curses Xconq

cconq is a version of Xconq that requires only an ASCII terminal and a curses library for cursor movement and screen management. As a result, it will run almost anywhere.

However, you lose a lot in display power, and games may become much more difficult to play. For instance, roads and rivers cannot be represented directly, and you will have to rely on the textual displays.

(Incidentally, this curses interface is the oldest one in Xconq, predating even the X10 interface that was part of version 1's release in 1987.)

Because it is no longer used much, the usual `make' and `make install' will NOT generate and install the executable. Instead, use `make all-cconq' and `make install-cconq'.

The resulting executable is `cconq'.

• curses Xconq Command Line Options
• curses Xconq Screen
• curses Xconq Commands
• curses Xconq Troubleshooting

Command Line Options

Screen

When `cconq' starts up, it takes over the whole screen, in the usual fashion of curses programs.

The layout is generally similar to the appearance of the common interface. Some changes were dictated by the need to fit everything into the standard 24x80 terminal screen (`cconq' can use a bigger or smaller screen if necessary though).

Your town Drumheller will build 99 armor                     Turn   1

your town Drumheller  HP 20  ACP 0/1       |1*  83%/6 Brazilians (term)
In desert(Elev 1825) road/NE at 12,12      |2  100%   Japanese ()
Occ 1 a                                    |-Sides---------------------
fuel 500/500  ammo 200/200                 | *1 Hooker             1w
                                           | *1 Joe Batt's Arm     1w
   ?   ?   ?   ? ++++....  ?   ?   ?   ?   | *1 East Missoula      1w
                ^#+#......                 |**1 Drumheller
 ?   ?   ?   ? ^#+#+#......  ?   ?   ?   ? | *1 Nirmal             1w
              ^^^^*1@1......               | @1 Wonthaggi          1w
   ?   ?   ?   ^^^^*1==....?   ?   ?   ?   |
                ^^^^+#*1....               |
     ?   ?   ?   ^^^^*1+#*1..?   ?   ?   ? |
                  ^#^^~~+#++..             |
       ?   ?   ?   ^#~~~~++++  ?   ?   ?   |
                                           |
         ?   ?   ?   ?   ?   ?   ?   ?   ? |
                                           |
           ?   ?   ?   ?   ?   ?   ?   ?   |
                                           |
             ?   ?   ?   ?   ?   ?   ?   ? |
                                           |
--Map--Survey----(units)-------------------|-Units--ALL--by side------

The main display is the map, which is in the lower left. It uses game-defined characters to represent units and terrain - in the above example, '..', '++', etc represent sea, land, and so forth respectively. Units appear as a character for the type ('*' is a town) followed by a decimal digit indicating the side. Unknown terrain is a combination of blanks and question marks, while the presence of borders and connections is flagged by a '#'.

Above the map is a textual description of the currently selected unit and its current location.

At the top is a couple of lines for notices of events and feedback from commands.

The turn or date appears in the top right corner, while below it is a list of the sides, their numbers as appearing on the map, and their progress in the turn. Also, the side being displayed has the display term.

Below that is a list area, which you can use to display a list of actual units, or a summary of the numbers of each type that you have.

Interaction and display modes appear on the bottom line of each major subwindow. The map window indicates survey/move modes, as well as the kinds of optional data being displayed, while the list window indicates units/types, selectivity (all or only some units), and sorting of the list.

Commands

curses Xconq accepts all of the generic commands.

The `map' command understands the following curses-specific arguments:

_

Set number of lines in info window. This command sets the number of lines used by the unit info window above the map. The default is 4, which is insufficient to display the plan's tasks, or all of the supplies in games with many kinds of materials. The prefix argument is the number of lines.

v

Set list view.

>

Grow the map. This increases the amount of screen used by the map and decreases the amount used by the lists. The prefix argument is the number of columns to change; its default value is 5.

<

Shrink the map. This decreases the amount of screen used by the map and increases the amount used by the lists. The prefix argument is the number of columns to change; its default value is 5.

terrain, t

Display or blank out the terrain. You may prefix with ! or no to achieve the opposite of the effect.

unit, u

Display or blank out the units. You may prefix with ! or no to achieve the opposite of the effect.

name, n

Display or blank out the names of features and units. You may prefix with ! or no to achieve the opposite of the effect.

people, p

Display or blank out people. You may prefix with ! or no to achieve the opposite of the effect.

one, 1, two, 2

Display the terrain character in one or two character positions of each displayed cell.

Troubleshooting

Screen gets messed up on Sun4, for reasons I don't understand.