Re: Problems, suggestions, etc.

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

On Fri, 4 Jul 2003, Richard Hunt wrote:

> I am running Debian Linux 3.0r0 on a K6/2 400, Riva TNT on Xfree4.something,
> 75dpi fonts before 100dpi, tcl/tk8.3.

Another Debian user. Good. Have you noticed any drawing glitches in cells
adjacent to units you have moved? I am assuming not, since you didn't mention
it. But just to double check....

>  o In the `Game Setup' screen, is it possible to not display the `Unused'
>    slots? Failing that, would it be possible to list them all at the end?

I'll look into it sometime. Should be possible.

Right now, I am trying to vanquish various X11 related problems and a few
segfaults that occur in the kernel under abnormal conditions. Also trying to
brush up the documentation and develop a new game module.

>  o In the Standard game, `Large Countries' doesn't actually seem to grow large
>    countries, but long thin ones. The game seems to generate larger countries
>    without this option (or All Land/Mostly Land) checked.

Hmmm... Continents/islands can be long and skinny. But countries should grow
outward in all directions via an iterative process. The only major constraints
are how amenable a particular terrain type is to country expansion, and the
presence of other countries.

>  o Are standing orders (as far as they work now) documented anywhere? What
>    already exists might be useful to some players.

http://sources.redhat.com/xconq/manual/xconq_18.html#SEC39

>  o Instead of the `Large Countries', 'Mostly Land', 'All land', would it be
>    possible to add an option so that games can specify generation options that
>    could be altered by the player? (eg. via scrollbars in the world options
>    dialog. A bit like in Civ:CTP)

The game modules are stored in /share/xconq/lib under your Xconq install
directory. Make a backup of the game module you wish to alter, and then edit
the alt-percentile-min, alt-percentile-max, wet-percentile-min,
wet-percentile-max, country-radius-min, and country-radius-max to flavor....

Create your own variant if you want. Use the existing variants as a template.

> Thankyou to all the people who have been working on xconq recently (looking at
> the mailing list, there seems to be a team now) to improve the presentation,
> network code, and whatever else has been going on.

A number of people have been working quietly in the background for quite some
time. Browse through the ChangeLogs, if you want to get an idea about all the
contributors over the past 5 or 6 years.

	Thanks,
		Eric