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xconq(6)

X-based strategy game

From the original Amiga UNIX 2.1 manual. Some things it mentions may not be in this release.

xconq - X-based strategy game

xconq [ options ] ...

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.

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.
attaches a machine player to the given display. Ideal for those who like to watch.
sets the number of machine players not attached to displays. Non-displayed machine players are always allied with each other.
reads the map named name and starts up a game on it.
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 200x200 is huge).
reads the historical period specified by name, and sets everything up for that period.
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.
reads a scenario with the name name. A scenario sets up a particular situation; it has a fixed number of sides that can participate.
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.
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.
allows scenarios, maps, periods, and players to be set up interactively via menus. The menus should be self-explanatory.

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

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 foo:0 bar:0
Three humans (local, foo, and bar displays), 60x30 random map
xconq -e 2 -M 90 40 -A baz:0
One human, three machines (one on display baz:0), 90x40 random map
xconq -r -e 3 -m 1987 foo:0 bar:0 -A baz:0
Six players (4 machine, 1 on baz:0; 2 human, on foo:0 and bar:0), all playing on a 360x122 map of the earth with present-day cities. Major!

Font for all text.
Font for miscellaneous pictures.
Font containing pictures of units (optional, associated with period).

Stan Shebs (shebs@cs.utah.edu)

save.xconq saved game
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
/usr/games/lib/xconq/*.map predefined maps
/usr/games/lib/xconq/*.scn predefined scenarios
/usr/games/lib/xconq/*.per predefined historical periods
/usr/games/lib/xconq/*.onx X10 fonts
/usr/games/lib/xconq/*.bdf X11 uncompiled fonts
/usr/games/lib/xconq/*.snf X11 compiled fonts
/usr/games/lib/xconq/xconq.news news about features/additions

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

If a given display cannot be opened due to a missing xhost(1) command, xconq will die, usually with a "broken pipe" error.

If the icon fonts cannot be found or opened, text will be substituted.

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.

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 with insufficient memory.

Some annoying behaviors are actually features.

Utah