XCONQ(6)

NAME
xconq - X-based strategy game

SYNOPSIS
xconq [ options ] ...

DESCRIPTION
Xconq is a multi-player strategic wargame. Your goal is to save the world from the evil empires attempting to take over. You get cities, armies, airplanes, and ships with which to accomplish your task. Success is achieved by the neutralization or defeat of the other sides, by any means available. First you have to find them!

Although the game can get complicated, to start you need only know about the help command '?', which is valid at any time. You start with only one city, which makes things even simpler. The city will automatically produce a military unit, which you will be prompted to move around. Eventually, you will get more and can attempt to take over other cities. The game keeps going until only one side is left in action; this player is then declared the winner.

By default, xconq starts up with one human (on the display in $DISPLAY) and one machine, playing on a randomly generated 60x30 world. Options are available to set numbers and kinds of players, as well as the kind of map used. In addition, xconq has extensive and elaborate facilities for building maps, scenarios, and historical periods, resulting in a wide variety of games.

OPTIONS

host:display
    adds a human player to the game and assigns to the given host and display. Players get created in the same order as they appear on the command line, interleaved with the players created via -e and -A. All of the player adding options may be used any number of times in any order.

-A host:display
    attaches a machine player to the given display. Ideal for those who like to watch.

-C  allows the machine player to play in cheat mode. It will get a complete update of the screen every turn.

-e number
    sets the number of machine players not attached to displays. Non-displayed machine players form alliance blocks of 5-9 countries.

-m name
    reads the map named name and starts up a game on it.

-M width height
    generates a random map of the given size. The size must be at least 5x5, although some periods will impose additional constraints on the lower bound. In theory, there is no upper bound (but 200x100 is huge).

-p name
    reads the historical period specified by name, and sets everything up for that period.

-r  resets the list of players on the command line. It is most useful when placed before other player specifications, to clear out the default players.

-s name
    reads a scenario with the name name. A scenario sets up a particular situation; it has a fixed number of sides that can participate.

-t number
    toggles a chess-clock-like feature that limits the total time of play for each side. The amount is number minutes per side. Time is only counted while actually waiting for input.

-T number
    toggles a timeout that limits the length of each turn for all sides. The amount is number minutes per turn. Time is counted continuously. The clock will stop updating after you have moved all possible units, but if you then want to see how much time is left for the other players, press ^L.

-v  make the entire world seen by all players at the outset. This is useful if exploration is deemed to be time-consuming, or if the map is already known to everybody. Some maps already have this enabled.

In addition, -B and -D are recognized; see the customization document for more details.

EXAMPLES

xconq
    One human on local display, one machine, 60x30 random map

xconq -m crater
    One human vs one machine, on the "crater lake" map

xconq -e 0 blitzen:0 kzin.eel:0
    Three humans. One on the local display, one on blitzen:0 in the same network, and another: kzin.eel:0 in another network. 60x30 random map

xconq -e 2 -M 90 40 -A shark:0
    One human, three machines (one on display shark:0), 90x40 random map

xconq -r -e 3 -m 1987 wind:0 surfer:0 -A springs:0
    Six players (4 machine, 1 on springs:0; 2 human, on wind:0 and surfer:0), all playing on a 360x122 map of the earth with present-day cities. Major!

X DEFAULTS

Class / name
    You may specify these resources in your .Xres (or .Xdefaults) using a spec of the form

        XConq.Class: value

    or

        XConq.name: value

    and you can mix classes and names in the spec. This is just standard X resource stuff.

The following resources have a prefix of XConq.Map.Period / xconq.map.%s .

HexDisplayMode / hexDisplayMode
    This is how xconq will display the terrain hexes. Possible values are FullHex, BorderHex, TerrIcons, and BothIcons.

Background / ownColor
    The color for your own units.

Background / alternateColor
    I forgot

Background / differentColor
    Reminders would be appreciated

Foreground / borderColor
    It shouldn't be hard to figure out anyway

Foreground / grayColor
    but my boss is looking over my shoulder

Foreground / enemyColor
    The color of enemy units

Foreground / neutralColor
    The color of neutral units

Foreground / goodColor
    The color of allied units

Foreground / badColor
    And I really shouldn't play this game until I've finished the project

Font / textFont
    Font for all text.

Font / iconFont
    Font for miscellaneous pictures.

Font/ helpFont
    Font for the help pages.

AUTHORS
Stan Shebs (shebs@cs.utah.edu)

Version 5.4 by Greg Fisher (fisher@cs.rutgers.edu)

Version 5.5 by Robert Forsman (thoth@lightning.cis.ufl.edu)

Version 6.0 in the works. It doesn't work too well yet, Stan's still fixing things.

FILES
save.xconq    saved game
emergency.save.xconq    game saved after program crash
stats.xconq    performance statistics for a game
cmds.xconq    listing of commands
parms.xconq    listing of units and their characteristics
view.xconq    printable version of the map display
/local/lib/x11r4/xconq/*.map     predefined maps
/local/lib/x11r4/xconq/*.scn     predefined scenarios
/local/lib/x11r4/xconq/*.per     predefined historical periods
/local/lib/x11r4/xconq/*.onx     X10 fonts
/local/lib/x11r4/xconq/*.bdf     X11 uncompiled fonts
/local/lib/x11r4/xconq/*.snf     X11 compiled fonts
/local/lib/x11r4/xconq/xconq.news     news about features/additions

SEE ALSO
Liberating the World (Made Simple)
Customizing Xconq (Made Somewhat Simple)

DIAGNOSTICS
If a given display cannot be opened due to a missing xhost(1) command, xconq will quit with a message "Error opening display host:0".

If the icon fonts cannot be found or opened, text will be substituted. This is usually pretty yucky.

If the map is too small for the desired number of players, xconq will complain about not being able to place units.

There are some panic messages which usually precede a core dump by a few milliseconds.

Incorrect combinations of periods, maps, and scenarios can generate a host of different error messages.

BUGS

Since some periods/maps/scenarios are interdependent, they must be specified in a particular order on the command line (period first usually).

Does not cope gracefully (it doesn't really cope at all) with insufficient memory.

Some annoying behaviors are actually features.

Feel free to report bugs to xconq@uunet.uu.net. There are people there willing (if not able) to help you. If you wish to listen in on the list you may join by sending mail to xconq-request@uunet.uu.net.