad units mobile, you can walk each one to the proper
position and put it down there.

The next step is to put a string of railroad units between two cities. Then
you specify a new unit (train) with the following properties:

1. It is the only unit (except for cities) that can carry supplies.
2. The train cannot move into or out of the terrain.
3. The train can, however, enter and exit both cities and railroad units
without problems.

This will make it possible for the occupant (train) to move from one city
to another by hopping from railroad unit to railroad unit. Kind of similar
to how you can create a canal across a continent (both in Xconq and in Civ)
by building a string of cities from one shore to the other.

>2) I would like to have both navigable and non-navigable rivers; from what
>I've read,
>    I should make non-nav be 'border' and nav be 'slide'.  Is there a good
>example of
>    this coding?

Not that I know of. But it should work, yes.

>3) I'd like to have 13 cycles per year, each cycle of 4 weeks.

Never used the calendar stuff myself. I suggest you check out one of Stan's
old games that does.

>4) From what I've read, I can implement leaders as being able to control all
>units
>    within N hexes, but I'd like to have leaders control K units with in N
>hexes, and
>    'K' and 'N' vary between leaders.   How can I do that?

I haven't tried this, but if this leader control code works at all (of
which I am not sure) you should be able to define different leader types
(e.g. "colonels" and "generals") with different unit-control-range. There
is also some variables called unit-control-chance etc. that supposedly
affect the control process, and which may differ between different unit
types. See table.def.

Hans