Re: setting up standing orders question...

[Eric McDonald <emcdonal at cps dot cmich dot edu>]

On Fri, 27 Jun 2003, Bruno Boettcher wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 27, 2003 at 09:42:21PM +0200, Hans Ronne wrote:
> > The transport code is long due for an overhaul, quite apart from any
> > standing orders problems.
> uhm yeah, i still dream also of units actually following streets and
> rivers.... (and my wish to be able to build and destroy roads.... is
>     still there :D )

There is at least a framework in Xconq for the 'remove-terrain' action, and
roads are considered to be a type of terrain.

> BTW is there in the meantime a possibility to enhance the standard game
> to allow time and war driven growth of cities? means if a base has
> survived 50 cycles and there weren't any combats around it grows to a
> town etc.... ?

If change-type was supported in an UI (see a recent thread on the topic: "A
Couple Questions"), then you could mimic this behavior by using the ability to
change type (with specified quantities of certain materials) in conjunction
with the hit-by table which would effect what materials are lost due to combat
actions against the city.

> uhm and a UI for writing games? :D dumb people like me have problems
> with the description language (not enough verbose, too cryptic -> i am
>     one who likes java ;)

How about GDL++? :-)

Just in case you haven't tried, GDL is really not all that bad. You just have
to get yourself into a Lispy mindset.

> and otherwise, how do you set up patrolling ? i really don't like it to
> be surprised by an attack behind my front lines.... and there's no real
> sentry command in the game (or i haven't found it yet...)

I think there is a sentry plan, but basically it causes a unit to sit in one
cell for a certain interval of time, if I am not mistaken.

I agree that patrols would be nice (both Strategic Conquest and Empire Master
on the Mac had this feature). It is one of things I may try to code up once
Xconq 7.5 is out the door.

> awww this went longer than planned... hope i didn't annoy you :D

The ability to create scripts that could be assigned to units, and the use of
formulas would be nice, but, as a new Xconq hacker, my impression is that some
of these things could require a fair amount of work.

Eric