Strategic Range in Xconq

Strategic Range in Xconq

[Elijah Meeks]

"FYI, I got into xconq about 2 years ago and tried to
create a game based on Avalon Hill's Advanced Third
Reich. I got a beautiful map to work out, manually
editted all the unit images to get counters and colors
right, and managed to get some things to work OK. But
the combat models do not work for this type of game.
And unless you set up a 1942 scenario where everyone
is already at war, there is no way to have neutral
countries inactive until some event brings them into
the war. These were serious showstoppers for me and I
moved on to other things, primarily Strategic Command
by Battlefront which came out about the same time I
was getting discouraged with xconq. Now the neat thing
about Strategic Command is that it is ideally suited
for an xconq-style game, where multiple sides are all
active on a random map. That would be cool, and I'm
interested in working on that one of these days. Once
everything settles down and 7.5 gets released. :)"

I think this is the biggest feature for future
versions of xconq, because it really is just a
tactical simulator until we get some kind of working
diplomatic/political model.  This means, of course,
getting the AI to work it right, and it's likely a
Herculean task, but if we could get an Alliance/Treaty
system in play, it would greatly improve the strategic
and 4X game possibilities with the engine.

As a suggestion, I'd like to recommend the system we
were working on with Cast Iron Life as a guideline:

http://castironlife.sourceforge.net/diplo/index.html

 



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Re: Strategic Range in Xconq

[Eric McDonald]

Hello Elijah, Bill,

On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Elijah Meeks wrote:

> I think this is the biggest feature for future
> versions of xconq, because it really is just a
> tactical simulator until we get some kind of working
> diplomatic/political model.  

Acutally, there is disabled support in the existing Xconq kernel 
for what are known as "side agreements". My understanding is that 
it was commented and #if 0'd out because it didn't work right. So, 
"implementing" this feature might involve fixing the existing one.

>This means, of course,
> getting the AI to work it right, and it's likely a
> Herculean task,

Possibly.

Eric

Re: Strategic Range in Xconq

[Elijah Meeks]

> Acutally, there is disabled support in the existing
> Xconq kernel 
> for what are known as "side agreements". My
> understanding is that 
> it was commented and #if 0'd out because it didn't
> work right. So, 
> "implementing" this feature might involve fixing the
> existing one.


Now that you mention it, I have a vague recollection
of reading how side agreements were supposed to work
in the manual.  Even if it's only the side system you
can set up in scenario design, but implemented based
on AI situational decisions, it'd be an improvement. 
What we really need for accurate strategic games,
though, is a way to simulate political and national
loyalties that may not make sense from a 'game'
standpoint, as well as contingiencies, so that we can
have the escalating chaos of treaties like at the
start of WWI.  Still, it'd be a start to have
alliances within the game of any sort. 



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