Sophie: xconq-7.5.0-1.20050612.5mdv2009.1 i586

xconq-7.5.0-1.20050612.5mdv2009.1.i586.rpm

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<!-- This HTML file has been created by texi2html 1.39
     from ./xconq.texi on 12 June 2005 -->

<TITLE>Xconq - Setting Up A Game</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Go to the <A HREF="xconq_1.html">first</A>, <A HREF="xconq_8.html">previous</A>, <A HREF="xconq_10.html">next</A>, <A HREF="xconq_66.html">last</A> section, <A HREF="xconq_toc.html">table of contents</A>.
<HR>


<H2><A NAME="SEC9" HREF="xconq_toc.html#SEC9">Setting Up A Game</A></H2>

<P>
<A NAME="IDX3"></A>
The details of setting up a game depend on what kind of system you're
using, although it will usually be a series of dialogs.  Consult the
appropriate chapter for more details.

</P>
<P>
The remainder of this section describes the general process of setup
common to all interfaces.  Game setup is complex because <I>Xconq</I>
allows you to choose the networking, the game, its variants, and the
players, and many different combinations are possible.

</P>
<P>
<A NAME="IDX4"></A>
<A NAME="IDX5"></A>
The first thing you do is to choose the game.  The standard <I>Xconq</I>
game library has many different game modules from which to choose,
and there are more to be found on the net and elsewhere.

</P>
<P>
The game that you choose may require no additional setup; once loaded,
you're ready to go.  Others will require additional decisions, such as
the size and shape of the playing area, whether exploration will be
necessary, or whether the game is realtime.  These choices are
<STRONG>variants</STRONG> of the game.  The exact set of variants is part of the
game design, and the interface will (usually) tell you about them.

</P>
<P>
<A NAME="IDX6"></A>
<A NAME="IDX7"></A>
<A NAME="IDX8"></A>
<A NAME="IDX9"></A>
In addition, most games also give you a choice of which <STRONG>player</STRONG> is
to play which side in a game, as well how many players can join in.
There are two kinds of players: humans, who have displays, and
<STRONG>artificial intelligence</STRONG>s or <STRONG>AI</STRONG>s for short, which are run by
the computer.  Some versions of <I>Xconq</I> may include more than one kind
of AI; each type has a distinct name.  The AI named <CODE>mplayer</CODE> is
always available.

</P>

<P>
<A NAME="IDX10"></A>
Some game designs provide a way to balance things if the players are of
differing abilities.  In these designs, each player has an
<STRONG>advantage</STRONG> that affects how much he or she gets to start with.
Weaker players should get a higher advantage, so for instance a game
with two players, of advantages 1 and 4, might give the advantage 4
player 8 cities while the advantage 1 player gets only 2.  This affects
setup only; during the game all players are equal.  The variability of
advantage also depends on the game; some may allows differences of 10 to
1 or more, while others, especially historically accurate scenarios,
will have a fixed advantage that the designer has set for each side.

</P>
<P>
<A NAME="IDX11"></A>
<A NAME="IDX12"></A>
In networked games, the process of agreeing on a player setup may take a
while.  However, this is still only a <STRONG>trial player setup</STRONG>; once it
has been agreed upon, <I>Xconq</I> runs <STRONG>synthesis methods</STRONG>.  The
synthesis methods of a game design tell how generate anything that was
not explicitly spelled out; such as the initial location of countries,
terrain features, and so forth.  As a player, you don't have to concern
yourself much about synthesis methods, but you may get warnings or
errors if a synthesis method is having difficulties.  A common case is
where you ask for many players to be set up in a small world, and the
player positioning rules are too "tight" for an initial setup; you
will get a warning that some players were given poor positions.
Synthesis methods may also take a long time to run; for large worlds and
lots of players, be prepared to wait.

</P>
<P>
When game setup succeeds, <I>Xconq</I> will try to open up displays for
every player that wanted one.  Once all the players are in, <I>Xconq</I>
will start the game for real.

</P>
<P>
<A NAME="IDX13"></A>
<A NAME="IDX14"></A>
<A NAME="IDX15"></A>
You may also get a warning that "images were not found".  This happens
when the game design specifies the use of particular icons or patterns
(collectively call <STRONG>images</STRONG> here), but they cannot be found anywhere
by <I>Xconq</I>.  This is not fatal, because <I>Xconq</I> will use generic
default images instead, but the display may be hard to understand.
There are several possible reasons for images not to be found: 1) the
game designer might have specified the use of particular images, but
never defined them, 2) the library of images was not updated to include
the needed images, or 3) the image library is not located where Xconq is
looking.

</P>
<P>
section <A HREF="xconq_57.html#SEC146">Troubleshooting Xconq</A> describes more of the errors and
warnings that you may encounter, and what to do about them.

</P>
<HR>
Go to the <A HREF="xconq_1.html">first</A>, <A HREF="xconq_8.html">previous</A>, <A HREF="xconq_10.html">next</A>, <A HREF="xconq_66.html">last</A> section, <A HREF="xconq_toc.html">table of contents</A>.
</BODY>
</HTML>