Re: Next release date and also improving unit route selection

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

>Hi,
>
>Just found xconq and installed it on my Red Hat system, as an old
>afficionado of Empire Deluxe (found v3.12 in a charity shop early last year)
>I'd be quite keen on improve on the empire scenario to make it more faithful
>to the original (except for the AI of course, I don't have the strategy
>guide). Is anyone already working on this?

Not as far as I know. Your contributions would be welcome.

>A particular problem with the game engine itself is moving a unit between
>distant points, xconq will not take the shortest route or even attempt to
>take a possible non-straight-line route. E.g. armoured units may need to go
>to one particular side of a mountain range to reach a distant city. Empire
>deluxe makes a good job of this particular manoeuvre. Is anyone looking at
>this? Is it a viable problem for an xconq newbie to tackle?.

Definitely. This is an annoying shortcoming in the AI that really needs to
be fixed. It's even more obvious with lakes. Units will get trapped all the
time trying to attack across the water instead of just walking around it.
I'm sure there is some good pathfinding code somewhere that could be ported
to xconq.

Hans

Hans Ronne

hronne@pp.sbbs.se